AP Psych Previous Tests (Unit 0-1)

Dr. Mayhew finds that children who are randomly assigned to watch television shows containing many acts of violence later show more aggressive behavior during recess than children who are randomly assigned to watch television shows containing no acts of violence. In the experiment, the dependent variable is

The level of aggressive behavior displayed by the children during recess

Sarah is seeing a psychologist to assess her happiness in the workplace. The psychologist asks her questions about her life before taking the job and also has her take several personality assessments. This type of research that focuses on in-depth analysis of an individual exemplifies which of the following methods?

Case study method

In a normal distribution of scores on assessments like those for intelligence, which of the following statements is true about the area that falls between one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean?

It contains the middle 68% of the distribution

A list of the presidents of the United States in chronological order up through the year 2000 is presented in the exact same manner to two classes of students, and they are then asked to recall them. A fourth-grade class is tested in the morning and a sixth-grade class is tested in the afternoon. The percent recall for both classes was combined and is presented in the figure above.

The teacher noticed that the afternoon class recalled more presidents than the morning class did and concluded that this was caused by time of day. Which of the following is a confounding variable?

The grade level of the students

Dr. Wundt gave his students an exam on the functions of different parts of the brain, and the average score was an 85. However, when Dr. Wundt calculated the standard deviation, it was a value of 35.2. This concerns Dr. Wundt because he knows that standard deviation is a measure of how much

Scores vary from the mean.

Students from a journalism class ask only their friends to participate in a school newspaper survey about conformity and neglect to ask the rest of the student body. The journalism students’ data may not be generalizable due to which of the following?

Sampling bias in the survey.

Which of the following is required for a psychological experiment?

Precise operational definitions

A common criticism of some psychological perspectives, like psychodynamics, is that the theories supporting it are not falsifiable. Which of the following accurately describes what makes a theory falsifiable

Its conclusions can be verified or refuted by subsequent studies

A research psychologist generalizes from a particular sample to an entire population. This is an example of

statistical inference

A test examining the level of sensation seeking has a mean of 80 with a standard deviation of 4. Which of the following scores is within one standard deviation of the mean

77 (76-84)

Amirah attended a concert for her favorite band. As the band played her favorite song, Amirah sang along and repeated one of the lyrics incorrectly. Another person nearby heard the mistake and told her she had made a mistake, Amirah was confident she heard and sang the lyric correctly. What term best describes Amirah’s belief?

Overconfidence

A researcher is interested in determining whether an intervention designed to increase prosocial behavior could be used by people outside of their university campus. In order to yield information that is generalizable to the population from which it was drawn, a sample must be which of the following?

representative of the population

In an experiment designed to determine whether watching violent scenes on television increases the frequency of aggressive behavior in children, one group of subjects saw a nonviolent cartoon and another group saw a violent cartoon. In the play period that followed the viewing of the cartoons, researchers observed the two groups of children together and counted instances of aggressive behavior. The dependent variable in the experiment is

group in which each child was originally placed

In an experiment designed to determine whether watching violent scenes on television increases the frequency of aggressive behavior in children, one group of subjects saw a nonviolent cartoon and another group saw a violent cartoon. In the play period that followed the viewing of the cartoons, researchers observed the two groups of children together and counted instances of aggressive behavior. The control group in the experiment is the group that

saw the nonviolent cartoon.

A psychologist gives the same test to a class of students at the beginning of the day and again at the end of the school day. The extent to which test scores are similar across the two administrations demonstrates which of the following test properties?

reliability of the test.

Dr. Rolph believes that watching too much television leads to lower academic achievement. He surveyed his students and asked them how many hours of television they watched and what their grade point average was. The results are depicted in the table. What type of graph would Dr. Rolph use to represent these data?

A scatter plot.

Researchers are interested in whether a nutritionally poor diet during pregnancy increases the likelihood of birth defects. Which of the following most accurately explains why a correlational research design is the best option for investigating this question?

Because of ethical concerns, participants could not be randomly assigned to groups

Margaret is beginning to plan a research project for her psychology class. She wants to examine whether there is a difference between boys and girls in terms of the frequency with which they throw away their trash in the school cafeteria after they have finished eating lunch. Which of the following methodologies would most accurately measure the behavior of interest in Margaret’s study?

Naturalistic observation

Dr. Dell read about a study completed nearly twenty years ago suggesting that attitudes toward online dating were generally negative. He hypothesized that those attitudes have changed. In order to show how attitudes might have evolved, Dr. Dell should do which of the following?

Replicate the original study

Dr. Guarini is interested in conducting research that examines how much information people can hold in their working memory. She is unsure whether she needs to conduct an experiment or correlational research. Experimental research differs from correlational research in that experimental research can do which of the following?

establish cause-and-effect relationships

Dr. Ivey is researching using stimulants to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). To minimize experimenter bias, Dr. Ivey should use which of the following research designs?

double-blind study

Researchers examined injury reports for 480 professional football games and determined there was an association between outdoor temperature and number of concussions reported. Which of the following best describes the type of research method used in this study?

correlational research method

A researcher is studying the accuracy of people’s memories when they use mnemonic devices. After studying the first 10 people, the data showed that memories using mnemonic devices were more accurate than the average’s person’s memories. Which of the following explains why the researcher should not draw any conclusions about the accuracy of memories using mnemonic devices yet?

The researcher should expect that the more data she collects, the more likely the results will regress to the mean

Research finds that, in general, the higher an incoming college student scores on an aptitude test, the higher the student’s college grade point average (GPA). Which of the following best describes this relationship?

positive correlation

Drawing a random sample of people from a town for an interview study of social attitudes ensures that

Each person in the town has the same probability of being chosen for the study

Dr. Grayson is interested in studying the relationship between eating disorders and mood. To conduct the study, Dr. Grayson analyzes the results of several previous studies on eating disorders and emotional state. Which research strategy is Dr. Grayson using?

Meta-analysis

A researcher studying stress wants to be sure that income levels do not affect the results of the research. Which of the following is used to reduce the effects of confounding variables in experiments?

random assignment

A researcher interested in cooperative play in young children unobtrusively places several video cameras at a public playground and counts how many children engage in cooperative play behaviors. Which type of research method is the researcher using?

Naturalistic observation

A school’s activities committee is planning the best way to persuade their classmates to vote in the next election. Which of the following research designs will best help measure student opinions about voting?

A survey

Dr. Nunez finds that the differences between groups in her research on the use of heuristics in problem-solving was statistically significant. If the outcome of a study is statistically significant, it means which of the following?

The results are unlikely to be obtained if there is no difference between the control group and the experimental

The data in the graph display the ages at which top artists, including painters, writers, and composers, produce what is generally agreed upon to be their most well-known work. 

 Based on the data in the graph, which of the following statements is true?

The number of top artists producing their most well-known work peaks at an age in the late thirties and then gradually declines

A researcher is exploring the effectiveness of a new drug that works as an agonist to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. A research design involves two randomly assigned groups of participants. One group receives a one-time treatment, and the other does not. Later, the two groups are compared to see whether the treatment had an effect. Psychologists call this kind of research which of the following?

An experiment

Ms. Harrison asks students in her psychology class to record how many hours of sleep they get every night and what they eat for breakfast. When the class looks at the data, they find that the fewer hours of sleep they get, the more they eat for breakfast. Which of the following is a limitation of self-report research?

Self-report data is subject to the social desirability bias

The graphs depict data collected on the levels of implicit attitudes in three samples of students in their first year at a university. Which of the following is true of the frequency distributions shown in the graphs?

Distribution B has more variation than distributions A or C

Bailey and Marcus packed everything they thought they would need for a weekend camping trip. When it rained and they realized they had not brought rain gear, Bailey said, “I knew we should have packed raincoats!” Bailey’s thinking illustrates which of the following concepts?

Hindsight bias

A research group conducted a study investigating the connection between self-reported number of hours slept in a given week and scores on a happiness measure. Based on the scatterplot above, the group can report that there is

A positive correlation

A research team wanted to measure how smart Chris was. The researchers measured how many math questions Chris got correct on his final exam. This measurement constituted which of the following?

Operational definition

Which of the following would indicate the strongest correlation between the variables of gratitude and narcissistic personality disorder?

-0.90

A psychological researcher designs a study to determine whether positive feedback affects self-esteem. The researcher requires each participant to toss twenty coins into a coffee can that is three feet away. Half of the participants are told that their performance is superior, and the other half are told that their performance is well below average. Although some of the participants want to quit tossing coins after a few attempts, they are told that once they begin the study they have to complete it. After the coin toss, participants take a test measuring self-esteem. Following the test, all participants are debriefed and told that information about their performance was false. Results of the study indicate that participants who are told their performance is well below average report lower levels of self-esteem than do those who are told their performance is superior. Which of the following elements constitutes the independent variable in the study?

The feedback about relative performance in coin tossing

A psychological researcher designs a study to determine whether positive feedback affects self-esteem. The researcher requires each participant to toss twenty coins into a coffee can that is three feet away. Half of the participants are told that their performance is superior, and the other half are told that their performance is well below average. Although some of the participants want to quit tossing coins after a few attempts, they are told that once they begin the study they have to complete it. After the coin toss, participants take a test measuring self-esteem. Following the test, all participants are debriefed and told that information about their performance was false. Results of the study indicate that participants who are told their performance is well below average report lower levels of self-esteem than do those who are told their performance is superior. Which of the following violations of ethical guidelines occurs in the study?

Violation of the right to withdraw

Rachel is working with a psychologist on improving her mental well-being so she can play her best on the high school basketball team. Her scores for the season are presented in the table below. Which of the following is the range of Rachel’s scores?

15

Rachel is working with a psychologist on improving her mental well-being so she can play her best on the high school basketball team. Her scores for the season are presented in the table below. Which of the following is the median of Rachel’s scores?

9.5

Respondents to surveys and questionnaires often report that they are healthier, happier, and less prejudiced than would be expected based on the results of other types of research. This finding can best be explained by which of the following?

The social desirability

Jeremy recorded his school’s level of well-being and the mean outside temperature each day for a month. His analysis showed that as the temperature decreased his school well being increased. Which of the following terms best characterizes the association between these two variables?

Negative correlation

The graphs depict the distribution of intelligence test scores for two groups of students at a middle school. Which of the following statements is true of the graphs?

The mean is identical for both distributions; the standard deviation is larger for distribution A.

Which of the following research techniques would be the best way to demonstrate that getting eight or more hours of sleep produces higher exam scores the following day?

Experimentation

A industrial/organizational psychologist finds a .50 correlation between college grades and income at age 30. Which of the following interpretations of these data is correct?

Good grades in college in high incomes are related

Johnny often hits his brother even though his brother does not do anything to antagonize him. Johnny’s aggression is most likely due to a combination of which of the following factors?

HIs genetic makeup, the environment he grew up in, and the fact that aggression can be evolutionary adaptive.

A small sample of living neural tissue is being studied under a powerful microscope. The researcher notices that some of the neural cells have connections to capillaries and seem to nourish and support the other neural cells. What type of research is being conducted?

Naturalistic observation

Which of the following neurotransmitters has been most associated with major depressive disorder?

Seratonin

Kenyatta is participating in a research study examining the effects of a particular hormone. After she is given the hormone, she engages in behaviors that demonstrate trust in strangers, peer bonding, and group cohesion. Kenyatta was most likely given which of the following as part of the study?

Oxytocin

neurotransmitters that function like the drug morphine and are involved in pain modulation include which of the following?

Endorphins

Which of the following is true of a neuron in the resting state?

The inside of the cell membrane is negative compared to the outside

The drugs that block the reabsorption of neurotransmitters in the synapse during neural transmission are best identified as which of the following concepts?

Reuptake inhibitors

Which of the following is a primary function of the nervous system depicted in the figure?

Sending and receiving sensory and motor signals

Which scenario best exemplifies the theory of natural selection?

A mutation in a species of lizards that allows them to better blend into their surroundings leads to greater survival and more offspring possessing this mutation in a later generation.

Tamara’s coach reminds the team not to eat for several hours before the basketball game because the digestive process will be slowed down due to the intense activity. Which of the following aspects of the peripheral nervous system is directly responsible for slowing down digestive processes during the game?

Sympathetic nervous system

The neurotransmitter that is primarily associated with the feeling of wanting something is

Dopamine

Darrin is watching a horror movie. When the evil main character makes a surprise appearance, Darrin jumps out of his seat, his heart rate accelerates, and he screams. 

Which of the following pathways most directly contributes to his ability to calm down after this startle response?

The parasympathetic nervous system

Ben was enjoying a walk in the woods on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. As he went around a curve, he noticed a bear walking toward him. Immediately his pupils dilated, he began to perspire, and his heart accelerated. These changes are most closely related to the function of which of the following?

Sympathetic nervous system

Nervousness can result in faster and more shallow breathing as well as a racing heart. This is due to activation of the

Sympathetic nervous system

A person accidentally touches a hand to a hot stove and quickly pulls the hand away, even before sensory information about the hot stove reaches the brain. The person’s reaction is most directly enabled by

Spinal reflex arc

When Nyala comes into contact with a cat, her heart rate increases, her pupils dilate, and her salivation decreases. These responses are controlled by the

Sympathetic nervous system

Which of the following identifies the part of the nervous system the arrows are pointing toward?

Central

Which of the following circumstances would most likely lead to a person experiencing an increased feeling of love?

A sudden increase in levels of oxytocin

A researcher conducted a study to investigate whether women in the first trimester of pregnancy score higher on levels of disgust than women who are in a later stage of pregnancy. The researcher believes that being more selective about food choices helps pregnant women avoid diseases that could harm their fetuses.

A researcher from which of the following psychological perspectives would most likely be interested in examining this relationship?

Evolutionary

Betty was just diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Which of the following effects is she most likely to experience?

Neural messages will travel slowly down the axon, leading to motor impairment

A certain drug reduces the activity of the central nervous system, including the hippocampus and cerebellum. It affects several neurotransmitters, most notably gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). Which of the following is most like the drug in question ?

Alcohol

Johanna, a high school senior, starts experiencing disruptions in her movement when she cannot contract certain muscles. Which of the following neurotransmitters is most likely involved in this disruption of the muscle contraction?

Acetylcholine

A common psychological effect of alcohol intake is

reduced inhibition

Richard is in a substance abuse treatment center because of his addiction to stimulants. He is experiencing withdrawal symptoms, so he drinks several large caffeinated sodas throughout the day to curb his symptoms. Caffeine is in the same class as which of the following drugs?

Cocaine

Which of the following is a disease in which the immune system attacks the insulated covering of neurons in the central nervous system?

Multiple Sclerosis

Getting a headache from not having a morning coffee after substantial daily coffee consumption for several months is most likely due to which of the following concepts?

Withdrawal

Which of the following is the correct sequence of the reflex arc of events set in motion by an environmental stimulus?

Receptors, sensory neurons, interneurons, motor neurons

Shao Mae takes medication to relieve depression. The medication increases her neural activity. However, immediately after firing, a neuron is incapable of responding to stimulation for a short time. Which of the following describes the brief time period when the neuron is unable to fire?

The refractory period

Which of the following characteristics is generally associated with the use of hallucinogens?

The experience of vivid, distorted images that are not based on sensory input

Reuptake of a neurotransmitter refers to

absorption of the neurotransmitter into the terminal buttons of the sending neuron

An individual who drinks alcohol daily finds it necessary to drink increasing amounts to achieve the state of well-being attained in the past. This individual is showing

Alcohol tolerance

Joel’s pupils become dilated, his digestion is reduced, and his skin becomes cold. Which system is controlling his bodily changes?

Sympathetic

Mark and Matt are twins. A psychologist studies Mark and Matt from birth until their 25th birthday. The psychologist gathers data about their likes and dislikes, extracurricular activities, school success, and doctor visits. The psychologist is interested in the interaction of nature and nurture on their development. Which of the following research methods is the psychologist using to study Mark and Matt?

Case study

Trinna and Suzanne are identical twins who were the same length at birth. They were adopted by different families at birth and then reconnected in their early thirties. Trinna is two inches shorter and was a severely selective eater as a child. A researcher was conducting an investigation about twins separated at birth. What research method and explanation best fit this scenario?

A case study because both heredity and environment are important in determining length and height

When a person is suffering from severe pain, the type of drug that will best help alleviate that pain is

Opiate

The argument over the relative contributions of heredity and environment in the development of various behaviors and personality traits is known as which of the following controversies?

Nature versus nurture

The division of the nervous system that most directly allows voluntary muscle movement is the

Somatic

The graph depicts which of the following

The process of neural transmission

Info is relayed to the spinal cord or the brain by which of the following

Sensory neurons

When excitatory neurotransmitters stimulate a single neuron, the neuron

becomes more likely to produce an action potential

Which of the following correctly pairs subdivisions within the major divisions of the human nervous system?

Autonomic…sympathetic and parasympathetic

The autonomic nervous system is most directly involved in

digesting food

Which of the following psychoactive drugs increases nervous system activity

Cocaine

Which psych principle is represented in the area highlighted in the graph

The refractory period of the neural transmission process

Paolo has jet lag after flying from his home country of Italy to New York City in the US. He is feeling tired and irritable because his circadian rhythm is disrupted. Which of the following hormones is most closely associated with the sleep cycle?

Melatonin

Mrs. Downing is 80 years old and lives in an assisted living facility. She often stops speaking in the middle of sentences because she can't remember the topic being discussed. She also tries on most days to leave the facility so she can get home to cook dinner for her family. The depletion of which of the following neurotransmitters is most closely associated with the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease that Mrs. Downing is likely experiencing?

Acetylcholine

Brain damage that leaves a person capable of understanding speech but with an impaired ability to produce speech most likely indicates injury to which of the following?

Broca’s area

Which of the following groups of characteristics best describes the REM sleep stage?

Fast breathing, relatively high heart rate, relatively high blood pressure

When people consume large amounts of alcohol, they are often unable to recall what they did and said while they were drinking. This occurs because alcohol interferes with the brain’s ability to form new memories in the

Hippocampus

The change in the curvature of the lens that enables the eye to focus on objects at various distances is called

Accommodation

people who are color blind most likely have deficiencies in their

cones

Karolina is a ballerina who does not get dizzy when she performs spins. Which part of her brain receives messages from the hair-like receptors that are involved in the vestibular sense?

Cerebellum

An individual with damage to Wernicke’s area is most likely to have difficulty

Responses

Comprehending a spoken request for info