Practice Exam 3
Multiple Choice:
1. A six-year-old child's MA is 8. His IQ is
a. 75
b. 133
c. 100
d. 48
2. Herrnstein argues that increases in the uniformity of the environment will
result in
a. an increase in general IQ
b. a decrease in general IQ
c. an increase in the genetic contribution of IQ
d. an increase in the environmental contribution to IQ
3. I.Q. test have traditionally sought to measure _____ rather than ________.
a. achievement, aptitude
b. achievement, capacity to learn
c. aptitude, achievement
d. aptitude, capacity to learn
4. A group of people take a psychological test. Weeks later they take the same
test and achieve approximately the same results as before. This test is best
described as:
a. valid
b. reliable
c. accurate
d. easy
5. High correlations between the IQ scores of identical twins raised in different
environments can reflect
a. the genetically inherited part of intelligence
b. small variation in the environments of the twins studied
c. correlated environments of the twins studied
d. all of the above
6. The Flynn Effect implies which of the following
a. That people's IQ increases with age
b. That people's IQ decreases with age
c. That people's IQ does not change with age
d. That there is an effect of genotype on IQ
7. A beauty competition is an example of which scale of measurement?
a. ordinal
b. nominal
c. ratio
d. interval
8. The ranking of measurement scales in order from weakest to strongest in
terms of permissible operations is:
a. ordinal, nominal, ratio, interval
b. nominal, ordinal, ratio, interval
c. nominal, interval, ordinal, ratio
d. nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio
9. If Test A and Test B have a correlation of -.85, it means that
a. as the scores on A increase the scores on B increase
b. the scores on B are consistently lower than scores on A
c. Test A and Test B are not related
d. as the scores on A increase the scores on B decrease.
10. How many bits of information are involved in a display of 16 alternative
lights?
a. 1
b. 2
c. 4
d. 16
11. Which measure of central tendency is most affected by extreme values of the
distribution?
a. mode
b. median
c. arithmetic mean
d. geometric mean
12. Which of the following could not be a correlation coefficient?
a. 0
b. -.23
c. 12
d. 1
13. Which of the following sets have (has) a median of 5?
a. 8, 13, 2, 4, 5
b. 13, 5, 1, 2, 4
c. 7, 6, 5, 5, 9
d. all of the above
14. Suppose you have two sets of data:
Set A: 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 13
Set B: -4, 0, 4, 6, 9, 21
Which of the following statistics is (are) true?
a. Set A and Set B have the same median = 5
b. Set B has a wider range than Set A
c. Set B has a larger variance than Set A
d. all of the above
15. When a distribution is positively skewed,
a. the mean is higher than mode
b. the mean is lower than mode
c. the mean is equal to mode
d. the mean is equal to median
16. Suppose a study shows that the correlation between people's IQ and their
income is 0.8. This means:
a. IQ determines a person's income 80% of the time.
b. IQ plays a causal role in determining a person's income.
c. 64% of the income variance can be attributed to IQ variation.
d. All of the above.
17. In a distribution that is skewed in the negative direction:
a. the mean will be greater than the median
b. the median will be greater than the mean
c. the median will be greater than the variance
d. the mean will be greater than the mode
18. The standard deviation is a measure of ___________ of a frequency
distribution?
a. central tendency
b. variability
c. shape
d. normality
19. Variablility (or variance) refers to
a. the likelihood that the mean is accurate
b. the spread or scatter of the distribution of data
c. the height of the probability curve
d. the likelihood that the scatter is due to chance
20. Which of the following is a way to reduce heritability?
a. interbreeding
b. outcrossing new genes
c. mutation
d. reducing environmental variability.
21. Which of the following were common responses of the "teacher" to the cries of
the "learner" in the Milgram experiments?
a. giggling/laughing
b. anxiety/concern
c. requesting that the experimenter check on the learner
d. all of the above
22. In Milgrim's study examining obedience to authority figures, Milgrim found
that _____.
a. people were generally unwilling to harm others simply because an
authority figure told them to do so.
b. some people were willing to inflict harm on others when ordered to do so
by an authority figure, but most people refused.
c. most people were willing to provide the maximum level of shock
allowable when the authority figure told them to do so.
d. the experiment was widely criticized as being unethical, and the
conclusions are therefore suspect.
23. In Stanley Milgram`s classic experiment on obedience
a. moving the experiment from Yale to a no-name office in New Haven
substantially reduced obedience
b. reducing physical distance between the "teacher" and the "learner"
increased obedience
c. reducing psychological distance between the "teacher" and the "learner"
reduced obedience
d. mentioning that "the learner" suffered from a heart condition reduced
obedience
24. Stanley Milgram`s classic experiment on obedience demonstrated that
a. only people who have no moral qualms are willing to obey authority no
matter what
b. people are incapable of resisting authority
c. perception of personal responsibility does not affect obedience
d. obedience to inhumane orders is in part a function of the total situation in
which a person finds himself
25. In Milgram's study, the subject
a. is more obedient the closer the victim is
b. shows no effect of proximity to the victim
c. is less obedient as the victim gets closer
d. subject variability was great with regard to the effects of having the victim
nearby
26. In Milgram's experiment, what was the subject's belief as to why he was
administering the shock?
a. to raise the general psychological reactions of the "victim"
b. to see how many shocks the "victim" would taker before protesting
c. to see what effect punishment had on learning
d. to see at what point the victim would cease making errors
27. Milgram operationally defined "obedience" as
a. the subject's willingness to administer the most severe shock
b. the subject's willingness to administer even one shock
c. the subject's behavior up to the point where he refused to administer
shocks
d. the subject's concern for the victim and his willingness to nevertheless
administer shock
28. After being debriefed, subjects in Asch's experiment were asked how often
they felt they conformed to the majority opinion. It was found that:
a. subjects realized how much they had conformed.
b. b. subjects repressed entirely the fact that they had conformed.
c. all underestimated how much they had conformed.
d. all overestimated how much they had conformed.
29. In Asch's experiments on the effect of group pressure on individuals, it was
shown that:
a. under group pressure a considerable percentage of the subjects yielded to
the majority's wrong judgments
b. increasing the size of the majority increased social conformity only up to a
point
c. the presence of a supporting partner significantly reduced the effect of
group pressure
d. all of the above
30. Asch used a visual judgment task because
a. it's a very difficult task
b. it creates the greatest contrast between the effect of others' opinions and
one's senses
c. people cannot tell that the other subjects are lying
d. subjects generally consult with each other about it
31. Asch's experiment showed an increase in group pressure under which of the
following conditions?
a. An increase in group size
b. An addition of a "partner" that agrees with you
c. Knowing that you are correct
d. When conformity was demanded
32. Which of the following would Szasz agree is a plausible symptom of a
disorder of the central nervous system?
a. depression
b. paralysis of some part of the body
c. hysteria
d. delusions
33. Which of the following arguments is made by those who criticize the label of
mental illness?
a. Labeling a person as "mentally ill" puts too much of the burden of a cure
on the patient.
b. Labeling a person as "mentally ill" is the same as labelling them as
physically ill, and therefore removes the social stigma of mental illness.
c. Those who displease authority figures can be conveniently labeled as
"mentally ill" and disposed of, resulting in "psychiatric tyranny"
d. Treatment of those with "mental illness" may be too intense and thereby
change the personality of the person.
34. Freud assumes that neurosis can be removed by
a. explaining that one should follow the drives of the id independently of
society's views about the appropriateness of our activities
b. making a repressed conflict accessible to the ego ?
c. making a repressed conflict accessible to the super-ego
d. promoting a full sexual life
35. If a woman who has a fur fetish is given nausea-producing drugs in the
presence of a mink coat, what kind of therapy is this?
a. analysis of variance
b. psychoanalysis
c. systematic desensitization
d. aversion therapy
36. Freud believed that the crucial component of therapy is
a. acting out
b. catharsis
c. transference
d. permissiveness
37. Lazarus' treatment of frigid patients involves
a. sensitization
b. flooding
c. progressive relaxation
d. Freudian analysis
38. Systematic desensitization is most closely derived from
a. classical conditioning
b. Freudian theories
c. operant conditioning
d. psychiatry
39. "Client-centered" therapy was established by
a. Freud
b. Szasz
c. Rogers
d. Jung
40. The therapeutic method of systematic desensitization involves
a. imagining scenes of progressively decreasing emotional intensity
b. imagining a series of scenes of equal emotional intensity
c. imagining scenes of progressively increasing emotional intensity
d. imagining scenes of relatively little emotional intensity
41. All of the following statements are true of schizophrenics except
a. there is some evidence that if one twin is schizophrenic the other might be.
b. members of the upper classes are more likely to be afflicted than members
of the lower classes
c. it was at one time thought that the effects of LSD mimic schizophrenia
d. schizophrenia typically shows its onset at a fairly early age
42. All of the following characterize the psychoanalytic mode of therapy except
a. the process is long and involved
b. treatment of symptoms is regarded as an end in itself
c. there is an emphasis on transference
d. the model is one of the alleviation of an illness
43. The fact that FBI-TV-IBM is easier to remember than IFBVTMBI illustrates the
concept of___.
a. Chunking
b. Procedural memory
c. Anterograde memory
d. Proactive interference
44. What is one explanation for the primacy effect?
a. Proactive interference makes it difficult to remember items at the middle
and end of the list
b. The items at the beginning of the list may have been converted into LTM.
c. The primacy effect only occurs with classical conditioning
d. The primacy effect results from information being stored in STM.
45. Suppose that you are in a dark room and you take a photograph using a
flashbulb camera. After the flash is gone, you can still visualize the interior of
the room for a very short period of time (less than a second). This is the result
of_____.
a. Flashbulb memory
b. Short-term memory
c. Long-term memory
d. Sensory memory
46. _____ type of rehearsal is most effective in placing new information into longterm memory.
a. Maintenance rehearsal
b. Elaborative rehearsal
c. Temporary rehearsal
d. Permanent rehearsal
47. Which of the following is probably stored in procedural memory?
a. The memory of your high-school graduation.
b. The memory of how to drive a car
c. The memory of your history lecture
d. The memory for semantic facts
48. Computer memory is different from human long term memory in that:
a. computer memory is influenced by the meaning of the information being
encoded
b. computer memory only holds information for a brief period of time
c. human long term memory seems to have an unlimited capacity
d. human long term memory encodes all information a person is exposed to
49. When someone asks you to recall your dinner last night, you remember that
you ate an eggplant hero around 7pm, that is was a cold evening, and that
you sat on your couch while watching television.. This is an example of:
a. generic memory
b. short term memory
c. episodic memory
d. procedural memory
50. The U-shaped relation between list order and probability of recall is called the
__________ effect
a. primacy
b. serial position
c. recency
d. rehearsal
51. If you delay a subjects' opportunity to respond in a free-recall experiment,
a. the primacy effect disappears
b. the recency effect disappears
c. the subject experiences experimental neurosis
d. long-term recall is impaired
52. The man who first demonstrated the forgetting curve was
a. George Miller
b. George Sperling
c. Ebbinghaus
d. B.F. Skinner
53. Suppose a subject memorizes a list of letters. When trying to recall the letter
T, which type of letter is the subject likely to confuse T with?
a. letters at the end of the list
b. letters at the beginning of the list
c. letters that sound like T
d. letters that look like T.
54. In an art history class, you study paintings and learn the name of the artist
and the date the painting was painted. On your exam for the class, slides of
paintings are shown and you have to provide the correct artist and date. This
type of memory test is called
a. serial position
b. relearning
c. recognition
d. recall
55. Iconic memory refers to
a. the retention of visual images in long-term memory
b. the retention of auditory images in short-term memory
c. the recall for faces in long term memory
d. the persistence of visual images in sensory memory.
56. "Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492". This is an example of
a. episodic knowledge
b. knowledge of "knowing how"
c. procedural knowledge
d. semantic knowledge
57. Mnemonic devices are
a. methods of confusing subjects in memory experiments
b. used to measure memory
c. techniques that help us to remember
d. involved in sensory memory
58. The span of apprehension for short-term memory is about
a. 5-9 digits
b. 5-9 unrelated words
c. 5-9 unrelated letters
d. all of the above
59. The best encoding in LTM occurs when items are
a. Shown only once
b. Presented in rapid succession
c. Repeated with regular spacing of about 1 day
d. Learned at night
60. The fact that large sections of nearly any part of the brain can be destroyed
without the loss of any particular memories implies that
a. memory is dynamic
b. memory is extremely localized
c. memory is only roughly localized
d. memory is static
61. Because we are exposed to so many bits of information
a. we need more than two memory systems
b. what we store must be consolidated
c. storage is impossible
d. only vivid experiences are reliably remembered
62. The fact that many errors in free recall tasks consist of intrusions from
previous lists has been taken as evidence that loss of material is attributable
to:
a. spontaneous decay
b. interference
c. failure of rehearsal
d. failure of imaging
63. The recency effect can be eliminated by:
a. increasing the rate of presentation
b. decreasing the rate of presentation
c. a distraction task
d. increasing the number of probes
True/False:
1. A reliable test may be invalid.
2. IQ predicts college performance better than any other psychological measure.
3. The Flynn Effect has been found to be cross-cultural.
4. IQ tests measure how much you know
5. By using correlational analysis one can determine if one variable causes
another variable.
6. Most of the scales used in psychology are ratio scales.
7. A dominance hierarchy among primates is a good example of an ordinal
scale.
8. A correlation coefficient of .5 means that information about variable A will
account for 50% of the variance of variable B.
9. When the median is to the left of the mean, the distribution is positively
skewed.
10. A z-score is a measure of how many standard deviations one data point is
from the mean.
11. Hysterical blindness refers to an inability to see with no apparent
physiological cause.
12. The fact that identical twins tend to get schizophrenia provides unequivocal
evidence of a genetic component to the disease.
13. One reason that psychiatrists defend the importance of a medical degree in
the treatment of psychological problems is that without it you cannot be sure
that the illness doesn’t have an organic basis.
14. In behavior therapy, the role of the therapist is more passive than that of
traditional psychotherapy.
15. Mental illness, as described by Szasz is caused by a defect of the brain, free
from social and ethical norms.
16. Chunking can be an effective way of increasing the span of short term
memory.
17. Amnesic patients who have damage to the hippocampus generally have very
impaired short term memory.
18. Retroactive interference results from old information interfering with new
information.
19. Recalling of the capital of Maine would be an example of semantic memory.
20. Primacy and recency effects are defined by the serial position curve.
21. Astronauts who learn things in space will remember them better in space
than on earth.
22. Patient H.M had retrograde amnesia.
23. We can access information in short-term memory in parallel.
24. The capacity of short term human memory appears to be without limits.
25. Forgetting from long term memory seems to be a passive process of decay.
Graph Question
On the coordinates below, draw a graph illustrating the serial position effect. Be
sure to label the coordinates (8 points), draw the appropriate function (10 points),
identify the primacy and the recency effects (3 points each), and indicate the
approximate range of values of the independent and dependent variables (8
points).