AP PSYCH
Unit 2 Research Methods ~ Practice Test
1. A group of researchers wants to determine if
people are more likely to follow directions if the
person giving the directions is in a uniform. Half the
participants are directed to a parking spot by a
uniformed security guard, the other half are directed
to a parking spot by an individual wearing blue
jeans and a t-shirt. In this study, the dependent
variable would be
A) the number of participants who park in the spot
they are directed to
B) the type of car each participant was driving
C) the type of clothing worn by the person giving
the directions
D )the gender of the person driving into the parking
lot
E) the distance between the parking spot and the
entrance
2. A group of researchers wanted to determine if
people will eat more food in a room with red paint
and red decorations than in a room that is decorated
blue. Half the participants in this study ate in a red
room and half ate in a blue room. The researchers
then measured how much food was consumed in
each of the two rooms. In this study, the
independent variable was
A)
the extent and size of the decorations in each
room
B)
the amount of food that was consumed
C)
the color of the decorations in the room
D)
the type of food that was available during
the study
E)
how hungry the participants were at the end
of the study
3. Dr. Dieringer wants to study attachment patterns
in single-parent families. She plans to define the
strength of attachment as the time it takes for the
parent to respond when the infant starts to cry.
Defining attachment in this way would
A)
represent an operational definition
B)
require a double-blind research design
C)
be an example of a hypothesis
D)
violate ethical guidelines for psychological
research
E)
distort the true meaning of attachment
4. As the number of bystanders increases, people
are less likely to help someone who is in distress.
This suggests that the size of a crowd and helping
behavior are
A)
independent variables
B)
uncorrelated
C)
positively correlated
D)
negatively correlated
E)
dependent variables
5. In the hypothesis “Students who study a list of
terms in the morning, just after waking up, will
recall more terms than students who study the list
just before falling asleep,” what is the dependent
variable?
Be careful not to
a.
list of terms
select
b.
memorization
“memorization.”
c.
time of day
d.
number of terms remembered
Pay attention to
e.
students
the operational
definition of how
this researcher is
measuring the
6. If we view an experiment as an attempt to DV
establish a cause-effect relationship, the ____
variable would be the cause, and the ____ variable
would be the effect.
A) independent; confounded
B) dependent; independent
C) control; experimental
D) extraneous; dependent
E) independent; dependent
7. Diaz conducts a decision-making experiment to
determine if people reason more logically when
they have more time to decide. All the participants
who are under 40 are allowed 15 minutes to reach a
decision about a problem; all the participants who
are over 40 are allowed 20 minutes to reach a
decision about the same problem. Diaz has a
problem with his experimental design because
A) the age of the participants is confounded with
the independent variable
B) there are two control groups and no experimental
group
C) there is no dependent variable in the experiment
D) there is no independent variable in the
experiment
E) the time allowed for the decision is confounded
with the independent variable
8. A researcher wants to see if a protein-enriched
diet will enhance the maze-running performance of
rats. One group of rats is fed the high-protein diet
for the duration of the study; the other group
continues to receive ordinary rat chow. In this
experiment, the group of rats that is fed the highprotein diet is ____ group; the group that receives
ordinary rat chow is ____ group.
A) a dependent variable; a control
B) a control; a dependent variable
C) an experimental; an experimental
D) a control; an experimental
E)an experimental; a control
9. Median is to range as ________ is to ________.
A) skewed distribution; bar graph
B) central tendency; variation
C) scatterplot; correlation
D) mean; mode
E) positive correlation; negative correlation
10.. The typical IQ test has a mean of 100 and a
standard deviation of 15. If you scored 115, what
percentage of others who have taken the test scored
lower than you?
A) 34 percent
B) 48 percent
C) 68 percent
D) 84 percent
E) 98 percent
11. Joey scored 130 on the WISC. The mean on the
WISC is 100 with a standard deviation of 15. What
is Joey’s z score and approximately what percentile
is he in?
A) -2,2nd
B) -2, 16th
C) 0, 50th
D) 2, 90th
E) 2, 98th
12. Tammy scored 145 on an IQ test with a mean of
100 and a standard deviation of 15. What is her z
score?
A) -3
B) -1.5
C) 0
D) +1.5
E) +3