AP Psychology Practice Exam 1 ❮ 291- C—(Chapter 8) Transduction is the conversion
of physical stimuli into changes in the activity
of receptor cells of sensory organs. The rods and
cones are stimulated by photons of light, while
the hair cells in the cochlea are stimulated by
sound waves. - C—(Chapter 9) When our interest decreases, we
often daydream about seemingly irrelevant ideas. - E—(Chapter 11) The availability heuristic is a
tendency to estimate the probability of certain
events in terms of how readily they come to mind.
Each time any of these events do occur, the media
publicize the information very thoroughly. - D—The arousal theory of motivation states that
people see an optimum level of excitement and
arousal. For some, this may mean skydiving,
while for others, this may mean travel. - A—(Chapter 14) David McClelland and others
used the TAT to assess achievement motivation
in their subjects. The stories that subjects told
interpreting the pictures displayed were rated for
achievement themes. - D—(Chapter 6) In data sets that have a few
outliers like the 42 and 38 here, the median is
a better measure of central tendency than the
arithmetic mean. - E—(Chapter 16) The medical model attrib-
utes mental illness to faulty processes in neuro-
chemistry, brain structures, and genetics. Social
circumstances would not be considered causative
factors. - B—(Chapter 13) According to Kohlberg, most
teens follow a conventional level of morality.
Stage IV, or the law and order stage, says that you
understand the need for laws and, thus, conform
to them for the good of the community. - B—(Chapter 18) Irving Janis described the
dangerous implications of groupthink during
the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. The top
executives may want to preserve group harmony,
so they would tend to self-censor opposing
viewpoints to those of the president. Bringing in
outside consultants to play devil’s advocate will
increase the likelihood that more possibilities
will be explored and the pros and cons will be
discussed before the decision is made.
68. C—(Chapter 6) Although Javier found some-
one who teaches the same subject at both time
periods, confounding variables, such as the mean
GPA of both groups, if left uncontrolled, are
likely to give him faulty results.
69. A—(Chapter 7) Heritability is the percentage
of variation among individuals that is caused by
genes. Since clones have exactly the same genes,
none of their differences can be attributed to
heredity.
70. D—(Chapter 11) Telegraphic speech, or short-
ened two-word sentences, are characteristic of
children’s language development, at around
age 2.
71. A—(Chapter 12) Though Type A individuals
tend to have each of these traits, further research
showed that the Type A traits of anger, hostility,
and cynicism were the ones most correlated with
heart disease.
72. A—(Chapter 7) The limbic system is considered
to be “emotion central” of the central nervous
system. The amygdala is a structure within the
limbic system that has been found to be very
active in strong emotional responses, such as fear.
73. E—(Chapter 12) The reticular formation arouses
our attention, but not specifically our sexual
behavior. It keeps us alert to incoming stimuli and
filters out stimuli when we are asleep. Each of the
other answers is more directly involved in some
action of sexual behavior, especially in humans.
74. A—(Chapter 6) The color of the paper is the
independent variable. How long it takes students
to answer questions is the dependent variable.
75. A—(Chapter 18) Hostile aggression is defined
as inflicting pain upon an unwilling victim. The
man is slapping his wife out of anger and con-
sciously choosing to display it in this fashion.
76. E—(Chapter 10) Upon further investigation
of Pavlov’s findings in classical conditioning,
Rescorla and others found that conditioning
occurs because of the expectation that follows
the conditioned stimulus more so than just their
pairing in time. This revised cognitive view is
called the contingency model of conditioning.
77. B—(Chapter 13) In late adult development,
fluid intelligence or abstract, flexible reasoning
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