AP Psychology Practice Questions, Examples, and FRQ Samples

A researcher randomly assigns participants to either a treatment or control group. This design is most characteristic of

• Aa correlational study
• Ba naturalistic observation
• Can experiment
• Da case study

Which statement about neurotransmitters is most accurate?

• AThey travel through the bloodstream like hormones.
• BThey cross the synaptic gap to bind with receptors on the next neuron.
• CThey produce the action potential within the axon.
• DEach type of neurotransmitter produces only inhibitory effects.

A person who has always lived in a dense forest sees a highway for the first time and perceives distant cars as smaller than expected. This best illustrates the influence of

• Abinocular cues
• Bexperience on perception (perceptual set)
• Cbottom-up processing alone
• Dabsolute threshold

A student becomes anxious whenever she enters the testing room at her school. Previously, she felt neutral about the room.

In this example, what is the unconditioned stimulus?

• AThe testing room
• BThe anxiety felt in the testing room
• CThe test itself
• DThe teacher

The ease with which you can recall your own phone number illustrates

• Aimplicit memory that resists decay
• Bprocedural memory for motor skills
• Cexplicit semantic memory retrieved with effort
• Dautomatic retrieval from long-term memory, made effortless by retrieval strength

A 5-year-old believes there is more water after it's poured from a short wide cup into a tall thin cup. This child is demonstrating

• Aconservation
• Black of conservation (preoperational stage)
• Cformal operational reasoning
• Dobject permanence

According to the James-Lange theory of emotion,

• Aemotion and physiological arousal occur simultaneously but independently
• Bcognitive appraisal produces both the emotion and the physiological response
• Cphysiological arousal comes first, and we experience emotion based on that arousal
• Demotions are learned entirely through classical conditioning

A person experiences repeated intrusive thoughts about germs and performs ritual hand-washing to reduce the anxiety. This pattern is most consistent with

• Ageneralized anxiety disorder
• Bobsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
• Cschizophrenia
• Dmajor depressive disorder

You see a driver cut in front of you and immediately assume they are a rude person, rather than considering they might be rushing to a hospital. This illustrates

• Athe fundamental attribution error
• Bthe actor-observer bias only in the self-serving direction
• Csocial loafing
• Dconformity

A study reports that sleep and GPA are correlated at r = +0.65.

Which conclusion is most appropriate?

• ASleep causes higher GPA.
• BGPA causes more sleep.
• CThere is a strong positive association between sleep and GPA, but the study alone does not establish causation.
• DThere is no relationship between sleep and GPA.