Free AP Psychology Practice Exam (PDF)

This free AP Psychology practice exam follows the revised course: twenty multiple-choice questions spread across biological bases of behavior, cognition, development and learning, social psychology and personality, and mental and physical health, with research methods and statistics woven in the way the real exam does it (correlation versus causation, operational definitions, standard deviation, p-values). The free-response section is an Evidence-Based Question built on three original study summaries about retrieval practice. Every answer explains the concept and why the distractors fail.

1. Question 11 mark · Biological bases
   A sensory neuron in the skin is stimulated first by a light touch and then by a much firmer press. Both stimuli exceed the neuron's threshold. Compared with the light touch, the firmer press would produce:
   • A.
     a more negative resting potential between action potentials
   • B.
     action potentials of greater amplitude
   • C.
     action potentials that travel faster along the axon
   • D.
     action potentials of the same size but at a higher frequency
2. Question 21 mark · Biological bases
   A medication blocks the reuptake of serotonin by the presynaptic neuron. Which of the following best describes its effect at the synapse and how it would be classified?
   • A.
     Less serotonin is released into the synapse; the drug is an antagonist
   • B.
     Serotonin remains in the synaptic cleft longer and continues to stimulate receptors; the drug is an agonist
   • C.
     The drug occupies serotonin receptors and blocks them; the drug is an antagonist
   • D.
     Serotonin is broken down more quickly by enzymes; the drug is an agonist
3. Question 31 mark · Biological bases
   After a stroke, a patient understands what is said to her and knows what she wants to say, but her speech is slow, effortful and reduced to a few words at a time. The damage is most likely in:
   • A.
     Broca's area in the left frontal lobe
   • B.
     Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe
   • C.
     the hippocampus
   • D.
     the cerebellum
4. Question 41 mark · Biological bases
   A sleep researcher watching an EEG trace sees brief bursts of rapid, rhythmic brain-wave activity lasting about a second (sleep spindles) and occasional large single waves (K-complexes). The sleeper is in:
   • A.
     NREM stage 3
   • B.
     NREM stage 1
   • C.
     NREM stage 2
   • D.
     REM sleep
5. Question 51 mark · Cognition
   Maya looks up a phone number, repeats it to herself while walking to the phone, dials it, and a minute later cannot recall it at all. Which best explains why she cannot recall the number?
   • A.
     Maintenance rehearsal kept the number in working memory but did not encode it into long-term memory
   • B.
     Elaborative rehearsal stored the number in long-term memory, but the retrieval cues were missing
   • C.
     The number decayed from sensory memory before it could reach working memory
   • D.
     The number was stored in implicit memory, which cannot be consciously recalled
6. Question 61 mark · Cognition
   Tom is told that a quiet, bookish person who enjoys order is either a librarian or a salesperson, and he confidently guesses librarian, even though salespeople vastly outnumber librarians. His judgment illustrates:
   • A.
     the framing effect
   • B.
     the availability heuristic
   • C.
     anchoring
   • D.
     the representativeness heuristic
7. Question 71 mark · Cognition
   A student needs to tie together two strings hanging from the ceiling too far apart to hold both at once. A pair of pliers lies on a table, but she does not think of tying the pliers to one string and swinging it as a pendulum. Her difficulty is best described as:
   • A.
     reliance on an algorithm instead of a heuristic
   • B.
     functional fixedness
   • C.
     belief perseverance
   • D.
     confirmation bias
8. Question 81 mark · Research methods
   A study of 400 adolescents finds a correlation of $r = -0.45$ between daily screen time and hours of sleep, with $p < 0.01$. Which conclusion is justified?
   • A.
     The relationship is weak, because the correlation coefficient is negative
   • B.
     Screen time causes reduced sleep, because the result is statistically significant
   • C.
     Adolescents with more screen time tend to sleep less; the relationship is unlikely to be due to chance, but the study cannot show that screen time causes less sleep
   • D.
     There is a 1 percent probability that the relationship is real
9. Question 91 mark · Research methods
   Two classes take the same test. Both have a mean score of 70, but Class A has a standard deviation of 5 and Class B a standard deviation of 15. Which statement is correct?
   • A.
     Class A must have more students than Class B
   • B.
     Class B's median must be higher than Class A's
   • C.
     A score of 85 is more unusual in Class A than in Class B
   • D.
     Scores in Class B are more tightly clustered around the mean
10. Question 101 mark · Research methods
    A researcher wants to study whether a classroom program reduces aggression in young children. Which is the best operational definition of aggression for this study?
    • A.
      The number of times a child hits, kicks or pushes another child during a 20-minute observed play session
    • B.
      A tendency to behave in a hostile and destructive way toward others
    • C.
      The angry feelings a child reports having toward classmates
    • D.
      Whatever the classroom teacher judges to be aggressive behavior
11. Question 111 mark · Development
    A 13-year-old can now reason about a hypothetical situation ("suppose gravity were half as strong") and test possibilities systematically, which she could not do at age 9. According to Piaget, she has moved into:
    • A.
      the sensorimotor stage
    • B.
      the concrete operational stage
    • C.
      the preoperational stage
    • D.
      the formal operational stage
12. Question 121 mark · Development
    A 48-year-old spends much of her time mentoring younger colleagues, coaching a youth team and planning projects that will outlast her career. Erikson would say she is successfully resolving the crisis of:
    • A.
      intimacy versus isolation
    • B.
      generativity versus stagnation
    • C.
      integrity versus despair
    • D.
      industry versus inferiority
13. Question 131 mark · Learning
    A teacher gives short unannounced quizzes at unpredictable times, sometimes two in a week and sometimes none for a month. Students respond by studying at a steady, moderate rate throughout the term. Which reinforcement schedule is operating, and which response pattern is typical of it?
    • A.
      Variable interval; a steady, moderate rate of responding
    • B.
      Variable ratio; a high, steady rate of responding
    • C.
      Fixed interval; a scalloped pattern with little responding right after each reinforcement
    • D.
      Fixed ratio; rapid responding with a brief pause after each reinforcement
14. Question 141 mark · Learning
    Children watched an adult hit an inflatable doll. One group saw the adult rewarded afterward and one saw the adult scolded. When later left alone with the doll, the children who had seen the scolding imitated far less. But when all the children were then offered a prize for copying the adult, both groups reproduced the behavior equally well. The second finding shows that:
    • A.
      children imitate only behaviors they have personally been reinforced for
    • B.
      punishment of a model prevents observational learning from taking place
    • C.
      the children had all learned the behavior; vicarious punishment suppressed its performance, not its acquisition
    • D.
      observational learning requires the learner to perform the behavior while watching
15. Question 151 mark · Social psychology & personality
    Watching a stranger trip on the sidewalk, Tom immediately concludes that the person is clumsy, without considering the broken paving stone the stranger stepped on. Tom's judgment illustrates:
    • A.
      confirmation bias
    • B.
      the self-serving bias
    • C.
      the just-world phenomenon
    • D.
      the fundamental attribution error
16. Question 161 mark · Social psychology & personality
    In a line-judgment experiment, a participant answers after several confederates who all give the same obviously wrong answer, and he goes along with them on most trials. Which change to the procedure would most reduce his conformity?
    • A.
      Increasing the number of confederates from three to seven
    • B.
      Having one of the confederates give the correct answer
    • C.
      Making the confederates appear more confident and higher in status
    • D.
      Asking the participant to announce his answer aloud after the others
17. Question 171 mark · Social psychology & personality
    Maya keeps detailed to-do lists, meets every deadline and plans trips months ahead; she is also reserved, prefers small gatherings to parties and recharges by spending time alone. On the Big Five model she would most likely score:
    • A.
      low on openness and high on extraversion
    • B.
      high on agreeableness and high on openness
    • C.
      high on neuroticism and low on conscientiousness
    • D.
      high on conscientiousness and low on extraversion
18. Question 181 mark · Mental health & treatment
    A psychiatrist notes that a patient with schizophrenia shows flat affect, speaks very little and has lost the motivation to pursue activities. These are best classified as:
    • A.
      negative symptoms, reflecting the absence of normal functioning
    • B.
      positive symptoms, reflecting the presence of abnormal experiences
    • C.
      delusions, because they involve a loss of contact with reality
    • D.
      symptoms of a mood disorder rather than of schizophrenia
19. Question 191 mark · Mental health & treatment
    A therapist teaches a client with a spider phobia a relaxation technique, then has him practice it while imagining spiders, then while looking at a photograph of one, and eventually while sitting near a real spider. This treatment is based mainly on:
    • A.
      observational learning, in which the client imitates the therapist's calm behavior
    • B.
      operant conditioning, in which anxious behavior is punished
    • C.
      classical conditioning, pairing the feared stimulus with a response incompatible with fear
    • D.
      cognitive restructuring, in which irrational beliefs about spiders are disputed
20. Question 201 mark · Stress & health
    After months in a stressful job with no break, a worker finds that she catches every cold going around and feels constantly exhausted. According to Selye's general adaptation syndrome, which stage is she in, and which hormone's prolonged elevation best explains her frequent illness?
    • A.
      The alarm stage; adrenaline
    • B.
      The exhaustion stage; cortisol
    • C.
      The resistance stage; serotonin
    • D.
      The alarm stage; dopamine
21. Question 217 marks · Evidence-based question
    Evidence-Based Question. Using the three source summaries below, answer the question: Does practicing retrieval (testing yourself) improve long-term retention more than re-reading? Source A. Researchers randomly assigned 120 college students to learn 40 foreign-language word pairs either by re-reading the list four times or by reading it once and then taking three self-tests with feedback; study time was 20 minutes for both groups. Immediately afterward both groups recalled about 80% of the pairs. One week later the re-reading group recalled a mean of 36% and the self-testing group 61%, $p < 0.01$. Before the delayed test, the re-reading group had predicted they would remember more than the self-testing group. Source B. A survey of 540 high-school students measured how often they self-quizzed with flashcards or practice questions, on a 1-to-5 scale, and recorded their end-of-year exam scores. Self-quizzing frequency correlated positively with exam score, $r = 0.32$, $p < 0.001$. Students who self-quizzed more often also scored higher on a measure of conscientiousness. Source C. In a middle-school science course, two classes with the same teacher covered the same unit. One class began each lesson with a short low-stakes quiz on the previous lesson; the other spent the same minutes on teacher-led review. On a unit test three weeks later the quizzed class averaged 78% and the review class 68%. Quizzed students said the quizzes showed them what they did not yet understand.
    (a)

    Propose a specific and defensible claim based in psychological science that responds to the question.

    [1]
    (b)

    (i) Support your claim using specific and relevant evidence from one of the sources. (ii) Explain how that evidence supports your claim, using a psychological perspective, theory, concept or research finding.

    [3]
    (c)

    (i) Support your claim using specific and relevant evidence from a different source than the one used in part (b). (ii) Explain how that evidence supports your claim, using a different psychological perspective, theory, concept or research finding from the one used in part (b).

    [3]

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