1) Which one of the following students most clearly has a work-avoidance goal?
a.Last night Frederick stayed up so late watching television that he can hardly stay
awake in class.
b.Loni is so active in student government that she often doesnt have time to get her
homework done.
c.Chris asks for his teachers help on a task he is perfectly capable of doing on his own.
d.Nancy wonders why she has to work harder than her friends to get the same grades
they do.
2) Which one of the following statements best describes contextual views of learning?
a.Information stored in long-term memory is highly interrelated, such that everything is
either directly or indirectly connected with everything else.
b.Learners can tackle complex tasks more successfully when they have other people or
concrete tools to assist them in their efforts.
c.Practice in applying principles of deductive and inductive reasoning leads to more
logical thought processes in a variety of contexts.
d.People of all agesbut especially young childrenlearn most effectively when they can
relate a new concept to their own experiences.
3) What important role can declarative knowledge play in assisting people as they make
use of their procedural knowledge?
a.Declarative knowledge enables people to execute a behavior more quickly than they
would otherwise.
b.Even the most basic kinds of procedural knowledge are useless unless theyre
accompanied by a significant amount of declarative knowledge.
c.Declarative knowledge is essential if people are to acquire procedural knowledge to a
level of automaticity.
d.Declarative knowledge can help people remember the specific steps they need to take
as they execute a complex behavior.
4) As a teacher, you want your students to use effective information processing
strategies as they study classroom subject matter. You consider research about the
effects of classroom assessment tasks on learning, and you conclude that you should:
a.Ask many short questions rather than a few lengthy ones.
b.Assess students rote knowledge of the material first, then ask higher-level questions
about the material in a subsequent assessment.
c.Give assessment tasks that require meaningful understanding of the material.
d.Not give paper-pencil tests at all.
5) A student who is afraid of mathematics is first given some problems that bear little
resemblance to mathematics, then is given a sequence of problems that become
increasingly more mathematical in content. The progression of problems is gradual
enough that the fear response does not occur, and eventually the student loses his fear of
mathematics. Which method for breaking bad habits is best illustrated in this situation?
a.Incompatible stimulus method
b.Consolidation method
c.Exhaustion method
d.Threshold method
6) In which one of the following situations should we be most concerned about missing
a critical period in a persons development?
a.Rachel is born with a cataract in her left eye that is surgically removed when she is 8
years old.
b.Phoebe doesnt learn how to write until she is 12 years old.
c.Although Ross knows how to count, he gets no formal instruction in mathematics
until he is 15.
d.Joey has his first tennis lesson when he is 25.
7) Carlton often gets so wrapped up in a video game that he has little or no awareness
of events going on around him. An entire afternoon can pass by very quickly as he
meets one challenge after another in his video-game world. Carltons motivation state
can best be characterized as involving:
a.Flow
b.Drive reduction
c.Self-handicapping
d.Extrinsic motivation
8) Which one of the following examples illustrates a cognitive apprenticeship?
a.Mr. Ferguson gives students numerous word problems involving addition until they
can solve such problems easily.
b.Ms. Lupinsky and a student work together to solve a challenging word problem, with
Ms. Lupinsky modeling effective ways of thinking about the problem.
c.Mr. Johnson asks students to do easy word problems as a way of boosting their
self-confidence for the more difficult problems that will soon follow.
d.Ms. Pang individualizes the word problems she gives each student, depending on each
ones present skill level.
9) Which one of the following alternatives is the best example of a co-constructed
narrative?
a.A father is reading a bedtime story to his young son. In the middle of the story, he
stops reading and asks his son to predict what the hero of the story is probably going to
do next.
b.A teacher says, Once upon a time, a young farmer … and then asks a student to
complete the sentence. The teacher asks another student to provide a second sentence
that relates to the first, asks a third student to supply a third sentence, and so on, until a
complete story emerges.
c.As they sip their milkshakes at a local diner, two friends recall and talk about various
scenes from a scary movie theyve just seen at the movie theater.
d.As a student prepares to build a pair of bookends in a woodworking class, her teacher
asks her to describe the procedure she plans to use.
10) Xavier loves to write poetry. Often he uses techniques that his favorite poets use,
but typically he modifies these techniques to better suit his own style. This situation
illustrates which one of the following concepts in Vygotskys theory?
a.appropriation
b.mediated learning
c.actual developmental level
d.level of potential development
11) Three of the following should help students learn mathematical problem-solving
procedures. Given the textbooks discussion of problem solving, which one is least
likely to be effective?
a.Accompany word problems with illustrative pictures.
b.Provide worked-out examples that illustrate a particular procedure.
c.Have students apply the procedures to real-world problems in the classroom.
d.Encourage students to do problems entirely in their heads whenever possible.
12) Research indicates that study skills training is most likely to be effective when:
a.Students focus on learning one specific study strategy.
b.Students focus on learning facts rather than on developing higher-level thinking skills.
c.Students have little or no background in the topic they are studying.
d.Students are given reasons why certain study techniques are helpful.
13) Which one of the following students is elaborating as he takes notes in class?
a.While his math teacher demonstrates a mathematical procedure on the chalkboard, Ed
writes Meet Pat after school in the margin of his notebook.
b.Jason writes down every word his science teacher says, hoping that it will all make
sense when he reads it later.
c.In his Spanish class, Hugh writes each new vocabulary word in his notebook five
times to help him remember it.
d.In science, Frank is taking notes about how water expands when it freezes and adds,
Thats why our fish tank broke when I left it outside last winter.
14) Which one of the following statements best describes Piagets view of how children
acquire knowledge about the world?
a.Children are naturally disposed to think about their environment in particular ways; in
a sense, some basic knowledge about the world is pre-wired.
b.Children actively construct their own view of the world from their experiences with
the environment.
c.Children repeatedly parrot their parents and teachers beliefs, eventually internalizing
these beliefs as their own knowledge.
d.Initially, children unconsciously develop a rather complex and confused view of the
world, but this view becomes simpler and more straightforward as time goes on.
15) Which one of the following statements most accurately describes a neurons
threshold of excitation?
a.A neuron responds when it is stimulated by some of its neighboring neurons, but not
when it is stimulated by other neighbors.
b.A neuron fires only when its electrical charge reaches a particular level.
c.A neuron is receptive to stimulation from other neurons only at points where there are
gaps in its myelin sheath.
d.A neuron will fire at a maximum rate of no more than once every three seconds.