1) Naomi wakes up several hours after a severe blow to her head has rendered her
unconscious. She can remember nothing about events leading up to the incident,
reflecting the importance of ________ in learning and memory.
a.neurogenesis
b.consolidation
c.a critical period
d.the corpus callosum
2) After seeing many different examples of a dog, Joe begins to form an idea of what a
typical dog looks like. This process best illustrates which one of the following views of
concept learning?
a.Learning defining features
b.Prototype
c.Exemplars
d.Hypothesis testing
3) Peter is quite proud of the poem hes just written. Usually I spend a lot of time writing
a poem, he says, but this one just popped into my head from out of the blue. What Peter
doesnt realize is that the poem is very similar to one he read in a collection of poems by
Carl Sandberg a year or so agoso similar, in fact, that Peter might be accused of
plagiarizing Sandbergs work. Peters error can best be explained as a problem of
a.source monitoring
b.encoding specificity
c.consolidation failure
d.proactive inhibition
4) One of the history teachers below is violating a principle recommended for
promoting long-term memory storage during instruction. Which teacher is doing so?
a.Mr. Annenberg explains to his students how the American Revolution was an almost
inevitable outcome of certain English policies at the time.
b.Ms. Bartholomew begins her discussion of the American Civil War by drawing some
parallels between it and something the class has already studiedthe American
Revolution.
c.At the beginning of a unit on World War I, Mr. Cortez gives his students several
questions they should be able to answer at the end of the unit.
d.Ms. DeLuca talks in a relaxed conversational style, describing different battles of
World War II as they come to mind.
5) Which one of the following best illustrates Tolmans notion of a cognitive map?
a.You study a map of Australia until you can reproduce it with considerable accuracy.
b.You study a map of Australia but reproduce it with many distortions in shape and
location.
c.After walking around campus for a few days, you learn where buildings are in relation
to one another.
d.The concepts table and chair are more closely associated in memory than the words
bed and refrigerator.
6) As a high school music teacher plays a recording of Ferde Grofs symphony Grand
Canyon Suite for his class, he asks his students to visualize scenes that Grof tried to
capture with music: a sunrise over the Grand Canyon, a burro ride down a winding trail,
a thunderstorm, and so on. From a Vygotskian perspective, this lesson could best be
described as:
a.Guided participation
b.A mediated learning experience
c.A lesson at students actual developmental level
d.A lesson at students level of potential development
7) Aletha has been having difficulty in her first-period history class. One day Aletha
misses the school bus. She has to walk to school and doesnt arrive until after her history
class is over. Aletha begins missing the bus (and therefore arriving at school late) more
and more frequently. Alethas missing the bus is an example of:
a.Superstitious behavior
b.Avoidance learning
c.Punishment I
d.Punishment II
8) Human beings undoubtedly learn more during the course of a lifetime than any other
species on earth. The major result of this capacity to learn is that:
a.New instincts begin to emerge.
b.Human thought becomes less logical with each generation.
c.Humans can benefit from their experiences.
d.Humans are the only species whose behavior cannot be analyzed in terms of stimuli
and responses.
9) Occasionally people have false memories, recalling events that never actually
happened. Three of the following false memories are consistent with research findings
regarding when false memories are likely to form. Which one is inconsistent with
research findings?
a.After seeing a photo of a girl who looks like her riding an elephant, 10-year-old Sally
says, Oh, yes, I remember that elephant ride.
b.Eighteen-year-old Mark recalls attending a Jewish Bar Mitzvah when he was 13, even
though he isnt Jewish and doesnt have any friends who are Jewish.
c.Four-year-old Carmen is asked to imagine herself going to Disney World and meeting
Snow White. Several months later she claims she actually did meet Snow White.
d.As a requirement for his psychology class, 20-year-old Damion participates in a
research study in which hes asked to read a group of 10 interrelated words (e.g., bed,
pillow, dream). Afterward he claims that one of the words was sleep, even though it
wasnt included in the list.
10) John and Bill have both learned that when they whine and complain, their teacher
will hurry over to see whats wrong. Johns teacher gives him attention every time he
complains. However, Bills teacher gives him attention only on some of the occasions he
complains. Both teachers eventually realize that they are reinforcing the boys for
inappropriate behavior and so both stop attending to the boys when they whine and
complain. From a behaviorist perspective, we can predict that:
a.Both boys will whine and complain even more than before.
b.Both boys will stop their whining and complaining almost immediately.
c.Bills complaining will decrease more rapidly than Johns.
d.Johns complaining will decrease more rapidly than Bills.
11) In a series of experiments, Tolman investigated the role of reinforcement in
learning. Which one of the following conclusions emerged from his research?
a.Reinforcement is essential for learning, but not for performance.
b.Reinforcement is distracting, so interferes with learning.
c.Responses can be learned even when they are not reinforced.
d.Reinforcement is important only if the organism is unmotivated.
12) Only one of the following teachers is applying contemporary memory theory.
Which one?
a.Ms. Alphonso suggests that students in her Russian class listen to Russian tapes while
they sleep.
b.Mr. Bancroft helps students identify important ideas in their textbooks.
c.Ms. Cranston asks her students to memorize definitions of 15 geometric figures.
d.Mr. Dominowski suggests that his students put information for tomorrows test in their
short-term memories.
13) Three of the following characterize students with a performance goal. Which one
characterizes students with a mastery goal?
a.Trying to learn something word for word
b.Concluding that you need to work harder when you fail
c.Doing something that you know you will be reinforced for
d.Looking at classmates performance as an indication of how well youre doing
14) Which one of the following clearly illustrates Piagets concept of assimilation?
a.Five-year-old Harvey draws on the chalkboard with a large white crayon instead of
with chalk.
b.Eight-year-old Rowena develops the necessary eye-hand coordination for writing
letters in cursive.
c.Eleven-year-old Mary Lou moves to a different school and purchases new clothes to
fit the local fashions.
d.A language arts teacher asks 13-year-old Reynold to think about possible adjectives
other than awesome that he might use in his writing to describe interesting and
enjoyable activities.
15) At try-outs for the school musical production, Trudy would like to gain the leading
role, but she know that several other girls are trying out for the same role. Trudy instead
auditions for the chorus, confident that she can make it without any difficulty. With this
information in mind, which one of the following is most likely to be true about Trudy?
a.She has a high need for affiliation and a low need for approval.
b.She has a high need for approval and a low need for affiliation.
c.She has a high motive for success and a low motive to avoid failure.
d.She has a high motive to avoid failure and a low motive for success.
16) Several students in Mr. Sambers class have trouble keeping themselves on task
during independent seatwork assignments. Mr. Samber gives each of these students a
piece of paper on which they are to make a check mark every time they find themselves
doing something other than their assignment during seatwork time. Mr. Samber is using
which one of the following techniques for changing behavior?
a.A contingency contract
b.Reinforcement of an incompatible behavior
c.Punishment II
d.Self-monitoring
17) Three of the following are examples of operant conditioning. Which one is not?
a.Andrew gives his dog Maggie a scrap of food from his plate whenever Maggie begs at
the dinner table. Before long, Maggie is by Andrews side begging at every meal.
b.Bart uses obscene words when he speaks in class. His teacher scolds him for such
language in front of his classmates. Much to the teachers dismay, Barts use of obscene
words increases.
c.Carols room has been a disaster area for more than a month, with toys and clothes
lying about everywhere. Carols mother has told Carol that, once the room has been
cleaned, they will spend a day at the zoo. There is no noticeable improvement in Carols
housekeeping habits.
d.Daniel once went to visit the woman next door, and she gave him a couple of
homemade cookies. Now Daniel goes to see the woman almost every day after school
and comes home a half hour later licking his lips.
18) People are most likely to engage in meaningful problem solving when they:
a.Use heuristics rather than algorithms
b.Have large working memory capacities
c.Understand the logic underlying the procedures they use
d.Focus on only one small part of a problem at a time
19) Which one of the following best illustrates Skinners concept of superstitious
behavior?
a.Alice is praised for her accurate bookkeeping at work. After that, she continues to
keep accurate books at work. She also begins to be more careful about balancing her
personal checkbook each month, even though she receives no reinforcement for doing
so.
b.Bradley thinks his reinforcement for cleaning his apartment is the good feeling that a
clean place gives him. In reality, he cleans only when company is coming, and it is his
company that makes him feel good.
c.Charlotte misinterprets a teachers praise as sarcasm and therefore as punishment
rather than reinforcement.
d.David usually struggles with his geography exams, but he recently got high scores on
two occasions when he wore a Denver Broncos sweatshirt to school. He now wears his
Broncos sweatshirt whenever a geography test is scheduled.