1) Three of the following are examples of social goals. Which one would not
necessarily be considered a social goal?
a.Robert is eager to learn everything he can about terrorists and their personalities.
b.Harry is worried that the homeless in his community may freeze during a bitter cold
spell.
c.Jasmine works hard to keep a promise she made to her parents.
d.Mikaela has her hair professionally styled so shell look nice at the school dance.
2) Many of Mr. Henrys students have heard from family or friends that global climate
change is a hoax perpetuated by certain politicians and policy makers. Mr. Henry is
trying to convince them that, in fact, the earths overall temperature is slowly rising and
that, furthermore, the change is at least partly the result of human activity. The approach
most likely to be successful in promoting conceptual change about climate change is to:
a.Present both sides of the debate but discredit the hoax arguments
b.Present only the climate-change-is-real side of the debate
c.Explain that advocates of the hoax perspective have no credibility in the scientific
community
d.Remind students that future generations will ultimate pay the price for this
generations refusal to accept that climate change is real
3) In the middle of a difficult exam, Robert tells his teacher that his stomach hurts, and
the teacher immediately sends him to the school nurse. On several later occasions when
he has a difficult test or assignment, Robert again tells his teacher that he doesnt feel
well. Roberts frequent trips to the nurse have:
a.Been negatively reinforced
b.Led to superstitious behavior
c.Been reinforced on an intermittent schedule
d.Essentially been time-outs and so have been punished
4) When Gianna returns to college after a summer touring France, she tells her
roommate about her many experiences. She does not always remember them accurately,
however, so she fills in the gaps in her memory with logical details about how things
must have happened. Several weeks later, she is telling another friend about her trip.
Gianna will probably:
a.Remember her experiences more accurately than she had previously
b.Feel very confused about what things actually did and did not happen in France
c.Have different gaps in her memory than she did when talking to her roommate, and so
construct very different recollections of her experiences in France
d.Remember her experiences in France as occurring in essentially the way that she
previously described them to her roommate
5) In the basement of Marcys college dormitory is a Coke machine that dispenses a can
of Coke whenever someone firmly pounds the side of the machine. Marcy is delighted
when she discovers this fact, because she can now get Cokes from the machine without
having to pay for them. One morning a repairman fixes the machine. The next time
Marcy goes to get a soft drink from the machine, she finds that her usual pounding
strategy doesnt yield her the Coke she wants. But rather than insert the required coins to
purchase a drink, Marcy begins pounding the side of the machine vigorously for several
minutes. In behaviorist terminology, Marcys behavior at this point can best be described
as:
a.an extinction burst
b.discrimination
c.shaping
d.a response reinforced by an activity reinforcer
6) Janice finds playing the fiddle to be a wonderful outlet for self-expression. In terms
of Maslows hierarchy of needs, Janice is striving to fulfill:
a.Her need for self-esteem
b.Her need for esteem from others
c.Her need for self-actualization
d.Her love and belongingness needs
7) An avoidance behavior of a previously aversive situation is particularly difficult to
extinguish because:
a.It has typically been reinforced on a fixed ratio schedule.
b.It has typically been reinforced on a variable ratio schedule.
c.It has typically been reinforced on a variable interval schedule.
d.The learner has no opportunity to learn that the situation is no longer aversive.
8) Which one of the following best describes a classroom that has a culture of transfer?
a.Teacher and students regularly look for ways to apply what theyre studying.
b.Students from diverse backgrounds meet in small groups to brainstorm potential
solutions to social problems.
c.The teacher encourages students to share their study strategies with one another.
d.Classroom topics are never labeled as belonging to a particular academic discipline
(e.g., as being a mathematical procedure or a part of history).
9) Three of the following alternatives describe instances of transfer that are likely to
occur. Which scenario is least likely?
a.Taking a course in computer programming helps Leslie reason more logically and
systematically when she looks at maps in her geography class.
b.In ninth grade Ned learns that he can do reasonably well in his classes even without
studying. As a result, he does little or no studying in his tenth-grade classes the
following year.
c.After being bitten by the neighbors German shepherd, Pablo becomes anxious
whenever he sees any German shepherd.
d.Sheri has discovered that she can apply many ideas she learns in her general science
class to real-world situations. She brings this let-me-apply-it attitude to a physics class
she takes the following year.
10) Ms. Jefferson promises her students special treats if they turn in their homework
assignments the next day. But the following day Ms. Jefferson forgets to bring the treats
she promised. From the perspective of social cognitive theory, what has just happened
to the students who turned in their homework assignments?
a.They have been punished for doing so.
b.They have been negatively reinforced for doing so.
c.They have been vicariously reinforced for doing so.
d.Their behavior has been extinguished.
11) Which one of the following statements best describes the view of early behaviorists
about how learning can best be studied?
a.Psychologists can determine how learning occurs only if they can identify its
physiological basis.
b.Introspectionreporting what and how one is thinkingis likely to yield the most
accurate results.
c.To study learning scientifically, researchers must confine their investigations to
animal research in a laboratory setting.
d.The study of learning will be more objective and scientific if only observable events
are considered.
12) You go to an art museum on a Sunday afternoon. Other things being equal, which
one of the following pictures are you most likely to remember?
a.A dog baring its teeth at another dog
b.Fruit in a brightly colored Mexican pot
c.A man with a bloody, gruesome chest wound
d.A peaceful farm scene, with cows grazing by a stream
13) Oliver takes a standardized spelling test on which he must choose the correct
spelling of various words out of four choices. For example, one test question looks like
this:
Choose the correctly spelled word:
a.KAT
b.KATT
c.CAT
d.CATT
What kind of retrieval cues is the test providing for Oliver?
a.identity cues
b.schemas
c.frames
d.associative cues
14) When several students spray-paint graffiti on the school walls, the school principal
insists that they paint the walls to cover the graffiti; the principal also insists that the
students pay for the necessary paint out of their own pockets. The principals strategy
illustrates the use of _______ as a way of bringing about behavior change.
a.Restitution
b.Response cost
c.Positive-practice overcorrection
d.Punishment II
15) Which one of the following illustrates positive transfer?
a.Robert is trying to learn the spelling of the word shepherd. He remembers that he
learned to spell tomcat by putting two words together and so writes sheepherd.
b.Vince notices that rules of grammar are not always the same in English and Japanese.
c.Zelda uses the formula for calculating the area of a circle when she wants to know
how much bigger a 10-inch pizza is than a 7-inch pizza.
d.David is trying to learn to program a computer. He reads his programming manual but
is confused by some of its instructions.
16) Given research on effective study skills, which one of the following techniques
should you not recommend to a struggling student?
a.Take notes on a lecture only after its over.
b.Draw inferences from the information presented.
c.Look for main ideas in a lecture.
d.Summarize the information presented in a textbook chapter.
17) George has learned that if he pesters his father about using the family Cadillac
enough times, his father will eventually break down and give George the keys to the
Cadillac. Georges pestering behavior is apparently being reinforced on a ___________
schedule.
a.variable ratio
b.variable interval
c.fixed interval
d.differential rate of low responding
18) One valuable study skill is the ability to distinguish between important and
unimportant information in the material being studied. Three of the following
statements are reasons that students at all levels often have trouble identifying
important information. Which one is not a valid explanation of why students have such
trouble?
a.Students may have insufficient prior knowledge with which to make educated
decisions about what is important.
b.The very nature of the reading process is such that students inevitably give equal
attention to every piece of information that is on the page.
c.A textbook may give few if any signals about what things are most important to learn
and remember.
d.Students often use relatively superficial characteristics of the material (e.g., words in
boldface print) as an indicator of whats important.