Name: ______Date: ______
AP* Practice Test Questions
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. "Chair," "freedom," and "ball" are all
(a) phonemes.
(b) heuristics.
(c) concepts.
(d) telegraphic utterances.
(e) prototypes.
2. People are more concerned about a medical procedure when told it has a 10 percent death rate than they are when told it has a 90 percent survival rate. This is because of
(a) belief perseverance.
(b) insight.
(c) intuition.
(d) framing.
(e) confirmation bias.
3. Which of the following illustrates a heuristic?
(a) Calculating the area of a rectangle by multiplying the length times the width.
(b) Recalling published reports of corporate fraud to estimate how much fraud occurs in American business.
(c) Looking in each room of your home to find your sleeping cat.
(d) Following a new recipe to bake a cake for your friend.
(e) Trying every key on your mom's key ring until you find the one that unlocks the seldom-used storeroom in the basement.
4. Which of the following represents a prototype for the concept indicated in parentheses?
(a) A whale (mammal)
(b) An ostrich (bird)
(c) A beanbag chair (chair)
(d) An igloo (house)
(e) A golden retriever (dog)
5. Who proposed the idea that language development could be explained with the principles of learning?
(a) B. F. Skinner
(b) Noam Chomsky
(c) Steven Pinker
(d) Benjamin Lee Whorf
(e) Paul Broca
6. The inability to see a problem from a fresh perspective is called
(a) confirmation bias.
(b) insight.
(c) representativeness.
(d) fixation.
(e) availability.
7. In English, we know to put adjectives before nouns because of
(a) semantics.
(b) syntax.
(c) statistical learning.
(d) algorithms.
(e) practice during the babbling stage.
8. Mental rehearsal can improve athletic performance because of the effectiveness of thinking in
(a) images.
(b) morphemes.
(c) telegraphic speech.
(d) semantics.
(e) phonemes.
9. Phonemes are
(a) units of meaning in a language.
(b) a form of syntax.
(c) the basis of grammar.
(d) units of sound in a language.
(e) a form of telegraphic speech.
10. People often underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a project because of
(a) belief perseverance.
(b) framing.
(c) intuition.
(d) the availability heuristic.
(e) overconfidence.
11. According to Robert Sternberg, which of the following is not a component of creativity?
(a) A venturesome personality
(b) Imaginative thinking skills
(c) A creative environment
(d) A position of ignorance
(e) Intrinsic motivation
12. German students unfamiliar with American geography guessed that San Diego was larger than San Antonio more frequently than American students made this correct identification. The German students were effectively using
(a) framing.
(b) the representativeness heuristic.
(c) intuition.
(d) belief perseverance.
(e) mental set.
13. Which of the following demonstrates the representativeness heuristic?
(a) Deciding that a new kid in school is a nerd because he looks like a nerd.
(b) Fearing air travel because of memories of plane crashes.
(c) Checking in every drawer to find some matches because matches are usually in drawers.
(d) Having the solution to a word problem pop into your head because you have just successfully solved a similar problem.
(e) Applying for jobs in several local grocery stores because your best friend just got a job in a grocery store.
14. Benjamin Lee Whorf's linguistic determinism hypothesis relates to the
(a) influence thinking has on language.
(b) influence language has on thinking.
(c) role of the language acquisition device.
(d) importance of critical periods in language development.
(e) development of language in nonhuman animals.
15. Noam Chomsky believes that all we need to acquire language is
(a) exposure to language in early childhood.
(b) instruction in grammar.
(c) reinforcement for babbling and other early verbal behaviors.
(d) imitation and drill.
(e) linguistic determinism.
Free-Response Question
Describe the positions of B. F. Skinner and Noam Chomsky in their debate concerning the development of language. Include an explanation of how learning principles and universal grammar relate to language development. Provide evidence or an example that supports each of these scientists' perspectives.
RUBRIC
This is a 6 point question.
B.F. Skinner
- 2 points for Skinner’s position: learning principles such as association, imitation, and reinforcement account for the development of language.
- 1 point for evidence or an example supporting Skinner’s position. Answers will vary, but should focus on the effect of learning. For example, a child might learn the word “cow” because her mother praises her when she identifies a cow with the proper word when looking at a picture book.
Noam Chomsky
- 2 points for Chomsky’s position: an inborn language acquisition device and universal grammar account for the development language.
- 1 point for evidence or an example of Chomsky’s position. Answers will vary, but should focus on the effect of inborn abilities. For example, a child might say, “I goed to the store,” because he has overgeneralizied the grammatical rule for the past tense, even though he has never had “goed” modeled for him.