Psy 1101:  Test 3 Sample Items

 

1.

A sensory memory:

A)

usually lasts for about 30 seconds

B)

is usually stored acoustically

C)

can be maintained by rehearsal

D)

gives additional time to recognize a stimulus

 

2.

Which of the following statements about short-term memory is FALSE?

A)

It maintains unrehearsed information for about 20 to 30 seconds.

B)

It is the second component of the human memory system.

C)

It is a short-term memory system for each of the senses.

D)

Its capacity is quite limited.

 

3.

The capacity of short-term memory is:

A)

about 50,000 words

B)

unlimited

C)

about 25 stimuli

D)

about 7 information "chunks"

 

4.

A ________ effect occurs when a subject's recall for items at the end of a list is ________ than for other items in the list.

A)

primacy; better

C)

primacy; poorer

B)

recency; better

D)

recency; poorer

 

5.

Penfield's studies suggest that long-lost memories can be elicited through electrical stimulation of the brain. This suggests the possibility that forgetting may be a matter of:

A)

retrieval failure

B)

displacement

C)

gradual decay

D)

unconscious wishes to forget

 

6.

According to interference theory:

A)

people forget information because of competition from other material

B)

forgetting is due to ineffective encoding

C)

the principal cause of forgetting should be the passage of time

D)

the events that occur during the retention interval do not affect forgetting

 

7.

Using the phrase "Every good boy does fine" to remember the order of musical notes is an example of a(n):

A)

narrative

C)

rhyme

B)

acrostic

D)

acronym

 

8.

If a test yields almost identical scores when retaken after a two-month interval, we say that the test is:

A)

statistically significant

C)

valid

B)

reliable

D)

normative

 

9.

If a test accurately measures what it was designed to measure, we say that the test is:

A)

valid

C)

normative

B)

empirical

D)

consistent

 

10.

The extent to which a test is a representative sample from a domain of behaviors is a definition of  _______ validity.

A)

criterion-related

C)

construct

B)

content

D)

face

 

11.

Which of the following tests was recently revised and is a widely-used, individually-administered measure of adult intelligence?

A)

Minnesota Adult Intelligence Test

B)

Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale

C)

Iowa Test of Basic Skills

D)

Wonderlic Personnel Test

 

12.

Because of their established association with grades, most psychologists generally perceive intelligence tests to be one of a set of valid assessment tools to be used in predicting a person's potential to succeed in school.

A)

True

C)

False

 

13.

If you were very "street smart" in dealing with practical, everyday social situations, which of the following kinds of intelligence would you demonstrate in Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence?

A)

bodily-kinesthetic intelligence

B)

componential intelligence

C)

experiential intelligence

D)

contextual intelligence

 

14.

Functional fixedness is the:

A)

inability to discover the relations among the parts of a problem

B)

inability to carry out a sequence of transformations in order to reach a specific goal

C)

tendency to perceive an item only in terms of its most common use

D)

sudden discovery of a correct solution following incorrect attempts based primarily on trial and error

 

15.

Which of the following most closely resembles the text's definition of DECISION MAKING?

A)

Active effort to find out what to do to achieve a readily available goal.

B)

The set of possible pathways to a problem solution.

C)

The process of evaluating alternatives and making choices among them.

 

16.

You are an intelligence officer working for the CIA.  You are confronted with hundreds of reports about the location of a terrorist.  This illustrates which barrier to effective problem solving?

A)

irrelevant information

C)

unnecessary constraints

B)

functional fixedness

D)

mental set