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These 10 free AP Psychology questions are organized by exam domain, so you can see how each part of the Advanced Placement Psychology blueprint is tested. Reveal the answer and explanation under each question.
A medication prescribed to reduce hallucinations and delusions works primarily by blocking dopamine receptors. After several months on the medication, the patient develops hand tremors and muscle rigidity. These side effects most likely occur because dopamine is also essential for:
Correct answer: C - Initiating and coordinating voluntary movement
A split-brain patient stares at a fixation point while the word "spoon" is flashed to her left visual field only. When asked what she saw, she reports seeing nothing. Which outcome is she MOST likely to show next?
Correct answer: A - She selects a spoon with her left hand from among hidden objects.
After staring at a bright yellow image for one minute, a student shifts her gaze to a white wall and briefly sees a blue afterimage. This experience is best explained by:
Correct answer: B - Opponent-process theory
To test whether sleep loss impairs memory, a researcher uses a random number generator to place each of 120 volunteers into either a four-hour or an eight-hour sleep condition, then tests their recall the next morning. The primary purpose of assigning participants in this way is to:
Correct answer: A - Distribute pre-existing differences evenly across the two groups
Told that a person is quiet, enjoys puzzles, and dislikes crowds, most students guess the person is a librarian rather than a salesperson, even after being told that salespeople outnumber librarians by more than fifty to one. This error occurs because the students relied on:
Correct answer: A - The representativeness heuristic
Following damage to the hippocampus, a patient practices a mirror-tracing task each day and steadily improves his speed and accuracy. Every day, however, he insists he has never attempted the task before. This pattern best demonstrates that:
Correct answer: D - Implicit memory can remain intact when explicit memory is impaired
A new admissions test produces nearly identical scores when the same students retake it six months later, but the scores show almost no relationship to those students' eventual college grades. This test is best described as:
Correct answer: B - Reliable but not valid
A psychologist reviews four correlations between different study habits and exam performance. Which value indicates the STRONGEST relationship between two variables?
Correct answer: C - -0.68
A toddler screams in a store until his father buys him candy, at which point the screaming immediately stops. Over the following months, the father gives in to his son's screaming faster and faster. The father's behavior of giving in has been strengthened through:
Correct answer: B - Negative reinforcement
A patient receives a chemotherapy drug that reliably causes severe nausea. After several treatments, she begins to feel nauseated the moment she pulls into the clinic parking lot, before any drug is administered. The nausea she experiences in the parking lot is best identified as the:
Correct answer: D - Conditioned response
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