WGU D570 / HLTH 4310 – Cognitive
Psychology Comprehensive Objective Assessment (OA) Practice Exam |
2025 Edition
,Exam Overview
This comprehensive 150-question practice examination is designed to simulate the official
WGU D570 / HLTH 4310 Cognitive Psychology Objective Assessment (OA). It aligns with
the current WGU performance competencies and Cognitive Psychology core domains,
testing conceptual understanding, application, and critical reasoning.
1. Cognitive psychology is primarily concerned with:
A. Emotional responses
B. Mental processes such as memory, attention, and problem solving
C. Group behavior
D. Physical reflexes
Rationale: Cognitive psychology explores internal mental processes that influence
behavior.
2. The information processing model compares the human mind to:
A. An emotion-driven system
B. A biological reflex loop
C. A computer that encodes, stores, and retrieves data
D. A social construct
Rationale: This model emphasizes input, processing, and output stages similar to
computers.
3. The process of focusing awareness on a limited aspect of the environment
is:
A. Sensation
B. Attention
C. Perception
D. Cognition
Rationale: Attention filters sensory input to prevent overload.
,4. The Stroop effect demonstrates difficulty in:
A. Reading comprehension
B. Ignoring automatic processes like word reading when naming colors
C. Short-term recall
D. Motor coordination
Rationale: Automatic processing interferes with controlled processing tasks.
5. Short-term memory typically holds information for about:
A. 10 minutes
B. 1 second
C. 20–30 seconds
D. Several hours
Rationale: Without rehearsal, short-term memory decays within half a minute.
6. The capacity of working memory is roughly:
A. 3 items
B. 12–15 items
C. 7 ± 2 items
D. Unlimited
Rationale: Miller’s law established this limit for immediate recall tasks.
7. Which term best describes grouping items together to improve memory?
A. Mnemonics
B. Chunking
C. Rehearsal
D. Encoding
Rationale: Chunking increases working memory efficiency by combining items
into larger units.
, 8. Episodic memory refers to:
A. Skill learning
B. Personal experiences and events
C. Semantic knowledge
D. Conditioned responses
Rationale: Episodic memory stores autobiographical events and context.
9. The hippocampus plays a key role in:
A. Motor learning
B. Visual processing
C. Consolidation of new long-term memories
D. Reflexes
Rationale: It converts short-term experiences into stable long-term memories.
10. Information that fails to enter long-term memory is a result of:
A. Retrieval failure
B. Encoding failure
C. Decay
D. Repression
Rationale: When attention or rehearsal is inadequate, encoding fails.
11. The serial position effect combines:
A. Recency only
B. Primacy only
C. Primacy and recency effects in recall order
D. Forgetting curves
Rationale: People recall first and last items in a list best.
Psychology Comprehensive Objective Assessment (OA) Practice Exam |
2025 Edition
,Exam Overview
This comprehensive 150-question practice examination is designed to simulate the official
WGU D570 / HLTH 4310 Cognitive Psychology Objective Assessment (OA). It aligns with
the current WGU performance competencies and Cognitive Psychology core domains,
testing conceptual understanding, application, and critical reasoning.
1. Cognitive psychology is primarily concerned with:
A. Emotional responses
B. Mental processes such as memory, attention, and problem solving
C. Group behavior
D. Physical reflexes
Rationale: Cognitive psychology explores internal mental processes that influence
behavior.
2. The information processing model compares the human mind to:
A. An emotion-driven system
B. A biological reflex loop
C. A computer that encodes, stores, and retrieves data
D. A social construct
Rationale: This model emphasizes input, processing, and output stages similar to
computers.
3. The process of focusing awareness on a limited aspect of the environment
is:
A. Sensation
B. Attention
C. Perception
D. Cognition
Rationale: Attention filters sensory input to prevent overload.
,4. The Stroop effect demonstrates difficulty in:
A. Reading comprehension
B. Ignoring automatic processes like word reading when naming colors
C. Short-term recall
D. Motor coordination
Rationale: Automatic processing interferes with controlled processing tasks.
5. Short-term memory typically holds information for about:
A. 10 minutes
B. 1 second
C. 20–30 seconds
D. Several hours
Rationale: Without rehearsal, short-term memory decays within half a minute.
6. The capacity of working memory is roughly:
A. 3 items
B. 12–15 items
C. 7 ± 2 items
D. Unlimited
Rationale: Miller’s law established this limit for immediate recall tasks.
7. Which term best describes grouping items together to improve memory?
A. Mnemonics
B. Chunking
C. Rehearsal
D. Encoding
Rationale: Chunking increases working memory efficiency by combining items
into larger units.
, 8. Episodic memory refers to:
A. Skill learning
B. Personal experiences and events
C. Semantic knowledge
D. Conditioned responses
Rationale: Episodic memory stores autobiographical events and context.
9. The hippocampus plays a key role in:
A. Motor learning
B. Visual processing
C. Consolidation of new long-term memories
D. Reflexes
Rationale: It converts short-term experiences into stable long-term memories.
10. Information that fails to enter long-term memory is a result of:
A. Retrieval failure
B. Encoding failure
C. Decay
D. Repression
Rationale: When attention or rehearsal is inadequate, encoding fails.
11. The serial position effect combines:
A. Recency only
B. Primacy only
C. Primacy and recency effects in recall order
D. Forgetting curves
Rationale: People recall first and last items in a list best.
