GRE psych Test (1) UPDATED ACTUAL
Questions and CORRECT Answers
The ability of a postsynaptic neuron to respond to the presence of a particular neurotransmitter
that is released from a neighboring presynaptic neuron is dependent on which of the following
conditions? - CORRECT ANSWER - The presence of receptors on the post synaptic
neuron that have an affinity for that particular neurotransmitter
Critics have argued that projective tests are too - CORRECT ANSWER - Subjective
Organizing the string of letters B-F-J-T-A-V-K-C into JFK-TV-CAB is an example of -
CORRECT ANSWER - Chunking
When persuasive communications follow the peripheral route, they focus on which of the
following? - CORRECT ANSWER - Emotions
Consider the sentence "the dishwasher is running", which of the following is true? - CORRECT
ANSWER - It can have more than one deep structure
According to the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Fifth edition - children
with separation anxiety disorder often experience which of the following symptoms in addition
to excessive fear or anxiety over separation from attachment figures - CORRECT
ANSWER - Excessive concern about the safety and well-being of attachment figures.
Patients with bilateral damage to the hippocampal formation are tested on motor learning tasks
such as the tower of hanoi. Studies show that the patients improve their performance with
repeated exposures. When asked whether they have ever seen the task, even after numerous test
sessions with it, they typically report not having seen it before. Such results have led to which of
the following conclusions? - CORRECT ANSWER - Although procedural memory may
not rely on normal hippocampal functioning, declarative memory does
Which of the following is chemically similar to opiates, has the ability to reduce pain, and is
blocked by the action of naloxone? - CORRECT ANSWER - endorphins
,When stress is prolonged, the most likely result is - CORRECT ANSWER - generalized
weakening of the immune system
the bradykinesia, cogwheel ridigity, and tremors that characterize parkinson's disease are a result
of the degeneration of dopaminergic cells in the - CORRECT ANSWER - substantia nigra
Which of the following best characterizes an infant's object concept at six months of age -
CORRECT ANSWER - the infant understands objects to be solid bounded entities that
take up space and move on continuous paths
A 40-item vocabulary test was administered to a group of students. A second, similar test of
vocabulary terms was administered to this same group of students approximately one week later.
The researcher reported that the correlation between these two tests was that r=.90. What type of
reliability is represented in this example? - CORRECT ANSWER - Alternate forms
Which of the following describes the pattern of findings displayed in the graph? (See page 11) -
CORRECT ANSWER - Men who heard jazz piece and women who heart the operatic
piece scored higher on the mood inventory than those in the two other groups
The researcher concludes from her study that the jazz music positively changes men's moods and
operatic music positively changes womens moods. Which of the following invalidates that
conclusion? - CORRECT ANSWER - mens and womens moods were not measured before
exposures to the two types of music.
Which of the following is the most serious problem with the methodology of this research? -
CORRECT ANSWER - The singers were not the same gender
The preference for a loosely knit social framework in which individuals are responsible only for
the care of their children and themselves is known as? - CORRECT ANSWER -
individualism
,Over many trials a puff of air aimed at JoAnne's eye is paired with a loud noise and a subtle
smell. Afterward, it is very likely that JoAnne's conditioned eye blink will be under the control of
the loud noise and not the subtle smell. This phenomenon is an example of - CORRECT
ANSWER - Overshadowing
The idea that people cope with stress by moving toward people, away from people, or against
people is most consistent with the views of - CORRECT ANSWER - Karen Horney
Which of the following is the best example of the categorical perception of human speech? -
CORRECT ANSWER - When a sound is presented that is intermediate between the
phonemes /b/ and /p/, listeners report that they heard either a distinct /b/ or a distinct /p/
Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess described three categories of infants: easy, difficult, and
slow to warm up. These are categories of: - CORRECT ANSWER - Temperament
Which of the following types of cognitive abilities is LEAST likely to show a decline in late life?
- CORRECT ANSWER - Semantic memory
Charles Scott Sherrington proposed that rapid stimulation of a specific synapse is likely to
produce a cumulative effect in the post synaptic cell because of: - CORRECT ANSWER -
temporal summation
Which of the following is an atypical development pattern characterized by stereotyped motor
responses and poor communication skills - CORRECT ANSWER - autism spectrum
disorder
The sharing of information about oneself is referred to as - CORRECT ANSWER - self-
disclosure
Research on children's social behaviors shows that relative to young adolescent boys, young
adolescent girls exhibit more of which type of aggression? - CORRECT ANSWER -
Relational
, "I runned to the car" is an example of - CORRECT ANSWER - overregularization
The visual pathway that tells us what we are looking at is called the - CORRECT
ANSWER - Ventral steam
Which theorist revised sigmund freud's stages of development, replacing freud's psychosexual
stages with psychosocial stages? - CORRECT ANSWER - Erik Erikson
Using a pendulum apparatus, a participant attempts to derive the physical laws that determine the
rate at which a pendulum swings. The participant's approach to solving this problem is to hold a
relevant factor (x) constant, and to reverse this procedure by holding Y constant and varying X.
According to Jean Piaget, the participant's level of cognitive functioning is most lieky -
CORRECT ANSWER - Formal operational
A child has just developed the ability to lie with the intention of deceiving another person. This
new ability is probably based most directly on a change in the child's - CORRECT
ANSWER - knowledge about mental representations
The standard deviation of a sample of test scores is a measure of the - CORRECT
ANSWER - variability of individual scores
Rapid eye movements are most closely associatied with which of the following - CORRECT
ANSWER - dreaming
An investigator interested in the development of children's attitudes toward the police assessed
and compared the attitudes of 250 eight year olds. She matched the three groups with regard to
the gender and socioeconomic background. The investigator's research design is best
characterized as which of the following? - CORRECT ANSWER - Cross-sectional
If a psychological disorder has a genetic basis, one would expect to find the highest concordance
rate for the illness between which of the following? - CORRECT ANSWER - identical
twins
Questions and CORRECT Answers
The ability of a postsynaptic neuron to respond to the presence of a particular neurotransmitter
that is released from a neighboring presynaptic neuron is dependent on which of the following
conditions? - CORRECT ANSWER - The presence of receptors on the post synaptic
neuron that have an affinity for that particular neurotransmitter
Critics have argued that projective tests are too - CORRECT ANSWER - Subjective
Organizing the string of letters B-F-J-T-A-V-K-C into JFK-TV-CAB is an example of -
CORRECT ANSWER - Chunking
When persuasive communications follow the peripheral route, they focus on which of the
following? - CORRECT ANSWER - Emotions
Consider the sentence "the dishwasher is running", which of the following is true? - CORRECT
ANSWER - It can have more than one deep structure
According to the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, Fifth edition - children
with separation anxiety disorder often experience which of the following symptoms in addition
to excessive fear or anxiety over separation from attachment figures - CORRECT
ANSWER - Excessive concern about the safety and well-being of attachment figures.
Patients with bilateral damage to the hippocampal formation are tested on motor learning tasks
such as the tower of hanoi. Studies show that the patients improve their performance with
repeated exposures. When asked whether they have ever seen the task, even after numerous test
sessions with it, they typically report not having seen it before. Such results have led to which of
the following conclusions? - CORRECT ANSWER - Although procedural memory may
not rely on normal hippocampal functioning, declarative memory does
Which of the following is chemically similar to opiates, has the ability to reduce pain, and is
blocked by the action of naloxone? - CORRECT ANSWER - endorphins
,When stress is prolonged, the most likely result is - CORRECT ANSWER - generalized
weakening of the immune system
the bradykinesia, cogwheel ridigity, and tremors that characterize parkinson's disease are a result
of the degeneration of dopaminergic cells in the - CORRECT ANSWER - substantia nigra
Which of the following best characterizes an infant's object concept at six months of age -
CORRECT ANSWER - the infant understands objects to be solid bounded entities that
take up space and move on continuous paths
A 40-item vocabulary test was administered to a group of students. A second, similar test of
vocabulary terms was administered to this same group of students approximately one week later.
The researcher reported that the correlation between these two tests was that r=.90. What type of
reliability is represented in this example? - CORRECT ANSWER - Alternate forms
Which of the following describes the pattern of findings displayed in the graph? (See page 11) -
CORRECT ANSWER - Men who heard jazz piece and women who heart the operatic
piece scored higher on the mood inventory than those in the two other groups
The researcher concludes from her study that the jazz music positively changes men's moods and
operatic music positively changes womens moods. Which of the following invalidates that
conclusion? - CORRECT ANSWER - mens and womens moods were not measured before
exposures to the two types of music.
Which of the following is the most serious problem with the methodology of this research? -
CORRECT ANSWER - The singers were not the same gender
The preference for a loosely knit social framework in which individuals are responsible only for
the care of their children and themselves is known as? - CORRECT ANSWER -
individualism
,Over many trials a puff of air aimed at JoAnne's eye is paired with a loud noise and a subtle
smell. Afterward, it is very likely that JoAnne's conditioned eye blink will be under the control of
the loud noise and not the subtle smell. This phenomenon is an example of - CORRECT
ANSWER - Overshadowing
The idea that people cope with stress by moving toward people, away from people, or against
people is most consistent with the views of - CORRECT ANSWER - Karen Horney
Which of the following is the best example of the categorical perception of human speech? -
CORRECT ANSWER - When a sound is presented that is intermediate between the
phonemes /b/ and /p/, listeners report that they heard either a distinct /b/ or a distinct /p/
Alexander Thomas and Stella Chess described three categories of infants: easy, difficult, and
slow to warm up. These are categories of: - CORRECT ANSWER - Temperament
Which of the following types of cognitive abilities is LEAST likely to show a decline in late life?
- CORRECT ANSWER - Semantic memory
Charles Scott Sherrington proposed that rapid stimulation of a specific synapse is likely to
produce a cumulative effect in the post synaptic cell because of: - CORRECT ANSWER -
temporal summation
Which of the following is an atypical development pattern characterized by stereotyped motor
responses and poor communication skills - CORRECT ANSWER - autism spectrum
disorder
The sharing of information about oneself is referred to as - CORRECT ANSWER - self-
disclosure
Research on children's social behaviors shows that relative to young adolescent boys, young
adolescent girls exhibit more of which type of aggression? - CORRECT ANSWER -
Relational
, "I runned to the car" is an example of - CORRECT ANSWER - overregularization
The visual pathway that tells us what we are looking at is called the - CORRECT
ANSWER - Ventral steam
Which theorist revised sigmund freud's stages of development, replacing freud's psychosexual
stages with psychosocial stages? - CORRECT ANSWER - Erik Erikson
Using a pendulum apparatus, a participant attempts to derive the physical laws that determine the
rate at which a pendulum swings. The participant's approach to solving this problem is to hold a
relevant factor (x) constant, and to reverse this procedure by holding Y constant and varying X.
According to Jean Piaget, the participant's level of cognitive functioning is most lieky -
CORRECT ANSWER - Formal operational
A child has just developed the ability to lie with the intention of deceiving another person. This
new ability is probably based most directly on a change in the child's - CORRECT
ANSWER - knowledge about mental representations
The standard deviation of a sample of test scores is a measure of the - CORRECT
ANSWER - variability of individual scores
Rapid eye movements are most closely associatied with which of the following - CORRECT
ANSWER - dreaming
An investigator interested in the development of children's attitudes toward the police assessed
and compared the attitudes of 250 eight year olds. She matched the three groups with regard to
the gender and socioeconomic background. The investigator's research design is best
characterized as which of the following? - CORRECT ANSWER - Cross-sectional
If a psychological disorder has a genetic basis, one would expect to find the highest concordance
rate for the illness between which of the following? - CORRECT ANSWER - identical
twins
