AP Psychology Practice Quiz
Studying for the AP Psychology exam? This fifteen-question practice quiz pulls from every major unit, from research methods to abnormal psychology, with a clear explanation after each answer.
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The AP Psychology exam covers a lot of ground, but it rewards students who know the core terms and the classic studies cold. This practice quiz samples across the units the College Board tests, so it is a quick way to find your weak spots before exam day.
Use the answer explanations to shore up any gaps, then revisit the full unit in your textbook or notes. If psychology grabs you beyond the exam, our career guides show where it can lead.
All 15 questions and answers
- A study that follows the same group of people over many years is called a... Answer: Longitudinal study
Longitudinal studies track the same participants over time, which is powerful for studying development but slow and expensive.
- Which neurotransmitter is linked to reward and movement, and is depleted in Parkinson's disease? Answer: Dopamine
Dopamine plays a major role in reward, motivation, and movement. Its loss in certain brain areas causes Parkinson's symptoms.
- Converting a physical stimulus, like light or sound, into neural signals is called... Answer: Transduction
Transduction is how your sensory organs translate physical energy into the electrochemical signals the brain can use.
- In classical conditioning, a once-neutral stimulus that now triggers a response is the... Answer: Conditioned stimulus
After being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, the neutral stimulus becomes the conditioned stimulus, like Pavlov's bell.
- Which reinforcement schedule, used by slot machines, reinforces after an unpredictable number of responses? Answer: Variable-ratio
Variable-ratio schedules produce high, steady response rates that are very resistant to extinction, which is why gambling is so compelling.
- Recalling the first and last items in a list better than the middle is the... Answer: Serial position effect
The serial position effect combines the primacy effect (early items) and the recency effect (recent items).
- A mental shortcut that allows fast but sometimes flawed judgments is a... Answer: Heuristic
Heuristics are quick rules of thumb. They save time but can lead to predictable biases, unlike slower step-by-step algorithms.
- According to Erikson, the central conflict of adolescence is... Answer: Identity vs. role confusion
Erikson believed teenagers work to form a coherent sense of self, the stage he called identity versus role confusion.
- In Piaget's theory, object permanence develops during which stage? Answer: Sensorimotor
Object permanence, knowing things still exist when out of sight, emerges in the sensorimotor stage (birth to about age 2).
- A test that produces consistent results each time it is given is said to be... Answer: Reliable
Reliability is about consistency. Validity, a separate idea, is about whether a test actually measures what it claims to.
- In Freud's model, the part of personality that runs on the 'pleasure principle' is the... Answer: Id
The id seeks immediate gratification. The ego mediates with reality, and the superego acts as the moral conscience.
- Persistent, excessive worry across many areas of life for at least six months describes... Answer: Generalized anxiety disorder
Generalized anxiety disorder involves chronic, free-floating worry that is hard to control and not tied to one specific threat.
- A widely used therapy that targets unhelpful thoughts and behaviors is... Answer: Cognitive-behavioral therapy
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) helps people identify and change distorted thinking and the behaviors tied to it. It has strong evidence behind it.
- The theory that emotions result from our awareness of physiological responses is the... Answer: James-Lange theory
James-Lange says we feel afraid because we notice our heart pounding. We do not run because we are afraid, we are afraid because we run.
- Which statistic describes how spread out a set of scores is? Answer: Standard deviation
Standard deviation measures variability, how far scores typically fall from the average. Mean, median, and mode are measures of central tendency.