Past Exam – 2003Exam 1

Question 1The central nervous system is mostly made up of cells calledA. interneurons.B. motor neurons.C. sensory neurons.D. afferent neurons.

Question 2Which of the following statements about neurons is correct?A. afferent neurons make the connection between motor and sensory neuronsB. efferent neurons make the connection between motor and sensory neuronsC. afferent neurons carry information from the sensory organs to the central nervous systemD. efferent neurons carry information from the sensory organs to the central nervous system

Use the following information to answer Questions 3, 4 and 5.While Madison was repairing a roof she fell eight metres to the ground. As a result of the fall, Madison now has trouble understanding and remembering what her customers say to her.

Question 3The lobe of the brain most likely affected in this case is theA. frontal lobe.B. parietal lobe.C. occipital lobe.D. temporal lobe.

Question 4If Madison had become more argumentative, was unable to order the right amounts of tiles or roofing nails, and made inappropriate remarks to her customers, the lobe of the brain most likely affected would be theA. frontal lobe.B. parietal lobe.C. occipital lobe.D. temporal lobe.

Question 5If Madison had lost the ability to process visual information, the lobe of the brain most likely affected would be theA. frontal lobe.B. parietal lobe.C. occipital lobe.D. temporal lobe.

Question 6Merv had a stroke. After the stroke he complained of loss of feeling to touch in his right hand. The area of the brain that is most likely to be damaged isA. the left motor cortex.B. the right motor cortex.C. the left somatosensory cortex.D. the right somatosensory cortex.

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Question 7Reflexes happen at the level of theA. spinal cord.B. parietal lobe.C. hypothalamus.D. cerebral cortex.

Question 8You have just been stung by a bee. Which division of the peripheral nervous system transmits the pain associated with the sting to the central nervous system?A. parasympatheticB. sympatheticC. autonomicD. somatic

Question 9When the sympathetic nervous system is activated, which of the following changes occur in the body?A. the blood pressure decreases and the pupils dilateB. the blood pressure increases and the pupils dilateC. the blood pressure decreases and the pupils contractD. the blood pressure increases and the pupils contract

Question 10The autonomic nervous system is responsible forA. the movement of skeletal muscles.B. the functioning of internal organs.C. receiving sensory information.D. receiving motor information.

Question 32Adrienne is completing a test. During the task, Adrienne has thoughts about the part-time work roster her employer changed recently, the party she is attending the next day and the prospect of getting her Learners Permit next week. What is the best way of describing her state of consciousness?A. normal waking consciousnessB. altered state of consciousnessC. focused state of consciousnessD. selective state of consciousness

Question 33Ross is finding it difficult to go about his normal daily routine because he is in an altered state of consciousness.This altered state of consciousness is characterised byA. a distorted sense of time.B. being more in control of emotions.C. improved coordination of muscle movements.D. thoughts being more structured and organised.

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Question 34Richard, a keen coffee drinker, is in the middle of making a cup of coffee when the phone rings. He answers the phone and is able to finish making his cup of coffee while talking to his friend on the speakerphone. For Richard, making the cup of coffee can be consideredA. an automatic process; because it was completed with minimal awareness and did not interfere with the other task.B. a controlled process; because it was completed with minimal awareness and did not interfere with the other task.C. an automatic process; because it involved alert awareness and mental effort.D. a controlled process; because it involved alert awareness and mental effort.

Question 35Daydreams are similar to lucid dreams in that they bothA. occur during REM sleep.B. occur during waking hours.C. have a degree of conscious control.D. are not experienced more than once per day.

Question 36The restorative theory of sleep proposes that sleepA. protects an organism from predators.B. enables damaged cells to be repaired.C. allows the organism to conserve energy.D. occurs at particular times programmed by the brain.

Question 37Studies of individuals involved in sleep deprivation generally report that changes to their ability to function in normal waking consciousness start to occur after about _______ days, and usually involve the inability to complete _________ tasks.A. three; simpleB. ten; complexC. ten; simpleD. three; complex

Question 38Which of the following statements is most correct about a typical night’s sleep?A. periods of NREM sleep become more frequent as the night progressesB. periods of REM sleep become less frequent as the night progressesC. periods of NREM sleep become longer as the night progressesD. periods of REM sleep become longer as the night progresses

Question 39Delta waves are most commonly observed during which sleep stages?A. 1 and 2B. 2 and 3C. 3 and 4D. 4 and REM

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Question 41Evan quickly falls asleep not long after going to bed. Soon after, Evan’s body suddenly jolts and he wakes up. These body jolts are known asA. hypnagogic hallucinations.B. sleep paralysis.C. hypnic jerks.D. cataplexy.

Question 42When we experience Stage 1 sleep, the emerging brain-wave patterns are likely to be _________ waves, which indicate ___________ frequency and ___________ amplitude.A. alpha; high; lowB. delta; low; lowC. beta; high; highD. theta; low; high

Question 1Describe two common features of the organisation of the primary sensory cortex and the primary motor cortex.

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2 marks

Question 2

Tick the three correct features of both Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia in the following table.

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Question 3Sally had an operation to help control her epilepsy. In the operation Sally’s corpus callosum was cut. A picture of a tree was presented to her left visual field. She could not spontaneously name what she had seen. Why?

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2 marks

Question 4Rhonda is a talented painter and is excelling in her visual arts class. However, she struggles in some of her other classes, particularly mathematics. Her mother tells her that she is a ‘right-brain’ thinker. This is a common oversimplification. Explain what is wrong with this comment.

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2 marks

Question 5Describe the three steps in neural processing that connect the sensation of a pin prick to your finger to you pulling away from the stimulus.

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3 marks

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Question 13Name and describe three ways in which altered states of consciousness differ from normal waking consciousness.

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Question 15Mrs Steele notices that her students are not alert and appear sleepy in her afternoon class. She decides that the class should have EEG and GSR readings taken. These will show whether the students are alert or sleepy.

i. Explain what the GSR measures.

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1 mark ii. How can the EEG be used to determine if a person is in an alert state?

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Question 16Ravi is an environmental activist. He is on a protest in an old growth forest. As a part of his protest Ravi sits in a tree all day and all night. Ravi needs to stay awake continuously so that he does not fall out of the tree.After five days and nights, the timber company finally agrees not to cut down the trees and Ravi goes home for a good night’s sleep. i. Describe two specific psychological and two specific physiological effects of prolonged sleep deprivation. Psychological effects

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Physiological effects

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ii. What will be the long-term harmful effects of Ravi’s sleep deprivation?

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1 mark

Question 17Francis suffers from severe anxiety whenever he sees a spider. He consulted a psychologist to try and control his anxiety. The psychologist told Francis that he had to learn to relax without medicine or drugs. The psychologist taught Francis to monitor his heart rate, control his breathing and generally use his psychological responses to change the way his body reacted to seeing spiders.The psychologist used two types of treatment.

1. Francis was connected to a device that monitored his vital signs, and sent a signal that could be heard when his vital signs differed from the normal range.2. Francis learnt some exercise strategies that focused on his breathing in order to stay calm when he encountered a

spider.

i. The procedure used by the psychologist to self-monitor physiological responses to seeing spiders is known as

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1 mark

iii. What was the name of the other technique used by the psychologist to make Francis become more relaxed while viewing spiders?

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1 mark

Exam 2

Question 1If you have a tip-of-the-tongue experience, you would probably be unable to immediately ____________ the word you were trying to remember.A. recallB. rereadC. relearnD. recognise

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Question 2Which sequence represents the flow of information following a training experience?A. storage → encoding → retrievalB. retrieval → encoding → storageC. encoding → storage → retrievalD. storage → retrieval → encoding

Questions 3, 4 and 5 relate to the following informationMarcus has just started a part-time job in a plant nursery.On his first day, he was given a list of 20 common plant names and asked to learn them. He spent some time learning this list. At the start of his next shift, his boss gave him two tasks.Task 1: Marcus was asked to write down as many of the plant names as he could remember from the original list.Marcus was then given a short break before completing Task 2.Task 2: Marcus was given a list of 50 common plant names, including the previous 20 plant names from the original list, and asked to circle the plants that were on the original list.

After completing the tasks, Marcus was then given the original list again and asked to study it again. The following week he repeated the two tasks.

Question 3Task 1 was a ________ task while Task 2 was a _________ task.A. relearning; recallB. recognition; recallC. recall; recognitionD. recognition; relearning

Question 4Which of the following statements is most likely to be correct?A. Repeating Task 1 a week later is a more sensitive measure of retention than the original Task 1.B. Repeating Task 2 a week later is a less sensitive measure of retention than the original Task 2.C. Task 1 is a more sensitive measure of retention than Task 2.D. Tasks 1 and 2 are both relearning tasks.

Question 5Marcus spent less time relearning the list the second time. His boss could calculate the savings score by using which of the following equations?A. number of original repetitions – number of relearning trials × 100 number of relearning trialsB. time for original learning – time for relearning × 100 time for original learningC. time for relearning – time for original learning × 100 time for original learningD. time for relearning – time for original learning × 100 time for relearning

Question 6Anwar has just turned off his alarm clock yet he can still hear the sound of it ringing. This effect is due to ____________ memory.A. episodicB. workingC. iconicD. echoic

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Question 7Visual and auditory stimuli are first registered in ourA. short-term memory.B. long-term memory.C. sensory memory.D. iconic memory.

Question 8Procedural memory is the memory used forA. riding a bike.B. fixing a tyre puncture.C. knowing the names of famous cyclists.D. remembering the road rules for cyclists.

Question 9Maintenance rehearsal involvesA. relating new information to previously learned information.B. transferring the information from STM to LTM.C. repetition of information in LTM.D. repetition of information in STM.

Question 10Which of the following statements about semantic network theory is correct?A. the stronger the association, the quicker the retrievalB. the stronger the association, the slower the retrievalC. the weaker the association, the longer the retentionD. the weaker the association, the shorter the retention

Question 11Ebbinghaus’ early studies on forgetting noted that most material is forgottenA. slowly at first but at a rapid rate from 7 days after learning.B. at a steady rate for the first month after learning.C. between 8 and 24 hours after learning.D. soon after learning.

Question 12Sam was involved in a car accident in which he hit his head. As a result he was unable to remember anything about the few days before the accident. Sam is suffering fromA. Alzheimer’s disease.B. retrograde amnesia.C. anterograde amnesia.D. retroactive interference.

Question 13In Godden and Baddeley’s study of context-dependent memory cueing, divers were asked to learn a list of words either underwater or on land. They were then asked to recall the words when they were either underwater or on land. The results indicated thatA. the divers recalled the same amount of information in either context.B. the greater the similarity between the two conditions the stronger the effect of context.C. material retrieved in one context was better recalled if it was learned in the same context.D. material learned in one context was better recalled if it was retrieved in a different context.

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Question 14Your grandfather can recall very well what happened during his experiences in World War II. However, he can not remember who won the football last Saturday. This is strong evidence against which one of the following explanations of forgetting?A. decay theoryB. interference theoryC. retrieval failureD. motivated forgetting

Question 15People sometimes use the phrase Never Eat Soggy Wheeties to remember compass directions. This is an example of the mnemonic ofA. narrative chaining.B. method of loci.C. an acronym.D. acrostics.

Question 31In which of the following types of research study does the experimenter have the most control over the participants?A. in-depth interviewB. correlational studyC. experimental studyD. naturalistic observation

Question 32In a repeated measures designA. different participants are used in both the control and experimental conditions.B. the same participants are used in both the control and experimental conditions.C. different participants with similar characteristics are used in both the control and experimental conditions.D. the same participants are used in one trial of both the control and experimental conditions and different participants

are then used in subsequent trials.

Question 33In research into drugs that modify behaviour, a placebo controls forA. experimental error.B. experimental procedure.C. participants’ expectations.D. experimenter expectations.

Question 34Which of the following statements can be most accurately concluded from a correlation of − 0.85 between hours of television watched and level of happiness?A. Happy people watch a lot of television.B. Unhappy people watch a lot of television.C. Watching television makes people happy.D. Watching television makes people unhappy.

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Questions 35 – 40 relate to the following informationDr Vogel is studying the effects of caffeine on behaviour. She deprives 30 first-year university students of sleep for 24 hours before the experiment begins. She divides her participants into two groups of 15 by picking their names out of a hat.Experimental GroupThe 15 students in the experimental group are given a capsule containing a dose of caffeine equivalent to five cups of strong coffee.Control GroupThe other group is given an apparently identical capsule containing powdered sugar only.The students are then tested on their ability to perform a number of complex arithmetic problems.

Question 35The independent variable of the experiment isA. mental alertness.B. hours of sleep deprivation.C. amount of caffeine consumed.D. performance on complex arithmetic problems.

Question 36The dependent variable of the experiment isA. mental alertness.B. hours of sleep deprivation.C. amount of caffeine consumed.D. performance on complex arithmetic problems.

Question 37A confounding variable that was not controlled in the study may have been theA. gender of the participants.B. education of the participants.C. level of fatigue of the participants.D. amount of caffeine consumed by the participants.

Question 38The control participants received ___________________ while the experimental participants received ___________________ .A. caffeine; powdered sugarB. powdered sugar; caffeineC. complex problems; simple problemsD. simple problems; complex problems

Question 39What design was used in Dr Vogel’s study?A. correlationalB. matched subjectsC. independent groupsD. repeated measures

Question 40Which of the following procedures could best improve Dr Vogel’s study?A. single blindB. double blindC. random sampleD. placebo-controlled

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Question 41A psychologist was studying the leisure activities of primary school students. In order to choose participants, the psychologist selected a random age sample of students from each class level. This sample was in the same proportion that the age groups occur in the target population. This method of selecting participants is known asA. random sampling.B. stratified sampling.C. participant allocation.D. stratified random sampling.

Question 42Which of the following statements is the best example of an operational hypothesis?A. that most young people, especially those under 30 years of age, consume a lot of alcoholB. that young people in the 18 to 25 year age group consume more alcohol each week than people in the 40 to 45 year

age groupC. that most young people, especially those under 30 years of age, drink alcohol and drive cars while under the

influenceD. that young people in the 18 to 25 year age group consume more alcohol today than in earlier decades

Question 43

Which of the following statements best describes the results in the graph above?A. There is a strong positive correlation between the two variables.B. There is a weak positive correlation between the two variables.C. There is a strong negative correlation between the two variables.D. There is a weak negative correlation between the two variables.

Question 44Philip Zimbardo conducted research into role expectations. In this research Zimbardo recruited volunteers and then allocated them to play the roles of either prisoners or prison guards. During the experiment some of the participants became distressed and wanted to quit the experiment. Zimbardo, however, insisted that the participants continue.Which of the ethical guidelines that now govern psychological research did this experiment disregard?A. deceptionB. informed consentC. withdrawal rightsD. voluntary participation

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Question 45Researchers debrief participants by informing them ofA. the names of the other participants in the study.B. the right to withdraw from the study at any time.C. the nature and reason for any deception that was used.D. the details of why the chosen statistical analysis was used in the experiment.

Question 1a. Research findings indicate that for most people the duration (in seconds) of short-term memory, without rehearsal,

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1 mark

b. Describe what the process of chunking involves and provide an appropriate example.

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2 marks

Question 2At the beginning of class, Mr Foster read out a list of 15 unrelated words. The students were told to listen carefully and try to remember the list. Immediately afterwards Mr Foster asked the students to write down as many words as they could remember from the list.a. i. Which part of the word list (initial, middle and/or end of list) would the students be most likely to remember?

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ii. Why?_______________________________________________________________________________________________

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1 + 2 = 3 marks

The students were not given another opportunity to rehearse the word list.b. Which part of the word list (initial, middle and/or end of list) would the students be most likely to recall 24 hours

later? ___________________________________________________________________________________1 mark

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Question 3Nina had a long conversation over the phone with her friend. When she finished, Nina tripped and fell heavily. She was knocked unconscious and ended up in hospital. According to the consolidation theory, Nina would not be expected to remember the telephone conversation when she regained consciousness.Why?

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2 marks

Question 4In which form of long-term memory would the following pieces of information be stored?Indicate your answer by placing a tick ( ) in the correct boxes.

Question 5a. The term that Sigmund Freud used to describe the process of unconsciously removing a distressing memory from

conscious awareness is

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1 markForgetting can be due to proactive interference.b. Describe proactive interference and give an example.

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2 marks

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Question 12a. What are inferential statistics?

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b. When are inferential statistics useful in data analysis?

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c. What implications can researchers draw from data analysis where inferential statistics are used?

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Question 13Health researchers have known for a long time that there is a link between foods which have a high fat content and the risk of atherosclerosis (a form of heart disease). Food manufacturers have seen a marketing opportunity and developed foods that are low in fats but still taste good.One example of this is yoghurt. Traditionally yoghurt was made from whole milk. Now there are many varieties of yoghurt from ‘no fat’ to ‘low fat’ including the traditional ‘whole milk’ variety.A group of psychology students wanted to investigate whether or not people who bought low fat yoghurt thought that it tasted as good as the traditional whole milk yoghurt.a. State a hypothesis for examining this issue in operational terms.

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1 mark

The students used the repeated measures design. b. State two benefits of using this design.

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Question 14a. What is counterbalancing?

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1 markb. Explain why it is used.

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2 marks

Question 15Contrast the conclusions that can be drawn from a study that measures the correlation between variables with a study that uses a full experimental design.

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Question 16Name an ethical practice in the conduct of psychological research. Describe how disregarding this ethical consideration might lead to invalidity of the data gathered from the study.

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Question 17What is the difference between random allocation and random sampling?

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2 marks

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