Download AP Psychology: Learning Assessment Directions: Read each

AP Psychology: Learning Assessment
Directions: Read each question carefully and choose the
best answer.
researcher compared the two groups of rats to determine
if both groups would find the food at the end of the maze.
According to the researcher, the untrained rats found the
food at the end of the maze as quickly as the trained rats as
a result of:
a. latent learning
b. observational learning
c. avoidance learning
d. counterconditioning
e. aversive conditioning
1. Edward L. Thorndike argued that responses that lead to
satisfying outcomes are more likely to be repeated, and
that responses followed by unpleasant outcomes are less
likely to be repeated. This became known as the law of
a. reinforcement
b. associations
c. punishment
d. effect
e. outcomes
6. A researcher is training laboratory rats to run a complex
maze. Each time the rats learn a new part of the maze they
are rewarded with a pellet of food. Within a few hours, the
rats have learned the entire maze. Which of the following
did the researcher use to teach the rats the maze?
a. shaping
b. generalization
c. negative reinforcement
d. a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement
e. spontaneous recovery
2. The principles of operant conditioning are best
illustrated by:
a. exposing a client to anxiety-provoking stimuli
b. replacing a response to a stimulus with an alternative
response
c. deep relaxation techniques
d. a token economy to reinforce adaptive behaviors
e. development of intrinsic motivation
7. Elizabeth picks up clothes from her bedroom floor and
puts them away to avoid her mother’s repeated nagging.
Elizabeth’s behavior is being influenced by:
a. classical conditioning
b. positive reinforcement
c. negative reinforcement
d. extinction
e. punishment
3. In phase one of a study, a researcher classically
conditions a dog to salivate to the ringing of a bell. In the
second phase, the researchers pair a flashing light with the
ringing of the bell. After several pairings of the light and
the bell, the dog will:
a. no longer salivate when the bell is rung
b. only salivate when the bell is rung
c. salivate when the light is flashed
d. stop salivating when the light is flashed
e. salivate when the researcher comes into the room
8. A person eats a hamburger at a restaurant and develops
a very bad stomachache after finishing eating. As a result
of the sudden illness, the person cannot eat hamburgers
anymore. Just thinking about them makes the person feel
sick to the stomach. In this scenario, the thought of a
hamburger is:
a. an unconditioned stimulus
b. an unconditioned response
c. a conditioned stimulus
d. a conditioned response
e. a negative reinforcer
4. Which of the following statements best describes the
role of biological processes in classical conditioning?
a. A biologically-based unconditioned stimulus (UCS) must
immediately follow a conditioned stimulus (CS) for
learning to occur.
b. Any novel or familiar stimulus could serve as a CS
because the biological mechanisms underlying learning
are very powerful.
c. Because all animals share a common cellular history, the
laws of classical conditioning apply to all species.
d. Certain species are biologically predisposed to learn
particular associations that enhance their survival.
e. Biological reinforcers foster learning more quickly than
do environmental reinforcers.
9. Which of the following is most likely to characterize the
behavior of students who have high achievement
motivation and are intrinsically motivated to play a
musical instrument?
a. If promised a reward for practicing a difficult piece of
music selected by the teacher, they will practice more than
if they selected the piece by themselves.
5. In a classic study, a group of rats learned to run through
a maze to obtain food, and another group of rats explored
the maze without receiving food. Some time later, the
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b. If permitted to choose their own pieces of music, they
will select very difficult ones that are beyond their present
ability to play.
c. If permitted to choose their own pieces of music, they
will select easy pieces that they can master in one practice
session.
d. If permitted to choose their own pieces of music, they
will select moderately difficult pieces that they can master
if they practice them conscientiously.
e. They will enjoy practicing the piano more if their
parents promise them a reward for mastering each piano
piece.
e. Positive reinforcers are more effective than punishers.
14. Early behaviorists believed that psychology should
NOT focus on “the mind” because “the mind” is:
a. too complex
b. genetically determined
c. largely conscious
d. unobservable
e. environmentally determined
15. Rats in an experiment learned to associate sweetened
water with a drug that causes immune suppression. Later
the sweetened water alone produced the immune
suppression. This outcome is an example of which of the
following?
a. learned helplessness
b. systematic desensitization
c. operant conditioning
d. classical conditioning
e. biofeedback
10. John Garcia showed that when rats ingested a novel
substance before becoming nauseated from radiation or
drugs, they acquired a:
a. conditioned taste preference for the substance
b. generalized taste preference for similar substances
c. conditioned taste aversion for the substance
d. conditioned taste aversion for any novel substance
e. conditioned taste preference for any novel substance
16. A teacher taught her students to take turns by giving
them stars to trade for snacks at the end of the day. This
technique is called:
a. systematic desensitization
b. token economy
c. classical conditioning
d. rational-emotive therapy
e. free association
11. John B. Watson was a pioneer in which of the following
perspectives of psychology?
a. biological
b. functionalism
c. psychoanalytical
d. structuralism
e. behaviorism
12. After seeing her parents give her brother a dollar for
cleaning his room, Sarah begins cleaning her own room.
According to social-learning theorists, Sarah’s behavior is
an example of which of the following?
a. classical conditioning
b. spontaneous recovery
c. stimulus generalization
d. discrimination training
e. observational learning
17. Punishment
a. Is a good way to increase a behavior as long as it is not
used too frequently.
b. May create problems in the short term but rarely
produces long-term negative side effects.
c. Is effective because it is a quick, direct way of informing
the learner of what behavior is expected.
d. May happen frequently because if the punished person
stops misbehaving for a while this reinforces the punisher.
e. Should never be used in the opinion of most
psychologists.
13. Research indicates that many animals are more likely
to associate sickness with a taste they experienced in
conjunction with the illness than with a tone or light. This
finding supports which of the following claims?
a. The tone or light must not have been appropriately
paired with the onset of illness.
b. Illness is not necessarily punishing to subjects.
c. Animals may be biologically prepared to learn some
things over other things.
d. Extrinsic reinforcers may be more effective than
intrinsic reinforcers.
18. Which of the following is an application of shaping?
a. a mother playing catch with her daughter gradually
backs up to increase the distance between the two of them.
b. A pigeon pecks a disk 25 times for an opportunity to
receive a food reinforcement.
c. A rat presses a bar when a green light is on but not when
a red light is on.
d. A rat gradually stops pressing a bar when it no longer
receives a food reinforcement.
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e. A gambler continues to play a slot machine even though
he has won nothing on his last 20 plays.
23. To produce the acquisition of a conditioned response,
one should
a. repeatedly present an unconditioned response.
b. administer the conditioned stimulus without the
unconditioned stimulus.
c. make sure that the conditioned stimulus comes at least
one minute before the unconditioned stimulus.
d. pair a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus
several times.
e. present the conditioned stimulus until it starts to
produce an unconditioned response.
19. Mirror neurons may
a. allow an organism to replace an unconditioned
response with a conditioned response
b. help produce intrinsic motivation in some children
c. be the mechanism by which the brain accomplishes
observational learning
d. produces the neural associations that are the basis of
both classical and operant conditioning
e. explain why modeling prosocial behavior is more
effective than modeling negative behavior
24. To determine just what an organism can learn to
distinguish, you would use
a. generalization
b. a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement.
c. a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement.
d. extinction
e. a discriminative stimulus.
20. Which of the following illustrates generalization?
a. A rabbit that has been conditioned to blink to a tone also
blinks when a similar tone is sounded.
b. A dog salivates to a tone but not to a buzzer.
c. A light is turned on repeatedly until a rat stops flexing
its paw when it’s turned on.
d. A pigeon whose disk pecking response has been
extinguished is placed in a skinner box three hours later
and begins pecking the disk again.
e. A child is startled when the door bell rings.
25. A student studies long and hard to avoid the bad
feelings associated with a low grade on a test. In this case,
the studying behavior is being strengthened because of
a. positive reinforcement.
b. negative reinforcement.
c. delayed reinforcement.
d. primary reinforcement.
e. conditioned reinforcement.
21. Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments demonstrated
that
a. children are likely to imitate the behavior of adults.
b. there may be a correlation between televised violence
and aggressive behavior, but it is probably not a causeeffect relationship.
c. children are more likely to copy what adults say than
what adults do.
d. allowing children to watch too much television is
detrimental to their development.
e. observational learning can explain the development of
fears in children.
26. Mary checks her phone a couple times an hour for
incoming text messages. Her behavior is being maintained
on a _____ reinforcement schedule.
a. fixed interval.
b. variable interval.
c. variable ratio.
d. fixed ratio.
e. continuous.
22. Edward Thorndike’s law of effect
a. establishes the difference between positive and negative
reinforcement.
b. shows that behavior maintained by partial
reinforcement is more resistant to extinction than
behavior maintained by continuous reinforcement.
c. demonstrates how shaping can be used to establish
operant conditioning.
d. states that rewarded behavior is more likely to happen
again.
e. relates to the limited effectiveness of punishment.
27. A dog is trained to salivate when it hears a tone. Then
the tone is sounded repeatedly without a US until the dog
stops salivating. Later, when the tone sounds again, the
dog salivates again. This is a description of
a. spontaneous recovery.
b. extinction.
c. generalization.
d. discrimination.
e. acquisition.
28. Latent learning demonstrates that
a. punishment is an ineffective means of controlling
behavior.
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b. negative reinforcement should be avoided when
possible.
c. cognition plays an important role in operant
conditioning.
d. conditioned reinforcers are more effective than primary
reinforcers.
e. shaping is usually not necessary for operant
conditioning.
c. salary adjustments based on the quality of work
performed
d. paying employees at the end of each day
35. The schedule of reinforcement in which a set number
of responses must be made for each reward is called
a. fixed ratio
b. fixed interval
c. variable ratio
d. variable interval
29. Classical and operant conditioning were both initially
based on the principles of
a. cognitive psychology.
b. biological psychology.
c. behaviorism.
d. evolution.
e. animal thought processes.
36. Once Pavlov's dogs learned to salivate to the sound of
a tuning fork, the tuning fork was a(n)
a. unconditioned stimulus
b. neutral stimulus
c. conditioned stimulus
d. unconditioned response
e. conditioned response
130. Your handsome successful boyfriend winks at you
4each time before he tells you "I love you." Your
.expectation when he winks is a(an)
.a. unconditional stimulus.
b. conditioned response.
c. conditioned stimulus.
d. unconditional response.
37. Shaping is
a. pattern of responses that must be made before classical
conditioning is completed
b. rewarding behaviors that gets closer and closer to the
desired goal behavior
c. completing a set of behaviors in succession before a
reward is given
d. giving you chocolate pudding to increase the likelihood
you will eat more carrots
e. inhibition of new learning by previous learning
31. The process through which a response is taught by
rewarding successive approximations to the final desired
response is
a. extinction.
b. fading.
c. shaping.
d. secondary reinforcement.
38. John loves to fish. He puts his line in the water and
leaves it there until he feels a tug. On what reinforcement
schedule is he rewarded?
a. continuous reinforcement
b. fixed ratio
c. fixed interval
d. variable ratio
e. variable interval
32. A child who occasionally gets rewarded with candy
after asking her grandmother for a “treat” is being
rewarded on a_____________________schedule.
a. fixed ratio
b. variable ratio
c. fixed interval
d. partial interval
39. Chimpanzees given tokens for performing tricks were
able to put the tokens in vending machines to get grapes.
The tokens acted as
a. primary reinforcers
b. classical conditioning
c. secondary reinforcers
d. negative reinforcers
e. unconditioned reinforcers
33. When you are first learning golf, you may hit one or
two great shots in an entire round. You are being
reinforced on what kind of partial reinforcement schedule?
a. fixed interval
b. fixed ratio
c. variable ratio
d. variable interval
40. Which of the following best reflects negative
reinforcement?
a. Teresa is scolded when she runs through the house
yelling.
b. Lina is not allowed to watch television until after she has
finished her homework.
c. Greg changes his math class so he doesn't have to see his
old girlfriend.
d. Aditya is praised for having the best essay in the class.
34. A corporate pay policy comparable to a fixed ratio
schedule of reinforcement is
a. paying employees a fixed salary
b. payment of employees on a piece-work basis
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e. Alex takes the wrong medicine and gets violently ill
afterwards.
a. innate responses of an organism preventing new
learning and associations
b. unconscious meaning that is attributed to new response
patterns
c. response patterns that become extinguished gradually
over time
d. delayed responses that occur when new stimuli are
paired with familiar ones
e. learning that occurs in the absence of rewards
41. Watson and Rayner's classical conditioning of "Little
Albert" was helpful in explaining that
a. some conditioned stimuli do not generalize
b. human emotions such as fear are subject to classical
conditioning
c. drug dependency is subject to classical as well as
operant conditioning
d. small children are not as easily conditioned as older
children
e. fear of rats and rabbits are innate responses previously
undiscovered
47. Rats were more likely to learn an aversion to bright
lights and noise with water if they were associated with
electric shocks rather than with flavors or poisoned food.
This illustrates
a. insight
b. preparedness
c. extinction
d. observational learning
e. generalization
42. Jamel got very sick after eating some mushrooms on a
pizza at his friend's house. He didn't know that he had a
stomach virus at the time, blamed his illness on the
mushrooms, and refused to eat them again. Which of the
following is the unconditioned stimulus for his taste
aversion to mushrooms?
a. pizza
b. stomach virus
c. mushrooms
d. headache
e. aversion to mushrooms
48. Which of the following responses is not learned
through operant conditioning?
a. a rat learning to press a bar to get food
b. dogs jumping over a hurdle to avoid electric shock
c. fish swimming to the top of the tank when a light goes on
d. pigeons learning to turn in circles for a reward
e. studying hard for good grades on tests
43. If a previous experience has given your pet the
expectancy that nothing it does will prevent an aversive
stimulus from occurring, it will likely
a. be motivated to seek comfort from you
b. experience learned helplessness
c. model the behavior of other pets in hopes of avoiding it
d. seek out challenges like this in the future to disprove the
expectation
e. engage in random behaviors until one is successful in
removing the stimulus
49. Spontaneous recovery refers to the
a. reacquisition of a previously learned behavior
b. reappearance of a previously extinguished CR after a
rest period
c. return of a behavior after punishment has ended
d. tendency of newly acquired responses to be intermittent
at first
e. organism's tendency to forget previously learned
responses, but to relearn them more quickly during a
second training period
44. While readying to take a free-throw shot, you suddenly
arrive at the answer to a chemistry problem you'd been
working on several hours before. This is an example of
a. insight
b. backward conditioning
c. latent learning
d. discrimination
e. the Premack Principle
50. Every time Baxter raised his hand in class, Mrs. Tulley
called on him. What schedule of reinforcement is Baxter’s
hand rising on?
a. intermittent reinforcement
b. fixed-interval
c. continuous reinforcement
d. fixed ratio
e. variable ratio
45. If the trainer conditions the pigeon to peck at a red
circle and then only gives him a reward if he pecks at the
green circle when both a red and green circle appear, the
pigeon is demonstrating
a. matching-to-sample generalization
b. abstract learning
c. intrinsic motivation
d. insight
e. modeling
51. Timmy has just recently begun clearing his
plate after he finishes his meal. Timmy’s
mother really likes this new behavior and
would like to see more of it. Which schedule of
reinforcement should Timmy’s mother use to
strengthen Timmy’s new behavior of clearing
his plate?
a. variable ratio
b. intermittent reinforcement
46. Latent learning is best described by which of the
following?
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

c. fixed ratio
d. continuous reinforcement
e. variable interval
B. Provide a specific example of actions the
Smith-Garcias might take to raise their child
to produce positive outcomes using each of
the theories below to address the
corresponding psychological concept.
 Skinner’s operant conditioning: tantrum
management
 Bandura’s social learning theory: sharing
behavior
 Ainsworth’s attachment research: selfreliance
 Baumrind’s research on parenting styles: selfesteem
PSYCHOLOGY FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Directions: Read the questions carefully and answer
completely for full credit. It is not enough to answer
a question by merely listing facts. You should present
a cogent argument based on your critical analysis of
the question posed, using appropriate psychological
terminology. All responses must be answered in blue
or black ink only.
Q1 (10 pt): Learning has been heavily researched by
psychologists. Three of the types of learning are



Operant conditioning
Classical conditioning
Observational learning
A. Explain the process by which each type of
learning occurs, clearly discussing each
component of the learning paradigm.
B. Give an example of each type of learning from
everyday life.
C. Imagine you are a farmer who wants his cows
to learn to come to a new feeding station—
one they are unaccustomed to—when he
honks his truck’s horn.




Ainsworth’s attachment research
Baumrind’s research on parenting styles
Using the terms below, discuss how you might
condition the cows to this new behavior.
Shaping
Extinction
Negative reinforcement
Discrimination
Q2 (8 pt): The Smth-Garcias are planning for their
first baby. Both parents-to-be have had a psychology
course and are looking forward to applying the
principles they learned from theories and research
that address child development.
A. Summarize one main idea or finding of each
of the following four researchers:
 Skinner’s operant conditioning
 Bandura’s social learning theory
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