Question 1 Standing at an arrival gate, you scan the faces of the passengers as they walk off the plane, looking for your friend. This visual information is being processed in your:

A. parietal lobe.

B. frontal lobe.

C. occipital lobe.

D. temporal lobe

Question 2 When Andrew had his hearing tested, some sounds were too soft for him to detect. These sounds were below his _____ for hearing.

A. transduction threshold

B. Weber’s threshold

C. difference threshold

D. absolute threshold

Question 3 During the middle of a test, your instructor announces that there’s a typographical error on one of the questions. As you listen, the auditory information is being processed in your:

A. frontal lobe.

B. temporal lobe.

C. parietal lobe.

D. occipital lobe.

Question 4 Tim suffers from overwhelming bouts of excessive daytime sleepiness and brief uncontrollable episodes of sleep, called microsleeps or sleep attacks. Tim has:

A. narcolepsy.

B. obstructive sleep apnea.

C. sexsomnia.

D. insomnia. Question 5 When their basement flooded during a torrential rainstorm, Megan and Logan started making jokes about starting a fish farm in the basement to raise money to replace their ruined possessions. Their use of humor to help cope with the situation is an example of:

A. constructive thinking.

B. problem-focused coping.

C. emotion-focused coping.

D. confrontive coping.

Question 6 When sales were down for the third month in a row, the sales manager called a meeting of all sales staff in order to analyze the situation and attempt to come up with some solutions. This example illustrates:

A. emotion-focused coping.

B. problem-focused coping.

C. distancing.

D. a tend-and-befriend coping strategy.

Question 7 When Bernadette first left home to attend college, she felt lonely, isolated, and apprehensive about succeeding in her new academic environment. Bernadette frequently called her best friend Cindy, who was attending college in their home town. Cindy was very supportive, empathetic, and reassuring. Cindy is providing Bernadette with a type of social support called:

A. informational support.

B. financial support.

C. tangible support.

D. emotional support.

Question 8 Tyler is a very competitive and impatient stockbroker who often gets annoyed over insignificant matters. He has a reputation for being hostile and angry and tends to be suspicious, mistrustful, and to blame others for his losses. Tyler is likely to be classified as having a:

A. Type B behavior pattern.

B. low risk of coronary disease but high risk of getting cancer.

C. Type A behavior pattern.

D. low risk of coronary disease and ill health.

Question 9 Dr. García and her colleagues have done extensive research into the effects of life events on health and well-being. She is most likely to conclude that:

A. positive and negative life events are equal in their contribution to levels of stress experienced.

B. people’s cognitive appraisal of events is unrelated to their level of stress.

C. undesirable events are significant sources of stress, but change in itself is not necessarily stressful.

D. positive life events such as getting engaged, finding a job, or taking a vacation have a greater cumulative effect on stress levels than do negative life events such as divorce, death of a spouse, or losing a job.

Question 10 When Carl got to the parking lot, he was distressed to find that his new car had been badly damaged by a hit-and-run driver. At this point, Carl is probably in the _____ stage of the general adaptation syndrome.

A. denial

B. exhaustion

C. alarm

D. resistance

Question 11 The branch of psychology that studies how biological, behavioral, and social factors influence health, illness, medical treatment, and health-related behaviors is called:

A. psychoneuroimmunology.

B. health psychology.

C. biological psychology.

D. social psychology.

Question 12 In psychology, the term sensation formally refers to:

A. a vague feeling of excitement or pleasure.

B. the transformation of physical energy into chemical energy.

C. the process of detecting a physical stimulus.

D. the interpretation and organization of sensory stimuli.

Question 13 This image depicts the sleep cycles over the course of a typical night. In which stage does the brain become much more active, and heart rate, blood pressure, and respirations shift up and down, sometimes extremely?  A. A

B. C

C. D

D. B

Question 14 During stage 4 NREM:

A. the sleeper can easily awaken and become alert.

B. the sleeper is essentially paralyzed and incapable of movement.

C. sleep spindles occur.

D. the sleeper’s heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing rate drop to their lowest levels.

Question 15 In humans, electrical stimulation of the amygdala produces:

A. feelings of fear.

B. awkward, clumsy behavior.

C. grooming or mating behavior.

D. an almost instantaneous onset of sleep.

Question 16 As you are taking this test right now, you are aware of your thoughts, sensations, memories, and different aspects of the surrounding environment. Collectively, this awareness is referred to as:

A. delta brain wave activity.

B. dissociation.

C. consciousness.

D. hypnagogic perception. Question 17 This image depicts the sleep cycles over the course of a typical night. In which stage are night terrors most likely to occur?  A. B

B. D

C. A

D. C

Question 18 The Gestalt psychologists:

A. followed the structuralists in their emphasis on unconscious experience.

B. emphasized that we perceive whole figures rather than isolated bits of information.

C. demonstrated that paranormal phenomena could be scientifically studied.

D. believed that all psychological phenomena could be analyzed in terms of simple units of behavior. Question 19 Almost all of the sensory and motor information going to and from the cerebral cortex is processed through the:

A. pituitary gland.

B. hippocampus.

C. thalamus.

D. hypothalamus.

Question 20 After hiking to a remote area and setting up camp, Brendan and Beth discovered that neither of them had packed any coffee. Over the next few days, both Beth and Brendan had constant low-intensity headaches and felt groggy, sleepy, and listless. Beth and Brendan were experiencing:

A. withdrawal symptoms.

B. caffeine psychosis.

C. drug relapse.

D. tolerance. Question 21 If you are like most people, you experience daily fluctuations in many bodily processes, such as blood pressure, the secretion of hormones, and so on. These daily variations in biological and psychological processes are called:

A. delta brain wave activity.

B. free running conditions.

C. circadian rhythms.

D. REM rebound effects.

Question 22 A large group of students were tested for their ability to distinguish among different tones. Although tone A and tone B were slightly different, more than half of the group thought that they sounded exactly the same. The difference between tone A and tone B can be said to be less than the:

A. subliminal threshold.

B. difference threshold, or just noticeable difference.

C. Weber’s threshold.

D. absolute threshold, or average absolute threshold.

Question 23 The most common sleep complaint among adults is:

A. insomnia.

B. sleep terrors.

C. sleepwalking.

D. nightmares. Question 24 The broad term that refers to a condition in which a person feels psychologically and physically compelled to take a specific drug is:

A. addiction.

B. tolerance.

C. drug psychosis.

D. dependence.

Question 25 Information is transmitted along the axon:

A. by hairlike projections.

B. at the speed of light or 186,000 miles per second.

C. in the form of a brief electrical impulse.

D. by glial cells.

Question 26 Maria heard a strange banging noise just outside her bedroom window in the middle of the night. She froze in fear, and her heart began to pound. Maria’s heightened physical arousal involved the activation of which subdivision of the nervous system?

A. parasympathetic

B. sympathetic

C. endocrine

D. reticular Question 27 As you wait in line at the airport, the guy behind you is standing so close that his briefcase is pushing against your leg. The sensation of the briefcase touching and pushing against you is being processed in your:

A. occipital lobe.

B. frontal lobe.

C. parietal lobe.

D. temporal lobe.

Question 28 Scientific research has documented that hypnosis is effective for:

A. greatly enhancing the ability to accurately recall experiences from early childhood.

B. uncovering unconscious “hidden” personalities.

C. increasing a person’s physical strength and agility to superhuman levels.

D. pain relief.

Question 29 A neuron may have thousands of _____, but can have only one _____.

A. dendrites; axon

B. axons; dendrite

C. cell bodies; dendrite

D. nodes of Ranvier; association area

Question 30 Your pencil starts to roll off the desk and in a smooth, coordinated fashion you grab it just before it rolls off the edge. Your ability to perform this action involved which of the following brain areas?

A. Broca’s area

B. the amygdala

C. the cerebellum

D. the hippocampus Question 31 Barbara is an accountant who works a lot of overtime toward the end of the tax year to finish her clients’ tax returns by the deadline. However, despite the long hours of being under pressure to get the tax returns done on time, Barbara continues to be relaxed and calm. Barbara is:

A. using denial and escape-avoidance to cope with stress.

B. in the alarm stage of the general adaptation syndrome.

C. showing a Type B behavior pattern.

D. showing a Type A behavior pattern. Question 32 John puts one toe into the swimming pool and shivers because the water is so cold. He grits his teeth and dives in anyway. After about ten minutes, the temperature of the water seems quite comfortable to him. This example illustrates the principle of:

A. relative threshold.

B. sensory difference.

C. just noticeable difference, or jnd.

D. sensory adaptation.

Question 33 You’ve been studying biology in the library for the last couple of hours when you realize that you’re getting really hungry and thirsty. Which brain structure played a key role in triggering feelings of hunger and thirst?

A. the hypothalamus

B. the pituitary gland

C. the corpus callosum

D. the hippocampus

Question 34 When a large snarling dog threatened Daniel during his regular morning jog, he experienced the classic symptoms of the fight-or-flight response. According to Walter Cannon, Daniel’s response involves both _____ and _____.

A. serotonin; dopamine

B. the sympathetic nervous system; the endocrine system

C. cognitive appraisal; learned helplessness

D. the parasympathetic nervous system; the endocrine system

Question 35 Following the strict exercise regimen imposed by his doctor, Mark has to choose between two equally unappealing activities: 30 minutes on the exercise bike or 30 minutes on the stair climbing machine. This example of conflict best illustrates an:

A. approach-approach conflict.

B. approach-avoidance conflict.

C. avoidance-approach conflict.

D. avoidance-avoidance conflict. Question 36 During their third year at college, Tammy and Timothy both lost their part-time jobs in the library due to funding cutbacks. Tammy was mildly disturbed, shrugged her shoulders, and said she’d soon get another job. Timothy was distraught and believed he might have to quit college. Their different reactions to the same stressful event emphasizes the importance of:

A. gender differences in response to stressors.

B. quantifying major life events in terms of life change units.

C. cultural differences in response to stressors.

D. their respective cognitive appraisals of the event. Question 37 Neurons are:

A. found only in the spinal cord and bone marrow.

B. highly specialized cells that produce myelin.

C. found in primates and humans, but not in other animals.

D. highly specialized cells that receive and transmit information from one area of the body to another

Question 38 In synaptic transmission, the action potential stimulates the release of:

A. myelin by the glial cells.

B. potassium ions by the glial cells.

C. neurotransmitters by the synaptic vesicles.

D. sodium ions by the dendrites. Question 39 When he is asleep, Doug’s airway becomes narrowed or blocked, causing very shallow breathing and repeated pauses in breathing. This happens from 5 to 30 or more times per hour and disrupts his sleep. Doug suffers from:

A. somnambulism.

B. cataplexy.

C. narcolepsy.

D. obstructive sleep apnea