Deck 30: Assessing Intelligence

Question 1

Down syndrome is normally caused by

A) an extra chromosome in the person's genetic makeup.
B) a missing chromosome in the person's genetic makeup.
C) malnutrition during the first few months of life.
D) prenatal exposure to an addictive drug.

Answer 1

an extra chromosome in the person's genetic makeup.

Question 2

Some hereditarians have been fearful that higher twentieth-century birth rates among those with lower intelligence scores would shove average intelligence scores progressively downward. This fear has been most directly alleviated by the discovery of

A) the normal curve.
B) the g factor.
C) emotional intelligence.
D) the Flynn effect.

Answer 2

the Flynn effect.

Question 3

University grades are used to assess the ________ of the SAT.

A) content validity
B) reliability
C) standardization
D) predictive validity

Answer 3

predictive validity

Question 4

Sorting children into gifted and nongifted educational groups

A) creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
B) increases social isolation between the groups.
C) promotes racial segregation and prejudice.
D) has all of these effects.

Question 5

The widely used American revision of Alfred Binet's original intelligence test was developed by

A) Charles Spearman.
B) Francis Galton.
C) Lewis Terman.
D) Théodore Simon.

Question 6

Which of the following is most likely to decrease with age?

A) vocabulary
B) accumulated knowledge
C) speed of processing
D) practical intelligence

Question 7

Standardization refers to the process of

A) determining the accuracy with which a test measures what it is supposed to.
B) defining meaningful scores relative to a representative pretested group.
C) determining the consistency of test scores obtained by retesting people.
D) measuring the success with which a test predicts the behavior it is designed to predict.

Question 8

Comparing the intelligence test scores among people from distinctly different age cohorts requires

A) factor analysis.
B) cross-sectional studies.
C) fluid estimates.
D) longitudinal studies.

Question 9

Which of the following statements is true?

A) The predictive validity of intelligence tests is not as high as their reliability.
B) The reliability of intelligence tests is not as high as their predictive validity.
C) Modern intelligence tests have extremely high predictive validity and reliability.
D) The predictive validity and reliability of most intelligence tests is very low.

Question 10

Which of the following is NOT a requirement of a good test?

A) reliability
B) standardization
C) aptitude
D) validity

Question 11

A high school counselor gave Amy a test designed to predict whether she could learn to become a successful architect. Amy most likely took a(n) ________ test.

A) aptitude
B) g factor
C) emotional intelligence
D) factor analysis

Question 12

If course exams assess a student's mastery of a representative sample of course material, they are said to

A) be reliable.
B) have content validity.
C) be standardized.
D) have predictive validity.

Question 13

The bell-shaped distribution of intelligence scores in the general population is called a

A) g distribution.
B) standardization curve.
C) bimodal distribution.
D) normal distribution.

Question 14

The major flaw in cross-sectional research is the virtual impossibility of

A) selecting participants who are similar in every aspect except age.
B) tracking all participants over a number of years.
C) finding volunteers with high IQs.
D) testing concept mastery.

Question 15

The first modern test of intelligence was developed in

A) Germany.
B) Britain.
C) France.
D) Italy.

Question 16

A test designed to assess whether newly graduated medical students should be granted the legal right to practice medicine would most likely be considered a(n) ________ test.

A) g-factor
B) aptitude
C) factor analysis
D) achievement

Question 17

Most of the evidence for an age-related decline in intelligence came from

A) cross-sectional research.
B) longitudinal research.
C) standardized research.
D) random sampling.

Question 18

Mary's bathroom scale always overstates people's actual weight by exactly six pounds. The scale has ________ reliability and ________ validity.

A) low; high
B) high; low
C) low; low
D) high; high

Question 19

Before publishing her test of musical aptitude, Professor Reed first administered the test to a representative sample of people. This was most clearly necessary for test

A) standardization.
B) reliability.
C) heritability.
D) validity.

Question 20

When retested on the WAIS, people's second scores generally match their first scores quite closely. This indicates that the test has a high degree of

A) reliability.
B) content validity.
C) heritability.
D) predictive validity.

Question 21

The basic mental abilities that go into learning and understanding any subject have been classified as

A) crystallized intelligence.
B) plastic intelligence.
C) fluid intelligence.
D) rote memory.

Question 22

The formula for the intelligence quotient was devised by

A) Francis Galton.
B) Alfred Binet.
C) Lewis Terman.
D) William Stern.

Question 23

Over the past 80 years, college aptitude test scores have ________ and WAIS scores have ________.

A) declined; remained stable
B) remained stable; declined
C) risen; declined
D) declined; risen

Question 24

Tests of ________ measure what an individual can do now, whereas tests of ________ predict what an individual will be able to do later.

A) aptitude; achievement
B) achievement; aptitude
C) reliability; validity
D) validity; reliability

Question 25

Who attempted to assess intellectual strengths by measuring muscular power, sensory acuity, and body proportions?

A) Lewis Terman
B) Alfred Binet
C) David Wechsler
D) Francis Galton

Question 26

To assess mental age, Binet and Simon measured children's

A) head size.
B) reasoning skills.
C) muscular power.
D) neural processing speed.

Question 27

Which of the following is a drawback of longitudinal studies of intelligence?

A) They are especially prone to the distortion of cohort effects.
B) People who remain in the study may be the healthiest and most well-educated.
C) The biases of the experimenter are more likely to distort the results than is true of other research methods.
D) All of these are drawbacks.

Question 28

The accumulation of knowledge that comes about with education and experience has been classified as

A) crystallized intelligence.
B) plastic intelligence.
C) fluid intelligence.
D) rote memory.

Question 29

Some psychologists contend that intelligence consists of fluid intelligence, which ________ during adulthood, and crystallized intelligence, which ________.

A) remains stable; declines
B) declines; remains stable
C) increases; declines
D) declines; increases

Question 30

Binet and Simon designed a test of intellectual abilities in order to

A) provide a quantitative estimate of inherited intellectual potential.
B) distinguish between academic and practical intelligence.
C) identify children likely to have difficulty learning in regular school classes.
D) assess general capacity for goal-directed adaptive behavior.

Question 31

To determine whether a child's intellectual development was fast or slow, Binet and Simon assessed the child's

A) divergent thinking.
B) spatial ability.
C) mental age.
D) intrinsic motivation.

Question 32

In his study of children with high intelligence scores, Terman found that

A) the children were more emotional and less healthy than a control group.
B) the children were ostracized by classmates.
C) the children were healthy and well-adjusted, and did well academically.
D) later, as adults, they nearly all achieved great vocational success.

Question 33

If a test designed to indicate which applicants are likely to perform the best on the job fails to do so, the test has

A) low reliability.
B) low content validity.
C) low predictive validity.
D) not been standardized.

Question 34

The test created by Alfred Binet was designed specifically to

A) measure inborn intelligence in adults.
B) measure inborn intelligence in children.
C) predict school performance in children.
D) identify intellectually disabled children so that they could be institutionalized.

Question 35

The Flynn effect refers to the fact that

A) White and Black infants score equally well on measures of infant intelligence.
B) Asian students outperform North American students on math achievement tests.
C) the IQ scores of today's better-fed and educated population exceed that of the 1930s population.
D) individual differences within a race are much greater than between-race differences.

Question 36

Originally, IQ was defined as

A) mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100.
B) chronological age divided by mental age and multiplied by 100.
C) mental age subtracted from chronological age and multiplied by 100.
D) chronological age subtracted from mental age and multiplied by 100.

Question 37

Research indicates that during adulthood declines occur in

A) crystallized intelligence.
B) fluid intelligence.
C) both crystallized and fluid intelligence.
D) neither crystallized nor fluid intelligence.

Question 38

The nineteenth-century English scientist Sir Francis Galton believed that

A) mental abilities cannot be measured.
B) superior intelligence is biologically inherited.
C) academic aptitude involves divergent rather than convergent thinking.
D) intelligence test performance depends on motivation rather than ability.

Question 39

Current intelligence tests compute an individual's intelligence score as

A) the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100.
B) the ratio of chronological age to mental age multiplied by 100.
C) the amount by which the test-taker's performance deviates from the average performance of others the same age.
D) the ratio of the test-taker's verbal intelligence score to his or her nonverbal intelligence score.

Question 40

Psychologists use ________ to assess individuals' mental aptitudes and compare them with those of others.

A) genetic estimates
B) reliability coefficients
C) intelligence tests
D) the g factor

Question 41

Instead of calculating an intelligence quotient, most current intelligence tests represent the test-taker's performance relative to

A) the test-taker's own previous intelligence test performance.
B) the best possible performance of others the same age as the test-taker.
C) the best possible performance of others of any age.
D) the average performance of others the same age as the test-taker.

Question 42

When Brandon was told that he correctly answered 80 percent of the items on a math achievement test, he asked how his performance compared with that of the average test-taker. Brandon's concern was directly related to the issue of

A) standardization.
B) predictive validity.
C) reliability.
D) content validity.

Question 43

In a national sample of 14- to 21-year-olds, total scores on the U.S. SAT correlated ________ with general intelligence test scores.

A) +.26
B) +.54
C) +.82
D) +.98

Question 44

The written exam for a driver's license would most likely be considered a(n) ________ test.

A) achievement
B) reliability
C) aptitude
D) intelligence

Question 45

A test of your capacity to learn to be an automobile mechanic would be considered a(n) ________ test.

A) reliability
B) achievement
C) aptitude
D) intelligence

Question 46

In addition to an overall intelligence score, the WAIS provides separate scores for such skills as

A) divergent thinking.
B) factor analysis.
C) working memory.
D) emotional intelligence.

Question 47

About ________ percent of WAIS scores fall between 85 and 115.

A) 30
B) 50
C) 68
D) 96

Question 48

The distribution of intelligence test scores in the general population forms a bell-shaped pattern. This pattern is called a

A) standardization sample.
B) reliability coefficient.
C) factor analysis.
D) normal curve.

Question 49

In the early twentieth century, the U.S. government developed intelligence tests to evaluate newly arriving immigrants. Poor test scores among immigrants who were not of Anglo-Saxon heritage were attributed by some psychologists of that day to

A) slow reaction time.
B) innate mental inferiority.
C) eugenics.
D) divergent thinking.

Question 50

The normal curve would represent the distribution of

A) the American population in terms of gender.
B) American schoolchildren in terms of their ages.
C) American women in terms of their physical heights.
D) all of these groups.

Question 51

Aptitude tests are to ________ as achievement tests are to ________.

A) current interests; past competence
B) past competence; current interests
C) current competence; future performance
D) future performance; current competence

Question 52

Block design puzzles are used in one of the subtests of the

A) WAIS.
B) SAT Reasoning Test.
C) Stanford-Binet.
D) GRE.

Question 53

Binet and Terman would have been most likely to disagree about the

A) extent to which intelligence is determined by heredity.
B) need to standardize intelligence tests.
C) possibility of predicting people's academic success from intelligence test scores.
D) definition of mental age.

Question 54

If a test is standardized, this means that

A) it accurately measures what it is intended to measure.
B) a person's test performance can be compared with that of a representative pretested group.
C) most test scores will cluster near the average.
D) the test will yield consistent results when administered on different occasions.

Question 55

The eugenics movement would have been most likely to encourage

A) selective breeding of highly intelligent people.
B) creation of special education programs for intellectually inferior children.
C) construction of culturally and racially unbiased tests of intelligence.
D) use of factor analysis for identification of various types of intelligence.

Question 56

Achievement tests are designed to

A) measure the desire and potential capacity to successfully meet challenges.
B) assess ability to produce novel and valuable ideas.
C) compare an individual's personality with those of highly successful people.
D) assess learned knowledge or skills.

Question 57

For the original version of the Stanford-Binet, IQ was defined as

A) mental age multiplied by 100.
B) chronological age subtracted from mental age and multiplied by 100.
C) chronological age divided by mental age and multiplied by 100.
D) mental age divided by chronological age and multiplied by 100.

Question 58

The WAIS was initially created by

A) William Stern.
B) Francis Galton.
C) Théodore Simon.
D) David Wechsler.

Question 59

Who would have been the LEAST enthusiastic about relying on eugenics for the improvement of human intellectual functioning?

A) Francis Galton
B) Alfred Binet
C) Lewis Terman
D) Charles Darwin

Question 60

Tests designed to predict ability to learn new skills are called

A) interest inventories.
B) factor analytic measures.
C) standardized assessments.
D) aptitude tests.

Question 61

Which of the following terms refers to a person's accumulated knowledge and verbal skills?

A) fluid intelligence
B) the g factor
C) divergent thinking
D) crystallized intelligence

Question 62

Psychologists would calculate the relationship between intelligence test scores and school grades in order to assess the ________ of the intelligence test.

A) reliability
B) standardization
C) normal distribution
D) predictive validity

Question 63

If a test yields consistent results every time it is used, it has a high degree of

A) standardization.
B) predictive validity.
C) reliability.
D) content validity.

Question 64

Comparing the average performance of the initial WAIS standardization sample with the average performance of the most recent WAIS standardization sample provides convincing evidence of

A) content validity.
B) the g factor.
C) the Flynn effect.
D) intrinsic motivation.

Question 65

A test that measures or predicts what it is supposed to is said to have a high degree of

A) validity.
B) standardization.
C) reliability.
D) the g factor.

Question 66

Researchers assess the correlation between scores obtained on two halves of a single test in order to measure the ________ of a test.

A) validity
B) reliability
C) standardization
D) normal distribution

Question 67

A measure of intelligence based on head size is likely to have a ________ level of reliability and a ________ level of validity.

A) low; low
B) low; high
C) high; low
D) high; high

Question 68

Your psychology professor has announced that the next test will assess your understanding of sensation and perception. When you receive the test, however, you find that very few questions actually relate to these topics. In this instance, you would be most concerned about the ________ of the test.

A) reliability
B) factor analysis
C) standardization
D) content validity

Question 69

A group of people of very similar age who are participants in a longitudinal study are called a

A) factor.
B) syndrome.
C) cohort.
D) quotient.

Question 70

Academic aptitude test scores are MOST likely to predict accurately the academic success of ________ students.

A) elementary school
B) high school
C) college
D) graduate school

Question 71

Why does the predictive validity of general aptitude tests decrease as the educational experience of the students who take them increases?

A) More educated students have taken aptitude tests so frequently that for them such tests are no longer pure measures of aptitude.
B) Comparisons of mental age with chronological age are inadequate for assessing the aptitude of older and more educated students.
C) There is a relatively narrow range of aptitude test scores among students at higher educational levels.
D) Among more educated students, motivation has a much greater effect on academic success than does aptitude.

Question 72

A cross-sectional study is one in which

A) the same people are retested over a period of years.
B) different age groups are tested at the same time.
C) different characteristic of a given individual are assessed at the same time.
D) the behavior of a group is assessed by different researchers.

Question 73

The same people are tested and retested over a period of years in a(n)

A) factor analysis.
B) longitudinal study.
C) genetic assessment.
D) cross-sectional study.

Question 74

Melinda completed the Computer Programming Aptitude Test when she applied for a position with Beta Electronics. Six months later, she took the same test when she applied for a position with another company. The fact that her scores were almost identical on the two occasions suggests that the test has a high degree of

A) content validity.
B) reliability.
C) predictive validity.
D) standardization.

Question 75

If a road test for a driver's license adequately samples the tasks a driver routinely faces, the test is said to have

A) reliability.
B) a normal curve.
C) content validity.
D) intrinsic motivation.

Question 76

It would be reasonable to suggest that the Flynn effect is due in part to

A) the deteriorating quality of parental involvement in children's education.
B) increasingly improved childhood health.
C) the decreasing reliance on a single test score as an index of mental aptitudes.
D) the failure to restandardize existing intelligence tests.

Question 77

The correlation between academic success and intelligence test scores will be LOWEST if computed for a group of individuals whose scores range between

A) 55 and 100.
B) 85 and 115.
C) 100 and 145.
D) 70 and 130.

Question 78

Comparing the academic performance of those whose scores are extremely low on intelligence tests with those whose scores are extremely high is an effective way to highlight the tests'

A) standardization.
B) heritability.
C) reliability.
D) validity.

Question 79

Cross-sectional research indicated that during early and middle adulthood, aging is associated with ________ levels of intelligence. Longitudinal research indicated that during this period of life, aging is associated with ________ levels of intelligence.

A) increasing; declining
B) declining; stable
C) increasing; increasing
D) stable; declining

Question 80

Older people's capacity to understand the meaning of words does not decline as much as their capacity to engage in abstract reasoning. This best illustrates the stability of

A) emotional intelligence.
B) crystallized intelligence.
C) divergent thinking.
D) fluid intelligence.