Deck 8: Complex Cognitive Processes

Question 1

Which of the following is the best example of a learning tactic for learning verbal information?

A) creating a concept map
B) part practice
C) comparing own performance to that of an expert
D) identifying reasons for actions

Answer 1

creating a concept map

Question 2

A procedure that is guaranteed to accomplish a particular goal when correctly implemented is called a(n)

A) algorithm.
B) heuristic.
C) theorem.
D) working-backward strategy.

Answer 2

algorithm.

Question 3

Sgt. York couldn't get a shot at the enemy, who was keeping his head down in a foxhole. "Why, he's acting just like the turkeys back home at the farm!" Sgt.York thought and yelled out his best turkey gobble. The enemy stuck up his head to see what the noise was and found a bullet. What cognition process did the sergeant use?

A) Analogical thinking
B) Deductive logic
C) Overlearning
D) The generate-test method

Answer 3

Analogical thinking

Question 4

You remember that, when you lost your billfold last semester, campus security found it for you. You lost it again this morning and decided to call campus security. The method used to solve this problem is called a(n)

A) heuristic search.
B) means-ends analysis.
C) pattern matching.
D) schema-driven problem-solving process.

Question 5

Metacognition is best defined as

A) knowledge about our own thinking processes.
B) the mechanism that primarily guides all problem-solving.
C) "self-talk" that guides thinking.
D) a heuristic used to promote retention in long term memory.

Question 6

The strategy of solving a crossword puzzle by doing "down" items before "across" items is an example of

A) a heuristic.
B) metacognition.
C) patterning.
D) top-down processing.

Question 7

Which of the following is the best example of a seductive detail?

A) The teacher uses a fictional story to illustrate the ecological implications of pollution.
B) The teacher tells a funny joke about his weekend to change up the pace of a long math lesson.
C) The teacher uses an analogy to illustrate a challenging concept in economics.
D) The teacher uses bold words and headings to focus students' attention on the main ideas.

Question 8

Hernando looked at the problem and exclaimed: "Aha! This is just like when Ahab was obsessed with the great white whale, Moby Dick!" This comment is the result of

A) analogical thinking.
B) deductive logic.
C) overlearning.
D) the generate-test method.

Question 9

Which one of the following students BEST illustrates the state of functional fixedness?

A) Nathaniel, a student who is using a ruler for drawing lines, fails to realize that he can use its metal edge as a scraper to remove paint from his desk.
B) Kathy, a student who is trying to solve a math problem, explores many different strategies until she finds a reasonable answer.
C) Rebecca, a third-grade teacher, sees the second-grade achievement scores for her new class and begins to form expectancies about individuals' abilities.
D) Wendell, who is used to making "d" look like "b," continues to make the same error.

Question 10

What is the "CAPS" strategy best used for?

A) It is a strategy to support inquiry.
B) It is a strategy to support direct teaching.
C) It is a strategy used to support brainstorming.
D) It is a strategy that can be used in reading literature.

Question 11

Greg ponders over a math problem. He looks, frowns, and several minutes pass as he continues to study and shuffle his papers. All at once, he smiles, picks up his pencil, and writes down the correct answer. The suddenness of Greg's solution best exemplifies

A) functional fixedness.
B) insight.
C) problem representation.
D) transfer.

Question 12

Which of the following is NOT a type of knowledge involved in metacognition?

A) declarative knowledge
B) evaluative knowledge
C) procedural knowledge
D) self-regulatory knowledge

Question 13

In using the IDEAL approach to problem solving, the first step is to

A) identify the problem.
B) introduce the problem.
C) isolate the problem.
D) probe for solutions to the problem.

Question 14

Means-ends analysis in problem solving involves

A) beginning at the goal and moving backwards to the unsolved initial problem.
B) distance reduction and dividing a problem into subgoals.
C) limiting the search for solutions having something in common with the problem.
D) using analogical reasoning and heuristics.

Question 15

What is a common problem with students using underlining or highlighting that teachers should be aware of?

A) Students are over-selective and do not highlight or underline enough.
B) Underlining and highlighting are used more than other strategies.
C) Students are under-selective and highlight or underline too much.
D) Underlining and highlighting are only used when studying from textbooks.

Question 16

Current beliefs about problem-solving techniques suggest that domain-specific strategies are

A) more useful than general problem-solving strategies.
B) likely to be used increasingly as experience with a particular subject increases.
C) highly transferable to other domains.
D) unlikely to be used in well-defined subject areas such as mathematics.

Question 17

The main difficulty that occurs when students are too quick to decide what a problem asks is that they may

A) activate an inappropriate schema.
B) become too reflective.
C) experience overgeneralization.
D) rely on heuristics instead of algorithms to solve it.

Question 18

Production deficiencies are best described by

A) how students learn strategies but do not apply them when they could or should.
B) how students can complete work but will cannot express themselves verbally.
C) how students have incomplete learning of problem solving strategies.
D) how students cannot construct effective concept maps even with the use of tools.

Question 19

Which one of the following concepts is consistent with the notion of a heuristic?

A) Analogical thinking
B) Domain specific
C) Exhaustive
D) Guaranteed solution

Question 20

What is the "DEFENDS" strategy best used for?

A) It is a strategy to support inquiry.
B) It is a strategy to support mathematics.
C) It is a strategy to support writing.
D) It is a strategy used to support brainstorming.

Question 21

Gloria thinks about the solution to a problem regarding homelessness in Toronto. She asks herself what she needs to know in order to solve the problem. She tries to think about the problem in different and, possibly, creative ways. She is then able to clarify the problem and propose a potentially useful solution. The aspect of problem solving that Gloria's strategy exemplifies is

A) flexibility.
B) functional fixedness.
C) response set.
D) transfer.

Question 22

Which one of the following people illustrates the best example of creative behavior?

A) Billy uses and established method to solve an algebraic equation on a test.
B) Shamini uses an encyclopedia to find the significance of the date July 4, 1776.
C) Jack pours a solution of acid into a breaker of water in the chemistry lab.
D) Sheryl generates a list of solutions for the recycling problem.

Question 23

Ray learned about divergent rays in physics class when he was studying the effects of lenses. Later, in his psychology class, he immediately understood the concept of "divergent thinking." What learning experience did Ray have?

A) A response set
B) Functional fixedness
C) General transfer
D) Negative transfer

Question 24

Ms. Cricket gave a creative writing assignment on today's film. She allows 10 minutes today and 10 minutes tomorrow to work on it. What component of the creative process is she fostering?

A) Automaticity
B) Elaboration
C) Flexibility
D) Restructuring

Question 25

What is the key to high-road transfer?

A) Analogical thinking
B) Automated transfer of highly practiced skills
C) Mindful abstraction
D) Overlearning

Question 26

One of the conditions for using good learning strategies is that students must

A) be able to work independently
B) understand that ability is more important than effort
C) value and care about learning
D) have speed of learning

Question 27

In order to encourage student creativity, teachers are advised to

A) enhance each student's reliance on authorities for response accuracy.
B) promote convergent thinking and problem-solving skills.
C) reinforce unusual solutions, even if the product is not perfect.
D) work on increasing the speed with which students can identify solutions to problems.

Question 28

Frank was supposed to push three wheelbarrows back to the barn, and he wasn't relishing the idea of three trips. Then in a flash he reorganized the problem. He loaded two wheelbarrows onto the third and made one trip. In doing this, he demonstrated

A) flexibility.
B) functional fixedness.
C) insight.
D) response set.

Question 29

Learning Latin to improve basic intelligence would possibly be inefficient due to

A) general rather than specific transfer taking place.
B) specific rather than general transfer taking place.
C) the impracticality of disciplining mental processes.
D) the irrelevance of the subject.

Question 30

Creativity is thought to be associated directly with what type of thinking?

A) Convergent
B) Deductive reasoning
C) Divergent thinking
D) Intuitive

Question 31

Ms. Martin gave a creative writing assignment on today's film. She allows 10 minutes today and 10 minutes tomorrow to work on it. What component of the creative process is she fostering?

A) Automaticity
B) Elaboration
C) Flexibility
D) Restructuring

Question 32

Sohail gets good grades in his language class but uses incorrect grammar and punctuation in his written work in other classes. This situation suggests a problem with

A) assimilation.
B) encoding.
C) integration.
D) transfer

Question 33

Use of the READS method would probably have questionable benefits for

A) children in early elementary school.
B) encouraging a distributed practice schedule.
C) high school students.
D) improving recall of information from the text.

Question 34

Jennifer had her stomach pumped after she ingested part of an unknown compound in chemistry class. "But at home we always taste things to find out whether they're sugar or salt," she said. Jennifer is a victim of

A) negative transfer.
B) improper coding.
C) intuitive thinking.
D) divergent thinking.

Question 35

Expert teachers don't have to think as hard as beginning teachers due to an ability to

A) access short-term memory.
B) memorize many details.
C) recognize patterns in problems.
D) use logical reasoning.

Question 36

Low-road transfer is exemplified by

A) critical thinking skills to derive an innovative solution to a problem.
B) driving an automatic shift car and forgetting how to drive a standard transmission.
C) relating chess strategy to developing a military battle strategy.
D) using two different hammers to drive nails on different projects.

Question 37

You are teaching a class of students who are very inexperienced in solving problems on their own. What is the most useful strategy for the teacher to use in order to help students solve the problems for a particular unit?

A) Combine the use of guidelines for problem solving with student self-monitoring.
B) Provide an algorithm that specifies the steps for one of the specific problems.
C) Supply general guidelines for problem solving and have students experiment through trial and error.
D) Use teacher demonstrations in conjunction with partner learning.

Question 38

Michael was asked to devise as many uses for a brick as he could. After taking the assignment home to work on further, he came up with over 30 ideas, many of which were not proposed by any other student. All of Michael's ideas dealt with using a brick to break things. In what aspect of creativity proposed by Torrence is Michael lacking?

A) Flexibility
B) Fluency
C) Incubation
D) Originality

Question 39

As she tries to bandage Fang, who was grazed by Mr. Simpson's car, Mary Beth reflects on the principles of pressure and clotting that she learned long ago in a Girl Scout first-aid lecture. This attempt to apply previous learning illustrates

A) high-road transfer.
B) low-road transfer.
C) overlearning.
D) subject structure.

Question 40

Studies of expertise have discovered that chess masters are superior to nonexpert players in

A) conscious analytical thought.
B) domain knowledge.
C) random chess pattern recognition.
D) recognition of meaningful chess patterns.

Question 41

The aspect of means-end analysis that involves distance reduction means pursuing a path that moves directly to the goal.

Question 42

Recognizing a problem as a "disguised" version of an old problem for which one has a solution already is called schema-driven problem solving.

Question 43

What heuristic is Felita most likely applying when she assumes her husband will be late to pick her up since he has been late the last three evenings?

A) Belief perseverance
B) Confirmation bias
C) Availability heuristic
D) Representation heuristic

Question 44

Which strategy is NOT useful when one is trying to solve a problem?

A) analogical thinking
B) functional fixedness
C) verbalizing
D) working-backward

Question 45

Which one of the following transfer stages is NOT one of Gary Phye's stages in developing strategic transfer of learning?

A) Acquisition phase
B) Overlearning phase
C) Retention phase
D) Transfer phase

Question 46

Which type of problem fixation does Keri manifest when she refuses to take a different route home from work, even though it will add 25 minutes to her daily commute from work?

A) functional fixedness
B) response set
C) ill-defined problem
D) obsessive problem solving

Question 47

According to the text, one reason why strategies such as READS are effective is because they require students to study in sections instead of learning all the information at once. This would be most similar to which heuristic?

A) means-end analysis
B) working-backward strategy
C) analogical thinking
D) forward search

Question 48

Means-ends analysis, analogical thinking, functional fixedness, and verbalization are all examples of heuristics.

Question 49

Functional fixedness is a strategy for using an object in an unconventional way.

Question 50

The working backward strategy is sometimes an effective heuristic for solving certain mathematical problems.

Question 51

As domain-specific knowledge increases, general problem-solving strategies are used more frequently.

Question 52

A heuristic that limits one's search for solutions to problems that have something in common is analogical thinking.

Question 53

Before pulling off the bank job, Bugsy had his gang recite the steps of the operation. "Do we hafta, Bugsy?" complained Willy. "We must have been over them steps fifty times already." Bugsy is aware of the benefits of

A) general transfer.
B) making learning meaningful.
C) modeling.
D) overlearning.

Question 54

What does the term "cognitively engage" mean?

A) Focus attention on relevant aspects of the material to be learned.
B) Invest effort in learning the material at hand.
C) Organize and reorganize the material to be learned.
D) Regulate and monitor understanding of the material to be learned.

Question 55

An algorithm is a general strategy that might lead to the right answer to a problem.

Question 56

According to the text, which statement concerning the superior capabilities of experts is FALSE?

A) Experts deal with problems at a deeper level.
B) Experts perceive large, meaningful patterns in given information.
C) Experts spend a small amount of time to analyze a given problem.
D) Experts perform tasks quickly and with few errors.

Question 57

When students do not have existing schemas that suggest an immediate solution to the problem, they must take a schema-driven route to solve the problem.

Question 58

The stage of transfer for strategies in which the teacher should provide new problems that can be solved with the same strategy is the stage of

A) acquisition.
B) overlearning.
C) retention.
D) transfer.

Question 59

Overlearning is the process of practicing a skill

A) for too long, such that retroactive inhibition develops.
B) for too long, such that proactive inhibition develops.
C) past the point of mastery, such that retention is improved.
D) similar to one previously learned, so that positive transfer is realized.

Question 60

A heuristic is a step-by-step prescription for achieving a goal that usually is domain-specific.

Question 61

Woolfolk recommends giving students individual problems as well as group problems.

Question 62

Dividing a problem into a number of intermediate goals and then identifying a means of solving each subgoal is called ________.

Question 63

Metacognition involves only two kinds of knowledge: declarative knowledge, and procedural knowledge.

Question 64

An exhaustive, step-by-step approach for solving a problem, in which a solution is virtually guaranteed is a(n) ________.

Question 65

Having a rich store of knowledge about a topic is necessary, but not sufficient, for creativity.

Question 66

Formulating new answers by going beyond the simple application of previously learned rules to reach a goal is ________.

Question 67

The tendency to respond in the most familiar or rigid way is a response set.

Question 68

The sudden re-conceptualization or reorganization of a problem that clarifies it and suggests a possible solution is ________.

Question 69

An important part of becoming an expert in a field is ________ knowledge.

Question 70

Experts excel relative to novices in applying domain-specific knowledge.

Question 71

One of the visual tools that students can use to enhance understanding of a concept is a Venn diagram or a graphic map or chart.

Question 72

Practicing a skill beyond the point of mastery ensures the enhancement of general transfer of problem-solving skills.

Question 73

The acronym IDEAL identifies the five steps involved in strategies for ________ problem solving.

Question 74

The inability to recognize unconventional uses of familiar objects represents a barrier to problem solving that is referred to as ________.

Question 75

Students who are highly creative tend to be extrinsically motivated.

Question 76

Knowledge about out own thinking processes is _________.

Question 77

Students who have sophisticated learning strategies, and know when to use them, also tend to have high self-efficacy for the learning task.

Question 78

In the retention phase of transfer, teachers should provide plenty of practice with feedback in order for students to hone their strategy use.

Question 79

Researchers have found that exposing individuals to other cultures may increase their creativity.

Question 80

Diagramming relationships by noting causal connections, comparison/contrast connections, and examples is the specific strategy of textual organization.