Deck 9: Human Intelligence

Question 1

An elementary school child is given a test designed to determine whether or not she should be placed in a class of "gifted" children.The test is probably

A) an intelligence test.
B) an achievement test.
C) a personality test.
D) a vocabulary test.

Answer 1

an intelligence test.

Question 2

In trying to make a decision about a career that would fit your abilities and interest, you would probably want to take a test that would measure your potential or talent for specific kinds of activities.A test that would measure this sort of potential would most likely be

A) an achievement test.
B) an aptitude test.
C) an intelligence test.
D) a test of general mental ability.

Answer 2

an aptitude test.

Question 3

The two very broad categories of psychological tests are

A) mental ability and personality tests.
B) intelligence and achievement tests.
C) interest tests and aptitude tests.
D) aptitude and attitude tests.

Answer 3

mental ability and personality tests.

Question 4

The test you are currently taking is an example of what kind of test?

A) an achievement test
B) an intelligence test
C) an aptitude test
D) a test of your psychology potential

Question 5

Francis has applied for admission to a computer science programme, and one of the requirements for admission is the completion of a test that measures sequencing skills and abstract reasoning skills.Her score on this test will be a major factor in the decision about whether to admit her to the programme.In this case, the test that Francis is scheduled to take would be classified as

A) an achievement test.
B) a projective test.
C) a normative test.
D) an aptitude test.

Question 6

Ishmael and Aliyah were enrolled in different sections of the same course.When Aliyah was taking her midterm exam, there was a lecture being held in the next room.This distracted her and made it difficult for her to concentrate on her exam.When Ishmael wrote his midterm exam, the room next door was empty and he had no distractions.In this example, the administration of the midterm exam for this course

A) did not have high test-retest reliability.
B) was not standardised across the two course sections.
C) would have poor construct validity.
D) did not have adequate test norms.

Question 7

Interested in learning how to fly airplanes, Roger has just taken a test designed to predict how well he is likely to do in a pilot training program.Roger has taken a(n)

A) achievement test.
B) aptitude test.
C) intelligence test.
D) test of general mental ability.

Question 8

Information about where a particular score on a test falls in relationship to some group is given by

A) standardisation information.
B) test outcome data.
C) test reliability.
D) test norms.

Question 9

The fact that a test is given with uniform procedures in administration and scoring means that the test has been

A) normed.
B) standardised.
C) converted to percentiles.
D) converted to deviation scores.

Question 10

The fact that two people taking the same test in two different places will receive the same instructions, the same questions, and the same time limits means that the test has been

A) synchronised.
B) standardised.
C) validated.
D) regulated.

Question 11

Any psychological test should be seen as

A) measuring the person's typical behaviour.
B) tapping the constancies of a person's behaviour.
C) a sample of a person's behaviour.
D) tapping a person's absolute level of performance.

Question 12

Which of the following does NOT characterise a psychological test?

A) Psychological tests allow one to predict behaviour with great accuracy.
B) Psychological tests are samples of behaviour.
C) Psychological tests are standardised measures of behaviour.
D) Psychological tests measure individual differences.

Question 13

An achievement test measures

A) a person's mastery and knowledge of a subject.
B) general mental ability.
C) talent for specific kinds of learning.
D) basic characteristics of one's personality.

Question 14

When Francesca took the ACT Assessment this year, she was allowed to use a graphing calculator on the mathematics portion of the exam.Her older sister is surprised, because when she took the test six years ago, calculators were not allowed for any portion of the exam.This suggests that

A) it would be difficult to meaningfully compare Francesca's score with the score her sister obtained.
B) Francesca probably earned a higher score on the exam than her sister did.
C) the current form of the ACT Assessment has poor construct validity.
D) Francesca's score is probably less reliable than her sister's score.

Question 15

Maria has just completed a two-year internship with a law firm.She takes a test that is designed to assess her current knowledge of general legal principles.In this case, the test that Maria takes would be classified as

A) an intelligence test.
B) an aptitude test.
C) an achievement test.
D) a projective test.

Question 16

Which of the following statements concerning psychological tests is false?

A) aptitude tests assess specific types of mental abilities
B) personality tests measure various aspects of personality including motives, interests, and values
C) intelligence tests measure a person's mastery and knowledge of various subjects
D) mental ability tests include intelligence, aptitude, and achievement tests

Question 17

At the end of her calculus course, Margaret takes a test to determine how well she has mastered the material.Her calculus test is primarily

A) an achievement test.
B) an intelligence test.
C) an aptitude test.
D) a test of her math potential.

Question 18

Standardised tests designed to predict how well you will do in college are most appropriately called

A) aptitude tests.
B) intelligence tests.
C) personality tests.
D) predictive tests.

Question 19

If a psychological test is intended to tell you how you score relative to other people, test ____ must be developed.

A) norms
B) scores
C) scales
D) levels

Question 20

If you wanted to gauge a person's mastery and knowledge in a specific area, such as mathematics, you would need to administer

A) an achievement test.
B) an aptitude test, such as the Differential Aptitude Test (DAT).
C) a self-report inventory.
D) an intelligence test, such as the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS).

Question 21

Which British scholar concluded in his book Hereditary Genius that success runs in families because great intelligence is passed from generation to generation through genetic inheritance?

A) Theodore Simon
B) Alfred Binet
C) Francis Galton
D) Lewis Terman

Question 22

Galton attempted to measure intelligence in order to demonstrate that intelligence was determined by

A) heredity.
B) experience.
C) neither heredity nor experience.
D) both heredity and experience.

Question 23

Who pioneered the idea that the bell curve could be applied to psychological characteristics?

A) Alfred Binet
B) Charles Spearman
C) Francis Galton
D) Theodore Simon

Question 24

Many human traits, including intelligence, show a normal distribution.This means that

A) most cases are near the middle of the distribution.
B) most cases are near the edges of the distribution.
C) cases are equally frequent across the entire distribution.
D) few cases are near the middle of the distribution.

Question 25

The Binet-Simon scale of intelligence expressed a child's score in terms of

A) mental age.
B) a potential score.
C) a percentile score.
D) an intelligence quotient.

Question 26

Reliability refers to the ____ of a measuring device such as a test.

A) consistency
B) predictability
C) accuracy of inference
D) representativeness

Question 27

When tested on the Binet-Simon scale, Ada is found to have a mental age of eight.This means

A) that she is intellectually impaired.
B) that her performance was as good as that of an average eight-year-old child.
C) that her score is eight standard deviation units above the average score.
D) that her IQ is 80.

Question 28

Test-retest procedures are used to determine a test's

A) content validity.
B) reliability.
C) criterion validity.
D) accuracy.

Question 29

Which technique analyses correlations among many variables to identify closely related clusters?

A) standard deviation
B) central tendency
C) factor analysis
D) thematic apperception

Question 30

Brenna took a test designed to measure her creativity.She tells you that her final score on the test was 70.She knows you are taking a psychology class, so she asks you what this score means.You should tell Brenna

A) that you can't interpret her score without knowing the norms for the test.
B) 70 is probably a high score since most tests have a maximum score of 80.
C) she will need to take the test again before her score can be accurately interpreted.
D) 70 is probably a low score since most tests have an average score of 100.

Question 31

When Charmaine was 10 years old, she completed the original Binet-Simon scale.She answered all the questions that a typical six-year-old would answer, but none of the questions a typical seven-year-old would answer.Based on this information, Charmaine's mental age would be

A) 10 years.
B) 6 years.
C) 8 years.
D) 60 years.

Question 32

Which theorist set out to improve on the measurement of intelligence in adults with an intelligence test with two major innovations; the first was that the score was less dependent on a subject's verbal ability and the second was the use of a deviation intelligence quotient?

A) Sir Francis Galton
B) Lewis Terman
C) Theodore Simon
D) David Wechsler

Question 33

IQ scores do NOT routinely increase as we get older because

A) an IQ score is indicative of our relative standing in our particular age group.
B) we do not accumulate that much more information as we get older.
C) the tests are not designed to measure increases in knowledge as we get older.
D) the tests for adults are not comparable to the tests for children.

Question 34

Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon devised the first intelligence test in 1905 in order to

A) predict future life success.
B) provide support for the belief that intelligence is genetically determined.
C) provide support for the belief that intelligence is environmentally determined.
D) predict the school performance of children.

Question 35

The man responsible for developing the first intelligence tests designed to predict the school performance of children was

A) Alfred Binet.
B) David Wechsler.
C) Lewis Terman.
D) Jean Piaget.

Question 36

A symmetrical bell-shaped curve that represents the pattern in which many characteristics, including intelligence, are distributed is the

A) standard distribution.
B) normal distribution.
C) typical distribution.
D) abnormal distribution.

Question 37

In a normal distribution of information, most persons will be found

A) to the far right in the distribution.
B) in the centre of the distribution.
C) to the far left in the distribution.
D) on both extremes of the distribution.

Question 38

If you are told that Philip displays the mental ability typical of an 11-year-old child, you know Philip's ____ is 11.

A) age
B) mental age
C) chronological age
D) estimated age

Question 39

If a test yields nearly identical scores when it is retaken after a two-month interval, the test is said to be

A) valid.
B) reliable.
C) significant.
D) standardised.

Question 40

The term that refers to the measurement of a test that examines whether the measurement is consistent is

A) reliability.
B) predictability.
C) validity.
D) representativeness.

Question 41

The fact that the correlation in IQ scores between identical twins reared apart is higher than that between fraternal twins reared together suggests that intellectual development is

A) influenced more by environmental factors than by genetics.
B) affected equally by genetics and environmental factors.
C) influenced more by genetics than by environmental factors.
D) not affected by either genetics or environmental factors.

Question 42

If a large research study measured the IQs of white middle-class American females and middle-class Japanese males, it is most likely that measures of heritability for the two groups would be

A) different because heritability may vary from one group to another.
B) different because heritability is calculated differently for males and females.
C) similar because heritability is similar for most groups of individuals.
D) similar because heritability is similar for all middle-class groups of individuals.

Question 43

The fact that the correlation in IQ scores between identical twins reared apart is lower than that between identical twins reared together suggests that

A) environmental factors can have an influence on intellectual development.
B) environmental factors have no impact on intellectual development.
C) genetic factors have no impact on intellectual development.
D) identical twins often do not have the same genotype.

Question 44

Most intelligence tests over the years have tended to stress

A) verbal and reasoning skills related to academics.
B) practical intelligence in everyday life.
C) social intelligence and human relationships.
D) general mental ability, which includes verbal, practical, and social intelligence.

Question 45

Correlations between students' IQ scores and their school grades suggest that IQ tests

A) are not a reliable method to predict school performance.
B) are a reasonably reliable method to predict school performance.
C) are not a valid method to predict school performance.
D) are a reasonably valid method to predict school performance.

Question 46

Adoption studies provide support for the influence of

A) environmental factors on intelligence.
B) genetic factors on intelligence.
C) neither environmental nor genetic factors on intelligence.
D) both environmental and genetic factors on intelligence.

Question 47

If environment affects intelligence, you should predict that the IQs of children who stay in understaffed orphanages will

A) gradually decline as they grow older.
B) show the normal increases with development.
C) start out low, but gradually increase as they reach puberty.
D) be fairly normal until they reach puberty, when there will be a sharp decline.

Question 48

The person who is sensitive to others' needs and accepts others for who they are is evidencing the ____ type of intelligence.

A) fluid
B) practical
C) verbal
D) social

Question 49

Experts estimate that the heritability of intelligence is approximately 50%.This suggests that

A) 50% of a person's intelligence is due to genetic inheritance.
B) 50% of a person's intelligence is due to environmental factors.
C) 50% of the variability in intelligence in a population of individuals is due to variations in genetic inheritance.
D) 50% of the difference in average intelligence between different ethnic groups is due to genetic inheritance.

Question 50

Convincing evidence for the role of environmental influences on intelligence is provided by studies that compare

A) adopted children to their biological parents.
B) adopted children to their adoptive parents.
C) children reared by their biological parents to their biological parents.
D) identical twins reared together and fraternal twins reared together.

Question 51

The best evidence supporting the role of genetic factors in intelligence is provided by studies that compare

A) children to both their biological and adoptive parents.
B) identical and fraternal twins.
C) people born in different generations since the 1930s.
D) children raised in poverty and middle-class children.

Question 52

Coleman is currently 30 years old.When he was 15 years old, he took an intelligence test and was told that his IQ score was 110.If Coleman retakes the intelligence test now, he would likely discover that his current IQ score

A) is close to 220, double his previous score.
B) is close to 55, one half his previous score.
C) is similar to his previous score of 110.
D) has little relation to his early score because IQ scores tend to lack reliability.

Question 53

Which of the following is an expression of the nurture side of the nature versus nurture argument?

A) Environmental deprivation has little effect on intellectual performance.
B) An intellectually stimulating environment will be wasted on those who do not have some innate intellectual potential.
C) Intellectual potential is something with which you are born; it is not acquired.
D) An intellectually stimulating environment can lead to noticeable increases in the IQs of disadvantaged children.

Question 54

The use of intelligence tests in making employment hiring decisions

A) is a questionable practice.
B) is becoming standard practice.
C) has been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
D) is a relatively recent development in the United States.

Question 55

Which of the following statements about the influence of culture on the use of IQ tests is MOST accurate?

A) IQ tests are widely used in virtually all cultures.
B) Different cultures have different conceptions of what intelligence is.
C) It is generally accepted across all cultures that it is possible to measure and quantify intellectual ability.
D) Western IQ tests generally translate well into the language and cognitive framework of non-Western cultures.

Question 56

Which of the following six-year-old children would be MOST likely to experience an increase in their IQ over the next few years?

A) Adam, who continues living in an understaffed orphanage
B) Brenda, who recently started living in an understaffed orphanage following the death of her parents
C) Cathy, who was recently adopted from an understaffed orphanage by loving middle-class parents
D) David, who continues living with his loving middle-class parents

Question 57

The fact that adopted children resemble their biological parents in intelligence, even though they were not reared by those parents suggests that intellectual development is

A) influenced more by environmental factors than by genetics.
B) affected equally by genetics and environmental factors.
C) influenced more by genetics than by environmental factors.
D) not affected by either genetics or environmental factors.

Question 58

Which of the following statements BEST characterises the current view regarding the use of tests to predict vocational success?

A) It is illegal to use mental ability tests to evaluate prospective employees.
B) Employers can use any test of mental ability with prospective employees as long as the test has been shown to be reliable.
C) Only tests designed to measure social or practical intelligence are permissible.
D) There is controversy over the use of IQ tests in hiring employees.

Question 59

If the differences in IQ scores among people were entirely a result of genetic factors, you would expect to find that the correlation in IQ scores would be

A) higher for fraternal twins reared together than for identical twins reared apart.
B) higher for identical twins reared together than for identical twins reared apart.
C) the same for identical twins reared together and for identical twins reared apart.
D) lower for identical twins reared together than for identical twins reared apart.

Question 60

Adoption studies comparing the intelligence of adopted children to their ____ provide support for the role of genetic factors in intelligence.

A) biological parents
B) adoptive parents
C) adopted siblings
D) adopted twins

Question 61

Leticia is a prima ballerina with a New York ballet company.According to Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, Leticia is likely to score high in which of the following?

A) interpersonal intelligence
B) spatial intelligence
C) experiential intelligence
D) bodily-kinesthetic intelligence

Question 62

In the first half of the 20th century, a strong current of racial and class prejudice supported the idea that IQ tests measured innate ability and that "undesirable" groups scored poorly because of their genetic inferiority.This development best reflects which of the following themes of your textbook?

A) Psychology is empirical.
B) Psychology is theoretically diverse.
C) Psychology evolves in a sociocultural context.
D) Behaviour is determined by multiple causes.

Question 63

Which psychologist concluded that humans exhibit eight largely independent types of intelligence?

A) Alfred Binet
B) Howard Gardner
C) Arthur Jenson
D) Robert Sternberg

Question 64

In his new version of intelligence testing, David Wechsler included new items that required nonverbal reasoning and discarded the intelligence quotient in favor of a new scoring system based on the normal distribution.

Question 65

The first crude efforts to devise intelligence tests were made by Lewis Terman, who invented correlation to show that intelligence is inherited.

Question 66

Jeremy is very sensitive to sounds, rhythms, the meaning of words, and the different functions of language.According to Gardner, Jeremy has a high level of

A) linguistic intelligence.
B) fluid intelligence.
C) musical intelligence.
D) crystallised intelligence.

Question 67

Which of the following is NOT one of the eight types of intelligence proposed by Gardner?

A) linguistic
B) interpersonal
C) spatial
D) emotional

Question 68

The results of twin studies and adoption studies best illustrate the unifying theme in psychology that

A) people's experience of the world is highly subjective.
B) heredity and environment jointly influence behaviour.
C) psychology is theoretically diverse.
D) psychology evolves in a socio-historical context.

Question 69

According to Howard Gardner, IQ tests have generally emphasised which of the following?

A) spatial and linguistic skills
B) verbal and mathematical skills
C) analytical and practical skills
D) academic and interpersonal skills

Question 70

Following the death of their parents ten years ago, identical twins Glenda and Brenda were placed in an understaffed orphanage.Brenda remained in the orphanage while Glenda was adopted by a loving middle-class couple.Which of the following would be LEAST likely to occur?

A) Glenda will have a higher IQ than Brenda
B) Glenda and Brenda will have the same reaction range for intelligence
C) Brenda will have an IQ near the upper limit of her reaction range
D) Glenda and Brenda will have IQs that differ by ten or more IQ points

Question 71

Reba has an uncanny ability to discern and respond appropriately to the moods, temperaments, motivations, and desires of other people.According to Gardner, Reba has a high level of

A) socio-emotional intelligence.
B) interpersonal intelligence.
C) linguistic intelligence.
D) parapsychotic intelligence.

Question 72

Some critics argue that ____ use of the term "intelligence" is so broad, encompassing virtually any valued human ability, it makes the term almost meaningless.

A) David Wechsler's
B) Alfred Binet's
C) Robert Sternberg's
D) Howard Gardner's

Question 73

Roland is an architect who can design dream homes based on vague ideas and images that his clients bring to him.According to Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, Roland is likely to score high in which of the following?

A) intrapersonal intelligence
B) interpersonal intelligence
C) spatial intelligence
D) logical-mathematical intelligence

Question 74

____________________ is the term that refers to the ability of a test to measure what it was designed to measure and is also used to refer to the accuracy or usefulness of the inferences or decisions based on a test.

Question 75

When he introduced his adult intelligence scale, ____________________ did not use the intelligence quotient scoring scheme that had been part of the Stanford-Binet intelligence test, but instead used a new scoring scheme based on the normal distribution.

Question 76

Davis is a gifted violinist who has been playing the violin since he was two.He started writing his own music when he was four.However, Davis has a difficult time expressing himself with words, and he struggles with all his written assignments for his classes at school.The theory of intelligence that could best be used to account for Davis' different levels of performance in these areas is

A) Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences.
B) Spearman's g-factor theory.
C) Sternberg's triarchic theory.
D) Thurstone's theory of primary mental abilities.

Question 77

Which of the following is NOT one of the eight types of intelligence described by Gardner?

A) mechanical
B) spatial
C) logical-mathematical
D) musical

Question 78

The measurement consistency of a test is known as ____________________ and is measured using a correlation coefficient.

Question 79

Information about where an individual score on a psychological test ranks, in relation to other scores on that test, is provided by ____________________ that are developed through test standardisation.

Question 80

A psychological test is a standardised measure of a sample of a person's behaviour.