Question 1

Ingrid tried to darken her naturally blond hair with store-bought colour and accidentally dyed it black.When she and her friend Minka go to the gym,she notices a woman looking in their direction."Everybody's staring at me!" she says."Ingrid," Minka replies,"you pick out the one woman in the whole gym who's staring,just to prove your point!" By looking for evidence that confirms what she believes rather than evidence that does not,Ingrid is relying on the

Accepted Answer

A)  confirmation bias. 
B)  representativeness heuristic. 
C)  availability heuristic. 
D)  algorithm.

Question 2

Cheyenne is reading a book on improving her memory skills.The book teaches a variety of mnemonic devices and memory strategies and encourages the reader to think about which approaches she feels will help her most.In other words,the book suggests that the reader use

Accepted Answer

A)  metamemory. 
B)  incubation. 
C)  mental rotation. 
D)  functional fixedness.

Question 3

When Thierry goes through a fast-food restaurant drive-thru,he knows that he will pull his car up to a speaker and wait until he is greeted.He also knows that after he places his order he should drive forward and give his money to the person in the window.That person will then give him his food,and he will drive away.In other words,Thierry has a/an _____________ for going through a drive-thru.

Accepted Answer

A)  functional fix 
B)  confirmation bias 
C)  script 
D)  availability heuristic

Question 4

Nadalia is a physician who works in the emergency room at a local hospital.In medical school,she learned a variety of schemas that help her decide who needs immediate care,what kinds of sicknesses patients have,and how best to treat them.Her patients rely on her to know what to do to help them.Based on this information,we can say that Nadalia has _______________ in emergency medicine.

Accepted Answer

A)  propositions 
B)  expertise 
C)  mental rotation 
D)  wisdom

Question 5

Sam enjoys action movies,science fiction novels,weightlifting,and football.One day Sam hopes to become an aerospace engineer or a physics professor.Based on this information,most people will assume that Sam is male due to the _____________ heuristic.

Accepted Answer

A)  divergent 
B)  base rate 
C)  representativeness 
D)  probability

Question 6

Part of what makes human beings unique is that we are able to think better and communicate more effectively than other animals do.The images,ideas,concepts,and principles that we use to transfer ideas and skills to one another are called

Accepted Answer

A)  surface structures. 
B)  deep structures. 
C)  mental representations. 
D)  syntax.

Question 7

Charlotte is a jeweller.A friend asks if she knows where violet diamonds come from.Charlotte replies that she has never seen a violet diamond,so they must not exist.Charlotte's _________________ reasoning may be in error.

Accepted Answer

A)  premise 
B)  conceptual 
C)  inductive 
D)  deductive

Question 8

In 1970,Spencer Silver was trying to formulate a strong adhesive for the 3M Company,and one of his failed attempts resulted in an extremely weak adhesive.Four years later,frustrated by how often his markers fell out of his church hymnal,Arthur Fry coated them with Silver's adhesive.The markers stayed in place but could be peeled out of the book without damaging the pages.Post-it Notes are now one of the top five-selling office products in the United States.Fry's novel approach is a good example of

Accepted Answer

A)  functional fixedness. 
B)  divergent thinking. 
C)  the confirmation bias. 
D)  the availability heuristic.

Question 9

In 1970,Spencer Silver was trying to formulate a strong adhesive for the 3M Company,and one of his failed attempts resulted in an extremely weak adhesive.Four years later,frustrated by how often his markers fell out of his church hymnal,Arthur Fry coated them with the adhesive.The markers stayed in place but could be peeled out of the book without damaging the pages.Post-it Notes are now one of the top five-selling office products.If Silver and Fry had just thrown the adhesive out because it hadn't done what it was supposed to,they would have been demonstrating

Accepted Answer

A)  functional fixedness. 
B)  divergent thinking. 
C)  the confirmation bias. 
D)  the availability heuristic.

Question 10

Whenever Leslie's father gets home before 6:00 p.m. ,she knows he finished work early and will probably be in a good mood.The last two times he came home early he took Leslie to dinner.Leslie hears her father's car pull into the garage at 5:30 p.m.and thinks,"We're going out to dinner!" Leslie is using

Accepted Answer

A)  deductive reasoning. 
B)  inductive reasoning. 
C)  general reasoning. 
D)  invalid reasoning.

Question 11

Human children begin to master language without any formal instruction,and languages throughout the world have common underlying structural characteristics.These two things suggest an inborn tendency to learn language that is called a

Accepted Answer

A)  Language Acquisition Device (LA
D) . 
B)  Syntax Acquisition Adapter (SA
A) . 
C)  Morphophonemic tendency (MPT). 
D)  Language Learning Link (LLL).

Question 12

While trying to learn what a dog is,Arash mentally compares every animal to his family's new puppy.If the animal is similar enough,he decides that it is also a dog.Arash's puppy serves as a _______________ for the concept of dog.

Accepted Answer

A)  proposition 
B)  heuristic 
C)  concept 
D)  prototype

Question 13

Human language has a hierarchical structure,with the most elementary building blocks being the units of sound that are recognized as separate in any given language.These building blocks are called

Accepted Answer

A)  phonemes. 
B)  morphemes. 
C)  syntax. 
D)  discourse.

Question 14

The brains of men and women appear to process language differently.Research shows that men who suffer left-hemisphere strokes are more likely than women to show severe aphasic symptoms,which suggests that

Accepted Answer

A)  the corpus callosum is integral to language use. 
B)  more of women's language function is shared between the right and the left hemispheres. 
C)  men have fewer language-processing neurons than do women. 
D)  women rarely use their left hemispheres.

Question 15

Kaspar and Jasmine have an opportunity to place their six-year-old son,Darius,into a bilingualism program.If they enrol him,half of his classes will be conducted in Spanish and the other half in English.Since Kaspar struggled with school,he worries that Darius will too,especially if he has to learn Spanish on top of everything else.Jasmine argues that bilingualism will actually improve Darius's other cognitive abilities.Who is correct?

Accepted Answer

A)  Jasmine.Research shows that bilingualism is correlated with higher self-esteem,greater thinking flexibility,and higher performance on nonverbal intelligence tests. 
B)  Jasmine,but only because bilingual programs tend to hire extremely intelligent teachers. 
C)  Kaspar,because whenever someone learns a second language,the brain tries to overwrite the first one with the new information. 
D)  Kaspar,because Darius is already past the critical period to learn a second language.

Question 16

In 1965,Fred Smith wrote a management class paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service.His professor gave him a C,because "the concept is interesting and well-formed,but in order to earn better than a C,[it] must be feasible." Smith ignored his professor's statement and founded Federal Express (FedEx),a company that is now worth more than $3 billion.Smith's professor wanted him to stick to business solutions that were proven,not come up with something "outside the box." In other words,Smith's professor was relying on a/an

Accepted Answer

A)  mental set. 
B)  deductive approach. 
C)  inductive approach. 
D)  litmus test.

Question 17

You are able to read this sentence because you understand a system of symbols and rules that create messages and meanings.This system is called

Accepted Answer

A)  representational reasoning. 
B)  Chomsky's system. 
C)  species symbolism. 
D)  language.

Question 18

Dr.Katse tells students,"If I hit a glass with a feather,the glass will break.Now,imagine that I hit a glass with a feather.What happens?" Most students will say that the glass will not break,even though Dr.Katse has just told them it would,because in the real world feathers can't break glasses.This tendency to abandon logical rules in favour of personal beliefs is called

Accepted Answer

A)  inductive reasoning. 
B)  a belief bias. 
C)  deductive reasoning. 
D)  a discourse.

Question 19

Bryson's psychology professor asks his students to think about their personal cognitive abilities,then to guesstimate where they would fall on the intelligence scale.In other words,the professor is asking the students to use

Accepted Answer

A)  propositions. 
B)  metacognition. 
C)  mental rotation. 
D)  overconfidence.

Question 20

Kirima moved to Germany with her parents and little brother Leif when she was 13 and Leif was 4.Ten years later,both Kirima and Leif speak German and English,but Leif is more fluent with German than is Kirima and he has no accent in either language.This

Accepted Answer

A)  shows that Chomsky's theory about a language acquisition device is wrong. 
B)  proves that males are better with foreign languages than females. 
C)  could have happened only if Leif's elementary education was better than Kirima's. 
D)  suggests that children have a sensitive period for language acquisition.

Exam 9: Language and Thinking