Question 1

A major source of cultural bias in IQ tests is that members of different cultures may:

Accepted Answer

A)  understand English with different degrees of sophistication 
B)  have different levels of knowledge of Western culture 
C)  be evaluated differently by the people giving and scoring the test 
D)  a and b

Question 2

In a psychology study, people are asked which is more likely: an earthquake that kills 100,000 people or an earthquake in California that kills 100,000 people. Far more people will say that the earthquake in California is more likely, even though there are clearly more earthquakes than there are earthquakes in California. This is an example of the:

Accepted Answer

A)  confirmation bias 
B)  framing effect 
C)  representativeness heuristic 
D)  availability heuristic

Question 3

Georgina has fallen while rock climbing and sustained damage to her primary visual cortex. Which psychological functions would you expect to see impaired in Georgina as a result of her injury?

Accepted Answer

A)  perception 
B)  categorization 
C)  categorization and imagery 
D)  perception and imagery

Question 4

Many school systems advocate having children who turn five just before the school entry deadline wait a year so that they will be more socially mature when they start kindergarten. What does the literature on IQ scores suggest about a possible consequence of this approach?

Accepted Answer

A)  The delayed schooling may lower their IQs. 
B)  They may have higher IQs when they start school. 
C)  There may be effects on achievement but not on IQ. 
D)  Added social maturity may facilitate IQ development.

Question 5

When David first moved to Austin he had to rely on the GPS in his car. Over time, David found that he could navigate the city without using his GPS. David must have developed a ____________ of the city.

Accepted Answer

A)  symbolic representation 
B)  mental representation 
C)  prototype 
D)  set of defining attributes

Question 6

Dr. Carbajal is conducting brain scans of people as they complete different cognitive tasks. She plans to examine the results to determine how information is processed in these tasks. What approach is Dr. Carbajal using toward the study of intelligence?

Accepted Answer

A)  biological 
B)  analytical 
C)  psychometric 
D)  cognitive

Question 7

The Binet test provides an inaccurate measure of intelligence in adults because chronological age ____________ mental age.

Accepted Answer

A)  can be more accurately measured than 
B)  increases more rapidly than 
C)  continues to increase without an increase in 
D)  is unitary and there are multiple forms of

Question 8

A surgical team was operating in a rural hospital without a backup electrical generator when the power went out. To provide light for the surgery, they collected all the cellphones in the hospital and turned them on. The operation was able to proceed because the surgical team avoided ____________ and ____________ the problem.

Accepted Answer

A)  functional fixedness; restructured 
B)  mental sets; correctly analyzed 
C)  affective forecasting; gained insight into 
D)  the availability heuristic; reframed

Question 9

According to the defining attribute model, which is the most important feature of the category horse?

Accepted Answer

A)  It can gallop. 
B)  It can bear live young. 
C)  It can breathe. 
D)  a, b, and c are all equally important.

Question 10

Dr. LeCap is taking brain scans of people while they do simple cognitive tasks. He notices that the event-related potential waves of 20 of the participants occurred significantly faster than the waves of the other 50 participants. Dr. LeCap could conclude from this finding that the 20 people with faster event-related potential waves were ____________ than the 50 people with the slower waves.

Accepted Answer

A)  more intelligent 
B)  more highly motivated 
C)  working harder and more intelligent 
D)  more highly motivated and working harder

Question 11

Jack and Kate both have demanding jobs and too little time for their relationship. They decide that one of them needs to step down in their careers, but can't agree on which one. Their marriage counsellor is trying to get them to see that other solutions are possible. In doing this, the counsellor is encouraging them to ____________ their problem.

Accepted Answer

A)  gain insight into 
B)  minimize the impact of 
C)  rationalize 
D)  restructure

Question 12

Dr. Smartypants has just come up with a new test to measure people's artistic ability, in which he has them solve five math equations. Dr. Smartypants's new test lacks:

Accepted Answer

A)  reliability 
B)  stability 
C)  adaptability 
D)  validity

Question 13

Annie is moving from one apartment to another. She has three cats and only one cat carrier. She puts one cat in the carrier, one cat inside her large slow cooker, and turns her laundry basket upside down on top of the third in the car. Annie clearly does not have a problem with:

Accepted Answer

A)  mental sets 
B)  functional fixedness 
C)  working backward 
D)  restructuring

Question 14

Almost all empirical psychology studies that rely on sampling, hypothesis testing, and statistical analysis rely on the concept of ____________ to generalize findings to a population.

Accepted Answer

A)  inductive reasoning 
B)  deductive reasoning 
C)  heuristic decision making 
D)  algorithmic decision making

Question 15

Rhianna is going out to dinner on a first date with Michael. He shows up in jeans and a T-shirt while she shows up in a very elegant dress. Rhianna is upset because she thinks Michael's casual dress meant that he did not think enough of her to want to look good. She might be comforted if she knew that she and Michael probably have conflicting ____________ of a date.

Accepted Answer

A)  concepts 
B)  scripts 
C)  prototypes 
D)  schemas

Question 16

Why do people use cognitive biases in their thinking even though using them can result in bad decisions?

Accepted Answer

A)  These biases will likely result in good decisions. 
B)  Bad decisions are less serious using the biases. 
C)  The biases produce bad decisions in unimportant situations. 
D)  The biases produce good decisions in critical cases.

Question 17

Chiamaka has curly black hair, dark skin, and is an excellent musician. Kara has straight red hair, white skin, and is great at basketball. Approximately what percentage of their genetic code would be the same?

Accepted Answer

A)  10 percent 
B)  49 percent 
C)  99 percent 
D)  55 percent

Question 18

Meagan's economics professor argues that people are optimal decision makers. Her psychology professor argues that people are often irrational decision makers. Her economics professor believes in a ____________ model of human decision making; her psychology professor believes in a ____________ model.

Accepted Answer

A)  normative; descriptive 
B)  normative; normative 
C)  descriptive; descriptive 
D)  descriptive; normative

Question 19

Which of the following potential questions for an IQ test would show the LEAST cultural bias?

Accepted Answer

A)  filling in a missing word 
B)  finding the next block in a sequence 
C)  completing an analogy problem 
D)  doing an arithmetic problem

Question 20

When you think of a car, knowledge such as "it is a form of transportation" is ____________; knowledge such as "it has an engine" is ____________.

Accepted Answer

A)  general knowledge; object-specific knowledge 
B)  instrumental knowledge; objective knowledge 
C)  shared knowledge; object-specific knowledge 
D)  syntactic knowledge; semantic knowledge

Exam 8: Thinking and Intelligence