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AP Psychology: Memory, Cognition, and Learning — quiz
18 multiple-choice questions covering Retrieval practice, Reinforcement schedules, Classical conditioning, Framing, Functional fixedness. One answer each; you get a score at the end and the explanation for every question. No account needed.
Updated 2026-10-24. Keys 1–4 pick an answer, Enter moves on. Redo it any time, in order or shuffled.
The questions
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- Retrieval practice
Two students prepare for the same exam. One rereads her notes five times; the other closes her notes and repeatedly quizzes himself on the material, checking answers only afterward. Based on memory research, which strategy should produce better long-term retention, and why?
- Both approaches will produce identical retention
- Rereading the notes several times, because repeated exposure deepens memory traces
- Taking practice quizzes without looking at notes, because retrieving information strengthens memory more than passive review
- Neither approach matters more than natural forgetting over time
- Reinforcement schedules
A gambler keeps pulling a slot machine lever for hours because payouts arrive after an unpredictable number of pulls. Which reinforcement schedule explains this especially high and steady response rate?
- Variable-ratio schedule
- Variable-interval schedule
- Fixed-ratio schedule
- Fixed-interval schedule
- Classical conditioning
After Pavlov's dog stopped salivating to a tone that no longer predicted food (extinction), the dog was given a rest period. When the tone was presented again, the dog briefly salivated once more. What does this reappearance of the response illustrate?
- Stimulus discrimination between tones
- Stimulus generalization to a similar tone
- Acquisition of a new conditioned response
- Spontaneous recovery of the previously extinguished response
- Framing
A patient is more likely to agree to a surgery when told it has a '90% survival rate' than when told it has a '10% mortality rate,' even though the numbers mean the same thing. What explains this shift in decision-making?
- Framing effect
- Representativeness heuristic
- Confirmation bias
- Availability heuristic
- Functional fixedness
In a classic problem-solving task, participants are given a candle, a box of tacks, and matches, and asked to attach the candle to a wall. Many fail because they only think of the box as a container for tacks, not as a possible platform. What is blocking their solution?
- Confirmation bias
- Functional fixedness
- Availability heuristic
- Algorithm failure
- Representativeness heuristic
Told that Linda is outspoken and majored in philosophy, many people judge it more likely that she is 'a bank teller who is active in the feminist movement' than simply 'a bank teller,' even though the first option is statistically less probable. This error is best explained by which concept?
- Representativeness heuristic
- Framing effect
- Confirmation bias
- Availability heuristic
- Availability heuristic
After a week of heavy news coverage about a shark attack, beachgoers become convinced shark attacks are common, even though they remain statistically rare. Which mental shortcut explains this overestimation?
- Confirmation bias
- Framing effect
- Representativeness heuristic
- Availability heuristic
- Working memory
A psychologist describes memory not as a passive storage box but as an active system with a central executive that coordinates a phonological loop (sound) and a visuospatial sketchpad (images) while you solve a problem. Whose model is this?
- Craik and Lockhart's levels of processing
- Loftus's misinformation model
- Atkinson-Shiffrin three-stage model
- Baddeley's working memory model
- Amnesia types
After a car accident, a patient can still recall his entire childhood clearly, but cannot remember new events from one hour to the next. What type of memory loss does this describe?
- Retrograde amnesia
- Source amnesia
- Anterograde amnesia
- Proactive interference
- Misinformation effect
A witness to a car accident is asked, 'How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?' A week later, she recalls seeing broken glass at the scene, even though there was none. What does this illustrate?
- Flashbulb memory distortion
- Source amnesia
- Misinformation effect
- Confirmation bias
- Interference
After learning a new WiFi password, a man suddenly finds it hard to recall his old password, which he used for years. What type of interference is happening?
- Retroactive interference
- State-dependent forgetting
- Proactive interference
- Source amnesia
- Spacing effect
One student studies for an exam in one long overnight session, while another studies the same material in short sessions spread across three weeks. Despite equal total study time, the second student scores higher. What principle explains this?
- Testing effect
- Spacing effect
- Serial position effect
- Massed practice effect
- Context-dependent memory
Scuba divers who memorize a word list underwater recall it better when tested underwater again than when tested on land, even though the words themselves never changed. What does this demonstrate?
- State-dependent memory
- Source amnesia
- Mood-congruent memory
- Context-dependent memory
- Recall vs recognition
A student finds that a multiple-choice question on the exam is much easier to answer than a fill-in-the-blank question covering the same fact. What best explains this difference?
- The serial position effect makes multiple-choice easier
- Recall and recognition rely on identical cognitive processes
- State-dependent memory explains the difference
- Recognition only requires identifying the right answer among options, which is generally easier than recall
- Flashbulb memory
Many people vividly remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard about a major national tragedy, and feel completely certain their memory is accurate. Research shows these memories, while emotionally vivid, often contain significant errors. What are these memories called?
- Misinformation effect
- Flashbulb memory
- Eidetic memory
- Source amnesia
- Hippocampus & memory types
After having his hippocampus removed, a patient could learn and improve at a new mirror-tracing motor task day after day, yet each day he had no memory of ever practicing it before. What does this pattern best demonstrate?
- The cerebellum is responsible for semantic memory
- The amygdala controls procedural memory formation
- The hippocampus stores all implicit memories permanently
- Implicit memories like motor skills don't depend on the hippocampus the way explicit memories do
- Serial position effect
When asked to recall a grocery list right after hearing it, a person remembers the first few and last few items best, but struggles with the items in the middle. What is this pattern called?
- Chunking
- Recency effect alone
- Serial position effect
- Primacy effect alone
- Chunking
A person finds it much easier to remember a 10-digit phone number when it's broken into groups, like 555-123-4567, instead of as ten separate digits. What memory strategy explains this improvement?
- Self-reference effect
- Chunking
- Method of loci
- Mnemonic device
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