AP Psychology

To gauge how worthwhile maintaining class blog and your personal weblog on Psychology has been, I would like you to review all your posts and answer the following questions by means of a comment to this post.

1. To what extent did you find the AP Psychology Class Blog helpful in managing the course, providing you with resources and explaining activities?
2. To what extent did maintaining a personal blog in psychology help you learn? (To a large extent.. To some extent… To little extent…)
3. What suggestions do you have to further enhance the use of blogs for teaching and learning?

AP Psychology

Semester 1 2007

Format

The exam will consist of 80 multiple choice questions and one free response question. The free response will focus on research design.

Time : 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Review guide:

History Methods and Approaches

1. Draw a table that identifies the major approaches in psychology. You table should include major contributors, major theories and concepts, strengths and weakness, achievements as well as areas of interest.
2. Identify three definitions of psychology and then write one that combines these ideas.
3. Draw a table that identifies the major types of psychological research. Include strengths and weaknesses.
4. Draw a table of the major sub-branches of psychology.
5. What is a correlation coefficient and how is it expressed?
6. What are the various statistical means of expressing variability and which is considered the best.
7. What are the differences between reliability and validity?
8. What is a placebo?
9. What is a double blind research design?
10. Compare between subject and within subject designs.
11. What is the difference between these types of variables: IV, DV, confounding variable, random variable, and control variable?
12. What does it mean to say that an experiment should operationalise the components of the hypothesis?
13. What does it mean to say that the results are statistically significant?
14. What is introspection?

Biological Bases of Behavior

1. What would be seen as the most startling difference between a human brain and the brain of a rat?
2. Draw a flow chart of the processes involved in a one neuron triggering the action potential of another neuron.
3. Draw a set of diagrams that shows in a step by step manner a neuron at all its possible stages.
4. Draw a table of the major neurotransmitters that describes its normal effects and then include descriptions of behavior if there is a deficit and an overabundance of this transmitter.
5. What are the major differences between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems?
6. Draw diagrams to explain the perceptions of the split brain patients.
7. What is the endocrine system? Draw a chart of the various hormones and their effects.

Sensation and Perception

1. What is the pathway of a pain inflicted on the hand?
2. What accounts for color and brightness?
3. What accounts for pitch and loudness?
4. What are the place and frequency-matching theories of hearing?
5. Compare and contrast top down and bottom up processing.
6. If you ear was infected what might happen to your balance and why might that happen?
7. What is the pathway of the sensation of light?
8. What is the pathway of the sensation of sound?
9. What are the two theory of color perception?
10. What are the various gestalt principles of perception?

Consciousness

1. What is an hallucination?
2. What are the common disorders of sleep?
3. Draw a table of the various types of psycho-active drugs and their effects.
4. What are the defining features of each stage of sleep? Draw a table.
5. What theories explain hypnosis?

Learning

1. What is observational learning? Give an example.
2. Write three scenarios to demonstrate classical conditioning. Label each component of the scenario?
3. Draw a Venn diagram that compares and contrasts classical to operant conditioning.
4. Explain all the major concepts of learning: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, and discrimination, and generalization, primary and secondary reinforcers, shaping reinforcement.
5. Draw a table explains differences between positive and negative reinforcement and the two types of punishment.
6. Give examples of all the various types of reinforcement schedules.
7. What is systematic desensitization?
8. What are the drawbacks of punishment?

Cognition

1. What are the advantages of spaced learning?
2. What are the various types of memories that we encode store and retrieve?
3. What is a flashbulb memory and what is the explanation for why they are so powerful?
4. What is the difference between state dependent memories and repressed memories?
5. Explain the serial position effect.
6. What brain regions are involved with memory?
7. How do schemas influence retrieval?
8. What can lead us to repeat mistakes when trying to solve problems?
9. What is the serial position effect, the primacy effect and the recency effect?
10. What is functional fixation?
11. What are the various heuristics?
12. How do we typically make mistakes in your thinking and problem solving?
13. What biases are present in your thinking?
14. What does it mean to say that are memories are reconstructed?
15. What is confabulation

Motivation and Emotion

1. Compare and contrast the James-Lange Theory of emotion with the Schachter model.
2. What are the 6 universal facial expressions?
3. What is the difference between approach-approach and approach-avoidance conflicts?
4. What are the various types of drives?
5. Sketch Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
6. What is the difference between anoxeria nervoa and bulimia?
7. What is homeostasis?
8. What are the various psychological motives
9. What is the opponent process theory of emotions?
10. What are the best ways for employers to motivate their workers?
11. What is the Cannon Bard theory of emotions?