Practice Test:

1. Who is most likely interested in the study of human development?

a. Dr. Harvey, who studies the brain cells of infants
b. Dr. Hatfield, who studies eating disorders
c. Dr. Deal, who studies how political attitudes change with age
d. Dr. Hersh, who studies elderly patients with Alzheimer’s disease

2. The notion that development is best described in terms of a series of abrupt shifts in behavior
best fits with the ________ approach.
a. Nature
b. Nurture
c. Continuity
d. Discontinuity

3. Dr. Arantes uses a biopsychosocial framework for understanding human development. Which
position is she most likely to endorse on the nature vs. nurture issue?
a. Nature is most important.
b. Nurture is most important.
c. Nature and nurture both play important roles in human development.
d. Neither nature nor nurture is important in the study of human development.

4. When Kayla says “It doesn’t matter if they are French, Swedish, or Chinese, kids are kids,” she
is espousing a(n) ____ position concerning human development.
a. Discontinuous
b. Universal
c. Nurture
d. Context-specific

5. Your friend David has decided to start studying human development because he hates studying
biology. According to your text, will David find happiness in his new area of interest?
a. Yes, because he can focus on psychological factors and ignore sociocultural and
biological factors.
b. Yes, but only if he enjoys studying sociocultural facturs.
c. No, because studying biological influences is a necessary component to understanding
development.
d. No, because normative age-graded influences are all biological.

6. Connie is a second-grade teacher who notices her students behaving differently that the fourth-
graders during recess and comes up with several connected ideas to explain why the two
groups behave differently. Connie’s ideas would best be described as
a. An experiment
b. A theory
c. A study
d. A mesosystem
7. Pyschodynamic theories place the least emphasis on the ____ portion of the biopsychosocial
framework.
a. Life-cycle
b. Psychological
c. Sociocultural
d. Biological

8. Lynne always wants to go visit her grandparents because when she visits they give her a new
toy. The grandparents have _____ her visiting behavior.
a. Reinforced
b. Extinguished
c. Punished
d. eliminated

9. Mr. Link tries to help his students learn how to be assertive by having them watch how other
students can be successful by acting assertively. Mr. Link is using principles of ___ to help his
students.
a. Social learning theory
b. Operant conditioning
c. Cognitive-developmental theory
d. Psychosocial theory

10. What type of theorist would most likely describe human cognitive development using the
analogy of “mental software”?
a. An information processor
b. An Eriksonian
c. An operant conditioning theorist
d. A social learning theorist

11. Dr. Simpson’s students were rightfully upset when he used very accurate weight scales
(assessing the poundage of each pupil) to determine their grades in a developmental
psychology class because his method of assessment lacked
a. Sufficient sample size
b. Reliability
c. Validity
d. The ability to identify practice effects.

12. Based on a study that finds that self-esteem is negatively correlated with college grades, which
person would you predict would have the highest grades?
a. Michael, who has very high self-esteem
b. Davey, who has average self-esteem
c. Peter, who has very low self-esteem
d. It’s impossible to predict because a negative correlation means these two variables are
unrelated

13. Zsuzsi is conducting a study to determine whether skateboarding causes a reduction in

intelligence. In this experiment, skateboarding is the
 a. Control group.
b. Independent variable.
c. Dependent variable.
d. Cohort effect.

14. The first ___ pairs of chromosomes are called autosomes.

a. 2
b. 10
c. 22
d. 46

15. Which is an example of your genotype?

a. Your complete set of genes
b. Your physical appearance
c. Your behaviors
d. Your personality

16. If tallness is dominant and designated as “T” and shortness is recessive and designated as “s”,
who would likely be short?
a. Bing, who is “sT”
b. Crosby, who is “Ts”
c. Danny, who is “ss”
d. Kay, who is “TT”

17. “Tri-somy 21” (three 21st chromosomes) best describes

a. Huntington’s disease
b. Down syndrome
c. PKU
d. Sickle-cell trait

18. A developing human being that is traveling from a fallopian tube to the uterus would most
accurately be described as a(n)
a. Embryo
b. Fetus
c. Zygote
d. Amnion

19. Damage to cells in the embryo’s ___ layer would be most likely to result in the development of
a defective digestive system.
a. Endoderm
b. Placenta
c. Ectoderm
d. Mesoderm

20. Which is not an Apgar factor?

a. Size
b. Color
 c. Respiration
d. Muscle tone

21. A friend hears that you are in a developmental psychology course and asks you how long their
newborn daughter is suppose to sleep. Being a very bright student, you would give the correct
answer of,
a. “8-10 hours a day”
b. “12-14 hours a day”
c. “16-18 hours a day”
d. “20-22 hours a day”

22. Caleb is 4 months old. If he is like others his age, when he grasps a rattle, he will grasp it with
a. His fingers and thumb
b. His thumb only
c. His fingers only
d. One finger from each hand

23. Stewart is a 10-year-old boy growing up in England, and Moe is a 10-year-old boy growing up
in the US. What difference in handedness would you expect?
a. It is most likely that Stewart is right-handed and Moe left-handed.
b. It is most likely that Stewart is left-handed and Moe right-handed.
c. Both are likely to be right-handed.
d. Both are likely to be left-handed.

24. By the age of _____, young humans are able to perceive different-pitched noises about as well
as adults.
a. 6 weeks
b. 6 months
c. 2 years
d. 6 years

25. A visual cliff is designed to assess

a. Gross-motor skills
b. Rapid eye movement
c. Cone development
d. Depth perception

Practice Test Answer Bank: 10. A 20. A

1. C 11. C 21. C
2. D 12. C 22. C
3. C 13. B 23. C
4. B 14. C 24. B
5. C 15. A 25. D
6. B 16. C
7. D 17. B
8. A 18. C
9. A 19. A