Page 246 - Keys To Community College Success

■ Make sure you read every word of every answer. Focus especially on qualifying
words such as always, never, tend to, most, often, and frequently. Look also for
negatives in a question (“Which of the following is not . . .”).
■ When questions are linked to a reading passage, read the questions first. This will
help you focus on the information you need to answer the questions.

The following examples show the kinds of multiple-choice questions you might encounter in an
introductory psychology course (the correct answer follows each question):
1. When a person with a particular belief tends to pay attention only to information that supports
that belief, this phenomenon is known as
a. Intermittent reinforcement.
b. Hindsight bias.
c. Confirmation bias.
d. Critical thinking.
(answer: c)
2. If you use the availability heuristic when making a decision, you
a. Choose the answer most available to you.
b. Base your choice on information you most easily recall.
c. Follow the example of someone close to you.
d. Follow a common decision-making model.
(answer: b)

True-or-False Questions
Read true-or-false questions carefully to evaluate what they are asking. Look
for absolute qualifiers (such as all, only, and always that often make an oth-
8 erwise true statement false) and conservative qualifiers (generally, often,
CHAPTER usually, and sometimes that often make an otherwise false statement true).
For example, “The grammar rule ‘I before E except after C’ is always
true” is false, whereas “The grammar rule ‘I before E except after C’ is
usually true” is true.
Be sure to read every word of a true-or-false-question to avoid jump-
ing to an incorrect conclusion. Common problems in reading too quickly
include missing negatives (not, no) that would change your response and
deciding on an answer before reading the complete statement.

The following examples show the kinds of true-false questions you might encounter in an
introductory psychology course (the correct answer follows each question):

1. The length of one period of circadian rhythm is twelve hours. (false)
2. REM sleep refers to a stage of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement. (true)
3. Hypnosis has been shown to help some people break problematic habits. (true)
4. Sleepwalking occurs during the lightest stage of sleep. (false)

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