Page 246 - Keys to College Success

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 otherwise true state-
ment false) and conservative qualifiers (generally, often,
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 jumping to an incorrect conclusion. Common
problems in reading too quickly include missing negatives Test Taking
(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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