Unit 1: Biological Bases of Behavior
Psychology · Unit 1 · Paper 1

Biological Bases of Behavior unit test

A test on this unit alone, marked as a percentage and a letter grade — for the test your class is actually sitting, rather than for May. Answer everything, then submit once: seeing the answer to question 3 before attempting question 4 makes the final percentage meaningless.

Paper 1Paper 2Paper 3
Each paper is built from this unit’s 28 terms and is the same for everyone, so a teacher can assign “Unit 1, Paper 1” and every student sits the identical test. Multiple choice is marked objectively; the written sections you mark yourself against the model answer and rubric.
Suggested time 32 min 29 points0/17 attempted
1

Neuroplasticity

2

Action potential

3

Frontal lobe

4

Endorphins

5

Broca's vs Wernicke's area

6

Neuron structure

7

Split-brain research

8

Serotonin

9

Hippocampus

10

Amygdala

11

Adrenal glands

12

Weber's law

Short answer 1. Define or explain: Circadian rhythm

3 pts

Short answer 2. Define or explain: Excitatory vs inhibitory signals

3 pts

Short answer 3. Define or explain: Reuptake

3 pts

Short answer 4. Define or explain: Absolute vs difference threshold

3 pts

Free response

5 pts

This course has no free-response prompt tagged to this unit, so one from elsewhere in the course is used. It is still worth writing — the skill transfers.

A psychologist studies whether background music affects memory. Participants are randomly assigned to study a word list in silence or with music, then take a recall test.

Identify the independent and dependent variables.

Explain how random assignment strengthens the study.

State an operational definition for the dependent variable.

Explain how the placebo effect and a confounding variable could apply.