Psychology · Unit 1 · Paper 2

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 1 Paper 2 Paper 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 2” 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

Action potential

Cerebellum

Refractory period

Sensory adaptation

Dopamine

Weber's law

Endocrine system

Myelin sheath

GABA and glutamate

Split-brain research

Reuptake

Serotonin

Short answer 1. Define or explain: Circadian rhythm

3 pts

Short answer 2. Define or explain: Sleep stages and REM

3 pts

Short answer 3. Define or explain: Sympathetic vs parasympathetic

3 pts

Short answer 4. Define or explain: Neuron structure

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 researcher is interested in whether the way study time is distributed affects exam performance. She recruits 120 introductory psychology students and randomly assigns each to study a 40-item vocabulary list either in one 90-minute session or in three 30-minute sessions on consecutive days. All students take the same test one week later. The massed group averages 22 items correct; the spaced group averages 31.

Identify the independent variable and the dependent variable.

Explain the purpose of random assignment in this study.

Explain how the spacing effect accounts for the results.

Explain how retroactive interference could be used to argue against the researcher's conclusion.

Explain one way the researcher could improve the external validity of this study.