AP Psychology Practice Test (2026)

Which part of a neuron is primarily responsible for receiving incoming chemical signals from other neurons?

What is the brief electrical charge that travels down an axon, representing the neuron's method of transmitting a message?

A patient suffers a traumatic brain injury in a car accident. After the injury, the patient experiences severe difficulty understanding spoken language, even though they can still produce speech fluently. They also struggle to comprehend written words.

Based on the patient's symptoms, which lobe of the brain was most likely damaged?

Which neurotransmitter is most closely associated with reward, pleasure, and voluntary movement, and is implicated in disorders such as Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia?

Which gland is often referred to as the 'master gland' because it regulates the activity of other endocrine glands?

A researcher wants to study which specific brain areas are most active when individuals are performing complex problem-solving tasks. They need a technique that can provide real-time information about brain activity.

Which of the following brain imaging techniques would be most appropriate for this research goal?

Maria is walking alone through an unlit parking garage late at night after finishing her shift. Just as she reaches her car, she hears a sudden loud crash from somewhere behind her. Almost instantly — before she has consciously registered what produced the noise — her heart rate jumps from roughly 70 to 130 beats per minute, her breathing becomes fast and shallow, her palms begin to sweat, her pupils dilate, and her digestive activity slows. She feels a surge of alertness and an impulse to run or confront whatever caused the sound. A few seconds later she turns and sees that a cardboard box has fallen off a delivery dolly. As Maria realizes that there is no threat, her heart rate and breathing gradually begin to return to their normal resting levels.

Maria's immediate physiological reaction to the unexpected crash is produced primarily by which of the following divisions of the nervous system?

Dr. Alvarez directs a research program that investigates why people differ from one another in personality traits such as extraversion, in intelligence-test scores, and in vulnerability to certain mental disorders. Her laboratory specializes in three converging methods. First, her team recruits large samples of identical twins and fraternal twins, including identical twins who were separated in infancy and raised in different families, and compares how similar the members of each pair are on the traits of interest. Second, the team studies adopted children and compares their scores to those of their biological parents (with whom they share genes but not a home environment) and to those of their adoptive parents (with whom they share a home environment but not genes). Third, using saliva samples, the team sequences specific stretches of DNA and tests whether particular gene variants are statistically associated with differences in the traits across thousands of unrelated participants. Dr. Alvarez emphasizes that her program is not trying to determine whether a trait is caused by 'nature' or 'nurture,' but rather to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental variation to individual differences.

The research program described is most representative of which of the following fields of psychology?

Imagine a patient who has undergone a 'split-brain' surgery. If a spoon is briefly flashed to their left visual field, and they are asked what they saw, what would they most likely say?

A neuroscientist is observing a neuron's activity. They apply a weak electrical stimulus to the neuron, but it does not fire an action potential. When they increase the strength of the stimulus slightly, the neuron still does not fire. Only after a significant increase in stimulus strength does the neuron finally fire, and the resulting action potential is identical in magnitude to one produced by an even stronger stimulus.

This observation best illustrates which principle of neural firing?

A drug that mimics the effects of a neurotransmitter by binding to its receptor site is best described as which of the following?

While reading a book, you encounter a word where a letter is smudged. However, based on the context of the sentence, you are still able to correctly identify the word. This best illustrates:

When looking at a dotted line, you tend to perceive it as a continuous line rather than a series of individual dots. This is best explained by the Gestalt principle of:

When you hold your finger out in front of your face and close one eye, then the other, your finger appears to jump. This phenomenon, which helps you judge depth, is known as:

An artist is painting a landscape. To create the illusion of depth, the artist paints a row of trees in the foreground much larger and more detailed than a similar row of trees painted further in the background, which appear smaller and less distinct.

Which monocular depth cue is the artist primarily utilizing in this painting technique?

A group of participants is shown a series of ambiguous images. Before viewing the images, one group is told they will be seeing pictures of animals, while another group is told they will be seeing pictures of famous historical figures. The 'animal' group tends to perceive animal shapes in the ambiguous images, while the 'historical figure' group tends to perceive faces.

This experiment demonstrates the influence of which perceptual phenomenon?