AP Psych Barrons

Part II—Two Free-Response Portion
TIME—50 MINUTES
Directions: You have 50 minutes to answer the TWO questions that follow. Your answer should present an argument rather than a list of
facts. Make sure to incorporate psychological terminology into your answers whenever possible.
1. Two-year-old Eli dislikes green vegetables and often refuses to eat them.
(A) How could each of the following theories help explain Eli’s behavior?
• Evolutionary psychology
• Erickson’s psychosocial stage theory
(B) How could Eli’s parents use each of the following psychological phenomena to increase Eli’s
consumption of green vegetables?
• Mere exposure effect
• Eli’s lack of Piagetian conservation
• Conformity
• Modeling
• Positive reinforcement
(C) If you were advising Eli’s parents, which one of the approaches listed above would you
recommend and why?
2. Oscar recently had an important exam in his American history class. He had not been doing as
well in this class as he would have liked. He studied for hours, but he felt ill on the day of the
test and did not perform as well as he had hoped.
(A) Explain how each of the following factors could have contributed to Oscar’s disappointing
performance.
• General adaptation syndrome
• Depth/levels of processing theory
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
(B) Describe how Oscar could use each of the following psychological principles to improve his
future performance.
• Yerkes-Dodson law
• A mnemonic device
• Spacing effect/distributed practice
• Internal locus of control
• Negative reinforcement