PRACTICE QUESTIONS

1. Blindness could result from damage to which cortex and lobe of the brain?

(A) visual cortex in the frontal lobe

(B) visual cortex in the temporal lobe

(C) sensory cortex in the parietal lobe

(D) visual cortex in the occipital lobe

(E) cerebral cortex in the occipital lobe

2. Paralysis of the left arm might be explained by a problem in the

(A) motor cortex in the frontal lobe in the left hemisphere.

(B) motor cortex in the frontal lobe in the right hemisphere.

(C) sensorimotor cortex in the temporal lobe in the left hemisphere.

(D) motor cortex in the parietal lobe in the left hemisphere.

(E) motor cortex in the occipital lobe in the right hemisphere.

3. Deafness can result from damage to the inner ear or damage to what area of the brain?

(A) connections between the auditory nerve and the auditory cortex in the frontal lobe

(B) connections between the auditory nerve and the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe

(C) connections between the areas of the sensory cortex that receive messages from the ears and the auditory cortex

(D) connections between the hypothalamus and the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe

(E) connections between the left and right sensory areas of the cerebellum

4. According to the theory of evolution, why might we call some parts of the brain the old brain and some parts the new brain?

(A) Old brain parts are what exist in very young children, and the new brain develops later.

(B) The old brain developed first according to evolution.

(C) The old brain becomes more active as we grow older.

(D) The new brain deals with new information, while the old brain deals with information gathered when we were children.

(E) The old brain is most affected by age deterioration (dementias) while the new brain remains unaffected.

5. Which chemicals pass across the synaptic gap and increase the possibility the next neuron in the chain will fire?

(A) synaptic peptides

(B) inhibitory neurotransmitters

(C) adrenaline-type exciters

(D) excitatory neurotransmitters

(E) potassium and sodium

6. You eat some bad sushi and feel that you are slowly losing control over your muscles. The bacteria you ingested from the bad sushi most likely interferes with the use of

(A) serotonin.

(B) insulin.

(C) acetylcholine.

(D) thorazine.

(E) adrenaline.

7. The three major categories researchers use to organize the entire brain are the

(A) old brain, new brain, and cerebral cortex.

(B) lower, middle, and upper brain.

(C) hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain.

(D) brain stem, limbic system, and cerebral cortex.

(E) neurons, synapses, and cerebral cortex.

8. A spinal reflex differs from a normal sensory and motor reaction in that

(A) a spinal reflex occurs only in response to extremely stressful stimuli.

(B) in a spinal reflex, the spine moves the muscles in response as soon as the sensory information reaches the spine, while usually the impulse must reach the brain before a response.

(C) in a normal sensory/motor reaction, the spine transmits the information through afferent nerve fibers, while reflex reactions are transmitted along special efferent nerves.

(D) spinal reflexes are part of the central nervous system response, while normal sensory/motor reactions are part of the peripheral nervous system.

(E) spinal reflexes occur only in animals because humans are born without instinctual responses.

9. Antidepressant drugs like Prozac are often used to treat mood disorders. According to what you know about their function, which neurotransmitter system do these types of drugs try to affect?

(A) serotonin

(B) adrenaline

(C) acetylcholine

(D) endorphins

(E) morphine

10. Which sentence most closely describes neural transmission?

(A) An electric charge is created in the neuron, the charge travels down the cell, and chemicals are released that cross the synapse to the next cell.

(B) A chemical change occurs within the cell, the change causes an electric charge to be produced, and the charge jumps the gap between the nerve cells.

(C) The electric charge produced chemically inside a group of neurons causes chemical changes in surrounding cells.

(D) Neurotransmitters produced in the hindbrain are transmitted to the forebrain, causing electric changes in the cerebral cortex.

(E) Neural transmission is an electrochemical process both inside and outside the cell.

11. Dr. Dahab, a brain researcher, is investigating the connection between certain environmental stimuli and brain processes. Which types of brain scans is he most likely to use?

(A) MRI and CAT

(B) CAT and EKG

(C) PET and EEG

(D) EKG and CAT

(E) lesioning and MRI

12. Split-brain patients are unable to

(A) coordinate movements between their major and minor muscle groups.

(B) speak about information received exclusively in their right hemisphere.

(C) speak about information received exclusively in their left hemisphere.

(D) solve abstract problems involving integrating logical (left-hemisphere) and spatial (right-hemisphere) information.

(E) speak about information received exclusively through their left ear, left eye, or left side of their bodies.

13. When brain researchers refer to brain plasticity, they are talking about

(A) the brain’s ability to quickly regrow damaged neurons.

(B) the surface texture and appearance caused by the layer known as the cerebral cortex.

(C) the brain’s versatility caused by the millions of different neural connections.

(D) our adaptability to different problems ranging from survival needs to abstract reasoning.

(E) new connections forming in the brain to take over for damaged sections.

14. Mr. Spam is a 39-year-old male who has been brought into your neurology clinic by his wife. She has become increasingly alarmed by her husband’s behavior over the last four months. You recommend a CAT scan to look for tumors in the brain. Which two parts of the brain would you predict are being affected by the tumors?

List of symptoms: vastly increased appetite, body temperature fluctuations, decreased sexual desire, jerky movements, poor balance when walking and standing, inability to throw objects, and exaggerated efforts to coordinate movements in a task

(A) motor cortex and emotion cortex

(B) somato-sensory cortex and hypothalamus

(C) hypothalamus and cerebellum

(D) cerebellum and medulla

(E) thalamus and motor cortex

15. In most people, which one of following is a specific function of the left hemisphere that is typically not controlled by the right hemisphere?

(A) producing speech

(B) control of the left hand

(C) spatial reasoning

(D) hypothesis testing

(E) abstract reasoning

PRACTICE QUESTIONS

1. Agonists are psychoactive drugs that

(A) produce tolerance to the drug without the associated withdrawal symptoms.

(B) mimic and produce the same effect as certain neurotransmitters.

(C) mimic neurotransmitters and block their receptor sites.

(D) enhance the effects of certain opiates like heroin.

(E) make recovery from physical addiction more difficult.

2. In comparison with older people, babies

(A) sleep more fitfully; they tend to wake up more often.

(B) sleep more deeply; they spend more time in stage 3 and 4 sleep.

(C) spend more time in the REM stage than other sleep stages.

(D) spend more time in stage 1, which causes them to awaken easily.

(E) sleep more than young adults, but less than people over 50.

3. Which of the following is the best analogy for how psychologists view consciousness?

(A) the on/off switch on a computer

(B) a circuit breaker that controls power to a house

(C) a fuse that allows electricity to pass through until a short circuit occurs

(D) a dimmer switch for a light fixture

(E) the ignition switch on a car

4. During a normal night’s sleep, how many times do we pass through the different stages of sleep?

(A) 2

(B) 2–3

(C) 4–7

(D) 8–11

(E) 11–15

5. Deep or slow wave sleep is associated with which type(s) of brain waves?

(A) alpha.

(B) beta.

(C) delta.

(D) alpha and beta.

(E) beta and delta. 

6. Activation-synthesis theory tries to explain

(A) how consciousness emerges out of neural firings.

(B) how psychoactive drugs create euphoric effects.

(C) the origin and function of dreams.

(D) how our mind awakens us after we pass through all the sleep stages.

(E) how our consciousness synthesizes all the sensory information it receives.

7. Which of the following tends to increase during a typical night’s sleep in an adult?

(A) night terrors

(B) deep sleep

(C) delta waves

(D) dreaming

(E) sleeptalking

8. Which of the following two sleep disorders occur most commonly?

(A) insomnia and narcolepsy

(B) apnea and narcolepsy

(C) night terrors and apnea

(D) somnambulism and insomnia

(E) apnea and insomnia

9. Marijuana falls under what category of psychoactive drug?

(A) depressant

(B) mood elevator

(C) hallucinogen

(D) stimulant

(E) mood depressant

10. Night terrors and somnambulism usually occur during which stage of sleep?

(A) stage 1, close to wakefulness

(B) REM sleep

(C) REM sleep, but only later in the night when nightmares usually occur

(D) stage 4

(E) sleep onset

11. Which neurotransmitter is affected by opiates?

(A) serotonin

(B) endorphins

(C) dopamine

(D) GABA

(E) acetylcholine

12. In the context of this unit, the term tolerance refers to

(A) treatment of psychoactive drug addicts by peers and other members of society.

(B) the amount of sleep a person needs to function normally.

(C) the need for an elevated dose of a drug in order to get the same effect.

(D) the labeling of individuals automatically produced by the level of our consciousness.

(E) the harmful side effects of psychoactive drugs.

13. The information-processing theory says that dreams

(A) are meaningless by-products of how our brains process information during REM sleep.

(B) are symbolic representations of the information we encode during the day.

(C) are processed by one level of consciousness but other levels remain unaware of the dreams.

(D) occur during REM sleep as the brain deals with daily stress and events.

(E) occur only after stressful events, explaining why some people never dream.

14. Which level of consciousness controls involuntary body processes?

(A) preconscious level

(B) subconscious level

(C) unconscious level

(D) autonomic level

(E) nonconscious level

15. Professor Bohkle shows a group of participants a set of geometric shapes for a short period of time. Later, Professor Bohkle shows the same group a larger set of shapes that includes the first set of geometric shapes randomly distributed among the other new images. When asked which shapes they prefer, the participants choose shapes from the first group more often than the new images, even though they cannot remember which images they had seen previously. This experiment demonstrates which concept?

(A) priming

(B) mere-exposure effect

(C) shaping

(D) fundamental-attribution error

(E) primacy