Drill 8 · Multiple Choice · Unit 2: Cognition
AP Psychology: Thinking, Problem-Solving, Judgments, and Decision-Making (Drill 8) is a Multiple Choice practice drill covering Unit 2: Cognition. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.
AP Psychology practice questions on thinking, problem-solving, judgments, and decision-making, covering algorithms and heuristics, availability and representativeness, framing effects, mental set, and research design for behavioral-economics studies. Five AP exam prep multiple-choice questions with full explanations.
Question 1. Miguel is trying to figure out the best route home during a snowstorm. Instead of mapping out every possible combination of streets, he uses the rule "take whichever road usually has the least traffic and go from there." This rule gets him home reasonably fast most evenings but occasionally leads him into a bad detour. Which cognitive strategy is Miguel using?
Explanation: A heuristic is a mental shortcut that trades guaranteed accuracy for speed, exactly what Miguel's rule does (fast most days, wrong occasionally). (A) is the common misconception: an algorithm would guarantee the best route by exhausting all possibilities, and he's explicitly not doing that. (C) is true-but-irrelevant, trial and error is a real strategy, but Miguel is applying a consistent rule rather than testing random options.
Question 2. After a high-profile airplane crash dominates the news for a week, Priya cancels her flight and drives 12 hours to her destination instead, even though she knows intellectually that driving is statistically more dangerous per mile. Her decision is best explained by which cognitive bias?
Explanation: The availability heuristic is judging likelihood by how easily examples come to mind, a week of crash coverage makes plane crashes vividly available, inflating Priya's estimate of the risk. (C) is the classic trap: representativeness is about judging probability by match to a prototype, not ease of recall. (A) is true-but-irrelevant; Priya might later show confirmation bias by noticing more flight-safety news, but her decision to cancel is driven by recency and vividness, which is availability.
Question 3. A researcher wants to test whether framing affects medical decisions. She gives half of her participants a description of a surgery with a "90% survival rate" and the other half a description of the same surgery with a "10% mortality rate," then asks each participant whether they would choose the surgery. Which of the following correctly identifies the independent variable?
Explanation: The manipulated variable is whether the outcome is framed positively (survival) or negatively (mortality). (A) is the dependent variable, a classic IV/DV confusion. (B) is tempting because the numbers look different, but 90% survival and 10% mortality describe the same outcome; the framing is what's being manipulated, not the value. (D) is a potential confounding variable, not the IV.
Question 4. A chess coach gives her students a puzzle that can be solved by a well-known tactic most of them have used before. Several students stare at the board for a long time without progress because they keep trying the same unusual tactic that helped solve a previous puzzle earlier that week, even though it does not fit this one. The coach later explains that they fell into a common trap. Which concept best describes what happened?
Explanation: Mental set is the tendency to transfer a strategy that worked on a previous problem to a new one where it doesn't fit, which is exactly what the students are doing with last week's tactic. (C) is true-but-irrelevant: belief perseverance involves clinging to beliefs after disconfirming evidence, but nothing in the scenario involves a belief being challenged; the students are simply stuck on an old approach. (D) runs the wrong direction, divergent thinking produces many creative options, whereas these students are narrowed onto one unhelpful line.
Question 5. A behavioral economist runs a study on decision-making. In the gain frame, participants chose between Option X ("Save 200 of 600 people") and Option Y ("1/3 chance to save all 600, 2/3 chance to save none"); 72% chose Option X. In the loss frame, participants chose between Option X ("400 of 600 people will die") and Option Y ("2/3 chance all die, 1/3 chance none die"); only 22% chose Option X. The two scenarios describe mathematically identical outcomes. Which of the following best explains the dramatic shift in choice between the gain frame and the loss frame?
Explanation: Identical outcomes produce opposite preferences depending on wording: gain framing pushes people toward the certain option, loss framing pushes them toward the gamble. (A) actually undermines itself, a true algorithmic calculation of expected value would produce the same answer in both scenarios because the math is identical. (C) and (D) are true-but-irrelevant: hindsight bias and anchoring are real, but neither involves reversing a choice based on wording of equivalent outcomes.