AP Psychology: Categories of Psychological Disorders (Part 1) — Drill 28

About This Drill

AP Psychology: Categories of Psychological Disorders (Part 1) — Drill 28 is a Multiple Choice practice drill covering Unit 5: Mental and Physical Health. 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 anxiety disorders, OCD, PTSD, depressive disorders, and bipolar disorders. Scenario-based AP exam prep covering the categories of psychological disorders and cross-unit connections to biological bases of behavior.

Questions in This Drill

1. For about eight months, Marisol has felt persistently on edge most days. She has trouble concentrating at work, her muscles ache from tension, and she wakes up in the middle of the night without a clear reason. When her friends ask what is wrong, she says she does not know — she worries about her kids, her finances, her job, her health, and things she cannot even name. Which category of psychological disorder best fits Marisol's presentation?
2. A researcher is studying whether a new cognitive training app reduces symptom severity in adults who have been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Participants are randomly assigned to either the app group or a waitlist control group. After twelve weeks, symptom severity is measured using a standardized OCD symptom rating scale. Which of the following is the dependent variable?
3. Two years after returning from deployment, a veteran finds that certain sounds — a car backfiring, a door slamming — make his heart race and cause him to scan the room for threats. He avoids crowded places, has difficulty sleeping, and reports emotionally numb patches where he cannot feel close to his family. Which category of psychological disorder best fits this clinical picture?
4. A clinical psychologist tracks a patient's mood across two years. The chart below summarizes the pattern (each row is roughly a three-month interval):
   
   

   Interval	Dominant mood state	Key features reported
   1	Depressed	Low energy, hopelessness, oversleeping
   2	Elevated (~2 weeks, then depressed again)	Little need for sleep, rapid speech, grandiose plans, impulsive spending that caused serious financial and work problems
   3	Depressed	Anhedonia, fatigue
   4	Elevated (~10 days, then depressed again)	Sleeping 2–3 hrs and feeling rested, racing thoughts, reckless driving leading to a brief hospitalization
   5	Depressed	Low mood, poor concentration

   
   Which category of psychological disorder does this pattern most clearly indicate?
5. A student reading about the biological bases of emotion learns that the amygdala plays a central role in detecting threat and triggering fear responses. Which of the following findings would most directly support the idea that the amygdala is involved in anxiety-related disorders?