Free CLEP Introductory Psychology Practice Test (2026)

A school psychologist wants to know whether a new reading app improves comprehension. Students decide for themselves whether to use the app, and at the end of the term the app users score higher on a comprehension test. Which change would do the most to let her conclude that the app caused the higher scores?

After a minor crash at one intersection, Dana felt anxious every time she drove through it. After months of driving through it with no problems, the anxiety went away. She then spent two weeks out of town, and the first time she drove through the intersection again, she felt a brief wave of anxiety. This return of the anxiety is called

For the past three years, Lauren has felt down on most days. She has low energy, poor self-esteem and trouble making decisions, but her symptoms have never been severe enough to count as a major depressive episode, and she has never had a manic or hypomanic episode. Which DSM-5 diagnosis best fits?

After losing the sight in one eye, a carpenter finds some depth judgments harder. Which depth cue can he no longer use?

Asked whether a man should steal a drug he can't afford to save his dying wife, Teen A says yes, "because a good husband takes care of his wife, and people would think badly of him if he didn't." Teen B says no, "because if everyone broke the law whenever they wanted to, society would fall apart." In Lawrence Kohlberg's theory, the two teens are reasoning at

Your neighbor asks whether you will water her garden every day for the month she is away. You say no. She then asks whether you would just bring in her mail over one weekend, and you agree. Your neighbor has used

After brain surgery, a man can still recall his childhood and hold a normal conversation, but he can no longer form new memories of facts or events: an hour after meeting someone, he has no memory of it. Over several days he gets better at a mirror-drawing task, though each day he says he has never tried it before. Damage to which structure best explains his memory loss?

Theo rarely studies for exams or follows his doctor's advice. Whether he passes a course, he says, comes down to how hard the professor grades, and whether he stays healthy is "just luck." Theo's outlook best illustrates

In a study, one group decides whether each word on a list is printed in capital letters, a second group decides whether each word rhymes with "weight," and a third decides whether each word fits the sentence "She put the ___ on the table." No one is told there will be a memory test. On a surprise recall test, which result is most likely?

In her first exposure session, a client who is terrified of elevators rides one to the top floor of a tall building and back, over and over for an hour, until her panic fades. This technique is

Two psychologists working around 1900 studied the experience of tasting lemonade. The first trained observers to report the separate sensations, such as sourness, sweetness and coolness, that make up the experience. The second asked how being able to detect sourness helps people adapt, for example by avoiding spoiled food. Their approaches were, in order,

Before deliberating, each member of a jury leans toward a fairly large damage award. After an hour of discussion, the jury agrees on an award larger than any member first favored. This best illustrates

Compared with the first 90-minute sleep cycle of the night, the last cycle before a person wakes in the morning usually contains

Walter Cannon criticized the James–Lange theory of emotion. Which of the following was one of his main arguments against it?

Scores on an intelligence test are normally distributed with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. A score of 130 is higher than about what percentage of all scores?

A sensory neuron is stimulated first by a stimulus just strong enough to reach its threshold, then by a stimulus twice as strong. With the stronger stimulus, the neuron will most likely

After hearing that their company will lay off workers, Rosa updates her résumé and starts applying for other jobs, while her coworker Ken spends his evenings meditating and telling friends how upset he feels. Rosa and Ken are using, respectively,

A manager walks through the office at unpredictable times, sometimes after 20 minutes and sometimes after 2 hours, and praises anyone he finds working hard. Which schedule of reinforcement is this, and what pattern of work does it usually produce?

Harry Harlow raised infant monkeys with two artificial mothers: one made of bare wire that held a bottle of milk and one covered in soft cloth that gave no food. The infants spent most of their time clinging to the cloth mother, especially when frightened. These results most directly challenged the view that

A social psychologist plans to tell participants that a study is about first impressions when it actually measures whether they help a stranger. Which statement about this plan is consistent with the American Psychological Association's ethics code?

The items on a widely used personality test were kept because people with particular psychological disorders answered them differently from other people, even when an item's content seemed unrelated to the disorder. This test is the

While giving a child a shot in the upper arm, a nurse firmly presses and rubs the skin next to the injection site, and the child reports less pain. According to gate-control theory, why does this help?

In Muzafer Sherif's Robbers Cave study, two groups of boys at a summer camp grew hostile toward each other after a series of competitions. Which step did the most to reduce the hostility?

A 3-year-old who used to say "went" and "mice" correctly now says, "I goed outside and saw two mouses." These errors are best taken as evidence that the child

A person-centered (client-centered) therapist in the tradition of Carl Rogers would be LEAST likely to