Practice Psychological, Social & Biological Foundations questions for the Medical College Admission Test. Every question includes a full explanation of why the correct answer is right and why the tempting distractors are wrong.
31 questions available · medium difficulty · MCAT · Free, no registration required
10 example questions with full explanations. Use the interactive practice above to work through the complete set.
Question 1hard
A researcher finds that participants who received an injection of epinephrine and were told it would cause arousal symptoms showed LESS emotional reactivity when placed in an emotionally provocative environment compared to participants who were given the injection but told nothing about its effects. This result is consistent with the Schachter-Singer two-factor theory of emotion.
Correct answer: A
This is true and consistent with Schachter-Singer two-factor theory. According to this theory, emotion requires both physiological arousal AND a cognitive label for that arousal. Participants informed that the injection would cause arousal symptoms already have an explanation for their physical sensations, so they attribute the arousal to the drug rather than to the emotional situation — reducing emotional reactivity. In contrast, uninformed participants cannot explain their arousal physiologically, so they search for a situational explanation and label their arousal as an emotion. This mirrors Schachter and Singer's original 1962 findings, where 'explained' participants showed less emotion than 'unexplained' participants in the same provocative environment.
Question 2hard
According to signal detection theory, a radiologist who lowers her response criterion (beta) when screening mammograms in a high-risk population will necessarily increase both her hit rate and her false alarm rate, even if her overall perceptual sensitivity (d') remains unchanged.
Correct answer: A
This is true. In signal detection theory, d' (d-prime) reflects the observer's actual perceptual sensitivity — the ability to distinguish signal from noise — and is independent of response bias. The criterion (beta) determines how much evidence the observer requires before saying 'yes.' When the radiologist lowers her criterion in a high-risk population (a rational strategy given higher prior probability of disease), she becomes more liberal in responding 'yes,' which simultaneously increases her hit rate (correctly identifying true cancers) AND her false alarm rate (calling benign findings positive). These two rates are linked by the ROC curve; shifting criterion always moves both in the same direction when d' is held constant. This is distinct from improving sensitivity, which would shift the ROC curve itself upward.
Question 3hard
A child who can mentally reverse a series of operations — for example, understanding that pouring water from a tall, thin glass into a short, wide glass does not change the amount of water — but who still reasons only from concrete, tangible objects and cannot yet engage in hypothetical-deductive reasoning, is most likely in Piaget's formal operational stage.
Correct answer: B
This is false. The ability to mentally reverse operations (reversibility) and understand conservation — recognizing that quantity is unchanged despite perceptual transformation — are hallmarks of Piaget's concrete operational stage (approximately ages 7–11), NOT the formal operational stage. A key distinguishing feature of formal operations (approximately ages 12 and beyond) is the capacity for hypothetical-deductive reasoning: thinking abstractly about possibilities that are not tied to concrete objects. The child described can perform reversible mental operations but is still bound to concrete reality, which precisely characterizes the concrete operational stage. Conflating reversibility with abstract reasoning is a common error; reversibility is a concrete operational achievement.
Question 4hard
The fundamental attribution error and the actor-observer bias represent the same underlying cognitive phenomenon, differing only in whether the person making the attribution is a participant or a bystander in the observed event.
Correct answer: B
This is false. Although related, these are distinct biases. The fundamental attribution error (FAE) refers specifically to the tendency for observers to overattribute others' behavior to dispositional (internal) factors and underweight situational factors — regardless of whether the observer is personally involved. The actor-observer bias is a broader asymmetry: actors tend to attribute their OWN behavior to situational factors, while observers attribute the same behavior to the actor's disposition. The FAE is essentially one component of the actor-observer asymmetry (the observer side), but the actor-observer bias also captures the tendency of actors to cite situations for their own behavior, which has no parallel in the FAE. Furthermore, the actor-observer bias has been partially revised in subsequent research (actors also make internal attributions for their successes), making these concepts empirically as well as conceptually distinct.
Question 5hard
Chronic activation of the HPA axis leads to sustained elevation of cortisol, which over time can impair hippocampal neurogenesis and damage glucocorticoid receptors in the hippocampus, thereby reducing the hippocampus's ability to provide negative feedback inhibition of the HPA axis — creating a self-perpetuating cycle of stress dysregulation.
Correct answer: A
This is true and reflects well-established neuroscience of chronic stress. Under normal conditions, the hippocampus — rich in glucocorticoid receptors — detects elevated cortisol and signals the hypothalamus and pituitary to reduce CRH and ACTH release (negative feedback). However, chronic glucocorticoid exposure suppresses hippocampal neurogenesis, causes dendritic atrophy, and downregulates glucocorticoid receptors in hippocampal neurons. As hippocampal function degrades, its negative feedback signal weakens, allowing the HPA axis to remain inappropriately activated and cortisol to remain elevated — a positive feedback loop associated with major depressive disorder and PTSD. This cascade exemplifies the concept of allostatic overload, where the costs of sustained stress adaptation ultimately damage the very regulatory systems designed to restore homeostasis.
Question 6medium
A student who studies for an exam by linking new material to vivid personal memories and existing knowledge is using elaborative rehearsal, and this strategy is more effective for long-term retention than maintenance rehearsal because it creates deeper encoding and more retrieval cues.
Correct answer: A
This statement is true. Elaborative rehearsal involves connecting new information to existing knowledge through meaningful associations, which produces deeper levels of processing (as described by Craik and Lockhart's levels-of-processing framework). This depth of encoding generates more retrieval cues and stronger memory traces, making long-term retention significantly more effective compared to maintenance rehearsal (simple rote repetition), which only keeps information in short-term memory temporarily without facilitating transfer to long-term memory.
Question 7medium
In a study where rats receive food pellets after pressing a lever unpredictably — sometimes after 3 presses, sometimes after 8, sometimes after 1 — the rats will show the highest response rate and the greatest resistance to extinction compared to rats rewarded after every press, because unpredictable reward schedules generate stronger conditioned behavior than continuous reinforcement.
Correct answer: A
This statement is true. The scenario describes a variable-ratio reinforcement schedule, which produces the highest and most consistent response rates and the greatest resistance to extinction among all operant conditioning schedules. This occurs because the organism cannot predict when reinforcement will occur, so it continues responding in anticipation of reward. In contrast, continuous reinforcement (reward after every press) leads to rapid acquisition but also rapid extinction once reinforcement stops, because the absence of reward is immediately detected as a change in contingency.
Question 8medium
According to the bystander effect, a person is more likely to receive help in an emergency situation when there are 10 witnesses present than when there is only 1 witness present, because a larger crowd provides more potential helpers.
Correct answer: B
This statement is false. The bystander effect predicts the opposite: as the number of bystanders increases, the likelihood that any one individual will help actually decreases. This occurs due to two key mechanisms — diffusion of responsibility (each person assumes someone else will act) and pluralistic ignorance (individuals look to others for behavioral cues and, seeing inaction, interpret the situation as non-emergency). Research by Darley and Latané demonstrated that a lone bystander is more likely to intervene than any individual in a large crowd.
Question 9medium
A child raised in a household where parents frequently praise effort over innate ability is more likely to develop intrinsic motivation for learning, and according to self-determination theory, this outcome is driven by fulfillment of the psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Correct answer: A
This statement is true. Self-determination theory (Deci and Ryan) posits that intrinsic motivation flourishes when three core psychological needs are satisfied: autonomy (sense of control over one's actions), competence (feeling effective and capable), and relatedness (feeling connected to others). Praising effort rather than fixed ability supports competence and autonomy by attributing success to controllable factors, fostering a growth mindset and internally driven engagement with learning, rather than dependence on external rewards or validation.
Question 10medium
Groupthink is most likely to occur in highly cohesive groups with strong, directive leadership, and one of its hallmarks is that group members actively voice dissenting opinions to ensure thorough evaluation of alternatives before reaching a decision.
Correct answer: B
This statement is false. While it is correct that groupthink is most likely in highly cohesive groups with directive leadership, the second part of the statement is incorrect. A defining characteristic of groupthink is the suppression — not the active voicing — of dissenting opinions. Members self-censor, avoid conflict, and apply pressure to those who disagree, creating an illusion of unanimity. The result is poor decision-making because alternatives are not critically evaluated. Janis identified groupthink symptoms including collective rationalization, illusion of invulnerability, and self-appointed mindguards who shield the group from contradictory information.