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Adolescence, 6/e
Laurence Steinberg, Temple University

The Fundamental Changes of Adolescence
Cognitive Transitions

Multiple Choice Quiz



1

Adolescents' cognitive abilities differ from those of children primarily in that, unlike children, adolescents' thinking is not necessarily tied to ___.
A)logic
B)abstract ideas
C)fantasy
D)concrete events
2

Adolescents develop the ability to use ___, or the ability to draw logical conclusions based on a set of facts or premises.
A)inductive reasoning
B)abstract reasoning
C)relational reasoning
D)deductive reasoning
3

The ability to draw a conclusion based on accumulated evidence is called
A)inductive reasoning
B)abstract reasoning
C)relational reasoning
D)deductive reasoning
4

Puns, proverbs, metaphors, and analogies make sense to adolescents in ways they do not to children due to changes in
A)metacognition
B)systematic thinking
C)adolescent relativism
D)abstract thinking
5

The ability to think about thinking is known as
A)multidimensional thinking
B)automatization
C)propositional logic
D)metacognition
6

During adolescence, the brain may lose many of the connections it had between neurons, a process of ____ that may lead to more efficient and focused information processing.
A)myelination
B)fMRI
C)pruning
D)neocortex
7

A heightened sense of self-consciousness, which can lead a young person to believe that he or she is the focus of everyone's attention, is known as
A)imaginary audience
B)interpersonal vanity
C)personal fable
D)adolescent egocentrism
8

Some adolescents become so absorbed in their own unique thoughts and experiences they believe no one else has ever had feelings and experiences quite like theirs. Psychologists call this a(n)
A)imaginary audience
B)interpersonal vanity
C)personal fable
D)adolescent egocentrism
9

The adolescent's ability to think in ___ helps them understand that most complicated questions have complicated, multifaceted answers.
A)systematic ways
B)abstractions
C)metacognitive ways
D)multiple dimensions
10

The adolescent's ability to understand sarcasm in comparison to a child is indicative of the advanced ability to engage in
A)metacognition
B)hypothetical thinking
C)multi-dimensional thinking
D)relativistic thinking
11

One advance in cognitive reasoning that takes place during adolescence, _____, allows them to see that there are few problems or ideas in the world that can be understood absolutely; most problems can be addressed from a variety of points of view and may have no certain answer.
A)multiple dimensions
B)adolescent relativism
C)metacognition
D)abstract reasoning
12

In their investigation of the competence-performance distinction, Ward and Overton (1990) found that task ________ tended to effect adolescents' performance on deductive reasoning tasks.
A)length
B)relevance
C)difficulty
D)sequence
13

Changes in neurotransmitters in the _____, a large part of the brain that strongly influences emotions, may make individuals more emotional, more responsive to stress, and less responsive to rewards.
A)neurotransmitters
B)synapses
C)limbic system
D)pruning
14

Piaget described the stage of thinking that emerges during adolescence as the
A)sensorimotor stage
B)formal operational stage
C)preoperational stage
D)concrete operational stage
15

Piaget believed the emergence of propositional logic was the critical characteristic of the formal operational stage of reasoning. In this stage, an individual would be capable of thinking about problems such as:
A)If mares eat oats and does eat oats, then little lambs eat ___.
B)If a train is traveling at 60 miles per hour between Chicago and Cleveland....
C)the square root of the area inside an isosceles triangle ......
D)If Joe is awake, and all the students are asleep, is Joe a student?
E)There was an old man with a beard who said "It is just as I feared, Two Owls and a Wren, four Larks and a Hen, have just made their nests in my beard."
16

Improvements during adolescence in all of the following domains have been linked with the information processing perspective except:
A)processing speed
B)metacognitive abilities
C)attention
D)propositional logic
17

Changes in the levels of _____ in the brain, such as dopamine and serotonin, alter the way in which neurons communicate with one another.
A)neurotransmitters
B)synapses
C)limbic system
D)pruning
18

____ of neurons creates an insulation around brain cells that allows them to function faster and more efficiently.
A)Myelination
B)fMRI
C)Pruning
D)Neocortex
19

SAT scores are used to predict
A)performance on the job
B)success in college
C)success in graduate school
D)creative and artistic potential
20

According to Robert Selman, adolescents are better at social perspective taking than children are because they can engage in ________ role taking.
A)subjective
B)bidirectional
C)mutual
D)advanced
21

Full maturation of the _____ is not complete until sometime between adolescence and early adulthood. This part of the brain is in control of planning, decision-making, goal-setting, and metacognition.
A)limbic system
B)prefrontal cortex
C)neurons
D)neurotransmitters
22

In regard to adolescent risk taking behavior, researchers working from a behavioral decision framework have proposed that
A)adolescents use different cognitive processes than adults to make decisions.
B)adolescents are more likely than adults to feel invulnerable and untouchable.
C)adolescents evaluate the desirability of consequences differently than adults.
D)adolescents are more irrational and illogical than adults in social decision making situations.
23

Some critics of adolescent thinking in the classroom point out that
A)most American adolescents are not capable of abstract and analytical thinking in the educational context.
B)most American adolescents prefer educational tasks that stress rote memory of concrete facts.
C)most American adolescents are rarely asked to think in analytical and relativistic ways in the classroom.
D)most American adolescents do not profit from hands-on learning experiences that are designed to teach fundamental principles.
24

Which type of attention involves the ability to pay attention to two sets of stimuli at the same time?
A)Selective attention
B)Divided attention
C)Adapted attention
D)Bi-directed attention
25

According to Robert Sternberg, all individuals possess a certain level of _____ intelligence, that kind of intelligence that involves our ability to acquire, store, and process information.
A)experiential
B)contextual
C)componential
D)neuronal
26

Which of the following is not an accurate description of the difference between child and adolescent thinking skills, from the perspective of information-processing theory?
A)Children have higher abilities in divided attention, or the ability to think about two or more things at once.
B)Adolescents have better working memory, or the ability to hold information in one's conscious awareness for brief periods.
C)Adolescents have better long-term memory, or the ability to store and recall information over long time periods.
D)Adolescents outperform children in how fast they can think, called information processing speed.
27

Which of the following researchers argued that the main reason adolescents think at a higher level than children is that adolescents' thinking has become automatized?
A)Howard Gardner
B)Robert Selman
C)Jean Piaget
D)Robbie Case
E)Alfred Binet
28

Which of the following is generally true regarding IQ scores during adolescence?
A)IQ increases, as adolescents get smarter
B)IQ decreases, as adolescents get all caught up in sex
C)IQ remains about the same, because adolescents don't learn anything new
D)IQ remains about the same, even though adolescents are getting smarter
E)IQ increases, as the brain continues to mature up to age 20
29

The only gender difference in cognitive abilities that is currently believed to exist is in the area of
A)mathematical reasoning
B)spatial reasoning
C)verbal reasoning
D)memory
E)processing speed
30

Lev Vygotsky is well known for his concept of the zone of proximal development, which states that individuals learn best when new information is
A)extremely challenging, way above the student's head
B)fairly easy, doesn't require much brain power
C)taught by another person, no matter who it is
D)moderately difficult, but not out of the individual's grasp
31

Culture-fair intelligence testing involves
A)developing tests for different cultural groups
B)developing tests that assess a core set of verbal skills
C)developing tests that focus more on nonverbal skills
D)both a and c
32

Overall, mental abilities increase at least until around age _____, when they may level off and remain high throughout early and middle adulthood
A)14
B)16
C)18
D)20
33

Understanding _____ (rules that govern social behavior) changes. In the adolescent's mind, such rules are merely expectations, not absolutes.
A)perspective-taking
B)mutual role-taking
C)risk-taking
D)social conventions
34

Individuals who have higher needs for _____ may be more likely to engage in risky behaviors. This characteristic may be stronger during adolescence than childhood and adulthood.
A)approval
B)engagement
C)sensation-seeking
D)helping others
35

Give-and-take discussions may account for _____ of classroom time in school.
A)less than 5%
B)less than 10%
C)more than 10%
D)more than 15%