Psychology: foundations, development and cognition 12
A dog that has often been fed just after hearing a can opener now drools at the sound alone. In classical conditioning, what is the drooling at the sound?Answer: A conditioned response. Source: Wikipedia, "Classical conditioning". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0003
A driver brakes hard as a deer leaps into the road. Her heart pounds, her pupils widen and her digestion slows. Which division of the nervous system produces this response?Answer: The sympathetic nervous system. Source: Wikipedia, "Sympathetic nervous system". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0002
A researcher gives one group of volunteers caffeine and another group a placebo, then scores everyone on the same memory test. What is the dependent variable?Answer: The memory test score. Source: Wikipedia, "Dependent and independent variables". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0001
A study of 200 students finds a correlation of −0.80 between nightly hours of screen time and grade point average. What does the figure show?Answer: A strong inverse relationship. Source: Wikipedia, "Correlation". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0001
Show all 40 questions (36 more)
Psychology: foundations, development and cognition, continued
A toddler's whining in the checkout line stops the moment his father hands him a candy bar, and on later trips the father hands over candy sooner. Which principle of operant conditioning explains the father's behavior?Answer: Negative reinforcement. Source: Wikipedia, "Reinforcement". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0003
After an injury to the back of the head, a patient with healthy eyes can no longer make sense of what he sees. Which lobes of the brain are most likely damaged?Answer: The occipital lobes. Source: NINDS, "Brain Basics: Know Your Brain". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0002
Children younger than about seven usually say that a taller, thinner container holds more liquid than the beaker it was poured from. Which idea of Piaget's have they not yet grasped?Answer: Conservation. Source: Wikipedia, "Piaget's theory of cognitive development". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0003
In a famous 1956 paper, George Miller put the number of items an average person can hold in short-term memory at about what?Answer: Seven, plus or minus two. Source: Wikipedia, "The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0003
In an experiment, why are participants assigned to the conditions at random?Answer: So that the groups are alike, on average, at the start. Source: Wikipedia, "Random assignment". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0001
In which stage of sleep do most dreams occur, while the eyes move rapidly behind closed lids and the arm and leg muscles are temporarily paralyzed?Answer: REM sleep. Source: NINDS, "Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0002
What are the chemicals called that one neuron sends across the tiny space of a synapse to signal the next neuron?Answer: Neurotransmitters. Source: NINDS, "Brain Basics: The Life and Death of a Neuron". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0002
Which school of thought, led by John B. Watson and later B. F. Skinner, held that psychology should study only behavior that can be observed?Answer: Behaviorism. Source: Wikipedia, "Behaviorism". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 248, objective 0001
Psychology: variability of behavior 12
A man collapses on a crowded sidewalk, and each passerby assumes that someone else will call for help. What is this spreading of responsibility called?Answer: Diffusion of responsibility. Source: Wikipedia, "Bystander effect". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0003
A ninth grader who has not eaten since yesterday cannot attend to a lesson on building self-esteem. Which idea from Maslow's hierarchy does this illustrate?Answer: Physiological needs press first. Source: Wikipedia, "Maslow's hierarchy of needs". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0001
A student is diligent, self-controlled and attentive to detail. On which of the Big Five traits does she score high?Answer: Conscientiousness. Source: Wikipedia, "Big Five personality traits". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0001
A teacher sees a student arrive late and concludes that he is lazy, without asking whether his bus broke down. Which attribution bias is this?Answer: The fundamental attribution error. Source: Wikipedia, "Fundamental attribution error". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0003
A therapist helps a client spot automatic thoughts that are inaccurate, question them, and change self-defeating patterns of behavior. Which approach is the therapist using?Answer: Cognitive behavioral therapy. Source: National Institute of Mental Health, "Psychotherapies". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0002
For most of a year a man has felt a constant dread about many everyday things, with restlessness and poor sleep, and it interferes with his daily life. Which disorder do these features describe?Answer: Generalized anxiety disorder. Source: National Institute of Mental Health, "Generalized Anxiety Disorder: What You Need to Know". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0002
Hallucinations and delusions belong to which group of symptoms of schizophrenia?Answer: Psychotic symptoms. Source: National Institute of Mental Health, "Schizophrenia" (publication). Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0002
In Freud's model of the psyche, which part works on the pleasure principle and presses for immediate gratification?Answer: The id. Source: Wikipedia, "Id, ego and superego". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0001
In Solomon Asch's line-judgment studies, many participants gave an answer they could see was wrong. What were they doing?Answer: Conforming to a group. Source: Wikipedia, "Asch conformity experiments". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0003
One theory of emotion holds that the body's arousal comes first and that the felt emotion is the experience of that arousal. In the 1920s Cannon and Bard challenged it. Which theory is it?Answer: The James–Lange theory. Source: Wikipedia, "James–Lange theory". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0001
What did Stanley Milgram's experiments with a shock generator set out to measure?Answer: Obedience to an authority figure. Source: Wikipedia, "Milgram experiment". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0003
Which disorder is marked by shifts between manic episodes of elated, energized behavior and depressive episodes of sad or hopeless mood?Answer: Bipolar disorder. Source: National Institute of Mental Health, "Bipolar Disorder". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 249, objective 0002
Sociology 16
A dinner guest eats salad with the wrong fork and draws a few raised eyebrows, nothing more. Which kind of norm did the guest break?Answer: A folkway. Source: Wikipedia, "Mores". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0002
A driver receives a speeding ticket. In the language of social control, what is the ticket?Answer: A formal negative sanction. Source: Wikipedia, "Social control". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0003
A landlord refuses to rent to a family because of its ethnic background. Sociologists separate attitudes from actions. What is the landlord's action called?Answer: Discrimination. Source: Wikipedia, "Discrimination". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0004
A man holds the title of prince because he was born into a royal family. What kind of status is this?Answer: An ascribed status. Source: Wikipedia, "Ascribed status". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0004
A researcher spends a year living in a small town, joining its clubs and suppers, to learn how residents see their own lives. Which research method is this?Answer: Participant observation. Source: Wikipedia, "Participant observation". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0001
A sociologist explains schools by the part they play in keeping society stable, such as passing shared values to each new generation. Which perspective is she using?Answer: Structural functionalism. Source: Wikipedia, "Structural functionalism". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0001
A traveler judges each custom abroad as odd or backward because it differs from the customs at home. What is the term for this habit?Answer: Ethnocentrism. Source: Wikipedia, "Ethnocentrism". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0002
Charles Horton Cooley held that people build a sense of self by imagining how they appear to others and how others judge them. What did he call the idea?Answer: The looking-glass self. Source: Wikipedia, "Looking-glass self". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0003
In primary socialization a child learns the attitudes, values and actions expected of members of the culture. Who mainly shapes it?Answer: Immediate family and friends. Source: Wikipedia, "Socialization". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0003
In which type of society do most workers provide services or handle information, not grow food or make goods?Answer: Postindustrial society. Source: Wikipedia, "Post-industrial society". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0002
The son of a janitor and a waitress grows up to become a judge. Which kind of social mobility does his life show?Answer: Upward intergenerational mobility. Source: Wikipedia, "Social mobility". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0004
Which of these belongs to a society's nonmaterial culture?Answer: Its beliefs about marriage. Source: Wikipedia, "Non-material culture". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0002
Which perspective, drawing on Karl Marx among others, studies society through the power differences between groups, such as the conflict between classes?Answer: Conflict theory. Source: Wikipedia, "Conflict theories". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0001
Which theory of deviance holds that an act is deviant because others define it so, and that the label can push a person toward further deviance?Answer: Labeling theory. Source: Wikipedia, "Labeling theory". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0003
Who gave sociology its name and argued, as the founder of positivism, that society should be studied by the methods of science?Answer: Auguste Comte. Source: Wikipedia, "Auguste Comte". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0001
William Ogburn observed that laws and customs often change more slowly than technology does. What did he call the gap?Answer: Cultural lag. Source: Wikipedia, "Cultural lag". Written to GACE Behavioral Science (736) testlet 250, objective 0004
How this list was compiled: Our own questions, written to the framework of the GACE Behavioral Science (6–12) assessment, test code 736, on the GACE website of the Georgia Professional Standards Commission and Evaluation Systems, Pearson (https://www.gace.es.pearson.com/studyguide/framework/736 and https://www.gace.es.pearson.com/test/736, read 2026-10-15): three testlets, 100 selected-response questions in all: 248 Psychology: Foundations, Development, and Cognition (about 30 questions, 45 minutes, three objectives); 249 Psychology: Variability of Behavior (about 30, 45 minutes, three objectives); 250 Sociology (about 40, 60 minutes, four objectives); the objectives of a testlet carry equal weight. This bank holds 12, 12 and 16, four questions for each of the ten objectives. Every fact was read on 2026-10-15 on the page named under its question: the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and Wikipedia. Licence: Questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site.
How it works
This GACE behavioral science study guide is 40 practice questions of our own on Behavioral Science (6–12), test 736: 24 on psychology and 16 on sociology. It is unofficial, with no tie to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission or Pearson.
Read the full guide
The three testlets
Psychology: Foundations, Development, and Cognition (248) and Psychology: Variability of Behavior (249) have about 30 questions each, and Sociology (250) about 40, by the framework at gace.es.pearson.com read October 15, 2026.
What each one asks
248: research methods, the biological bases of behavior, and development, learning and cognition. 249: motivation, emotion and personality; psychological disorders and treatment; the social environment. 250: sociology's perspectives and methods, culture, socialization and social control, and social inequities and change.
The clock
The three real clocks are 45, 45 and 60 minutes. A timed round here keeps that pace: 40 questions in 60 minutes.
The four questions on disorders and treatment follow pages of the National Institute of Mental Health. They are exam practice, not medical advice.
Questions and answers
Is there an official GACE Behavioral Science study guide?
Yes. The GACE website has a study guide for Behavioral Science (6–12), test code 736, with the same three testlets. The questions here are written to its framework, never copied or reworded from its samples.
How many questions are on the GACE Behavioral Science test?
100 selected-response questions in three testlets. The three clocks total 2 hours 30 minutes; a testing session also has 15 minutes for a tutorial and a nondisclosure agreement.
What is the passing score for GACE Behavioral Science?
220 or higher as an assessment-level score, which the GACE site reports on a scale of 100 to 300. Each testlet also has a floor, a minimum score you must reach.