Psychological Testing Questions and Answers

Answer: B

Attitude scales are designed to give a quantitative measure of an individual's relative position along a single (unidimensional) continuum, from very unfavourable to very favourable towards an object. Examples are Thurstone's and Likert's scales. Aptitude, interest and personality scales deal with several dimensions or kinds of scores rather than one continuum.

Thurstone and Likert scales place a person along a single line from favourable to unfavourable, which is the unidimensional continuum of the stem.

Answer: D

The key gives strength and magnitude of the responses. When responses to a test are given on a scale, such as 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree', each response shows how strong or intense the respondent's reaction is. Reliability and validity belong to the test as a whole and are not shown by individual scaled answers. The key's choice of 'responses' over 'items' is because it is the answer of the person that carries the scale value.

Scaled responses, such as a five-point scale, show how strongly the person agrees, which is the strength and magnitude of the response.

Answer: D

The property that is NOT part of psychological measurement is that it "always measures the constructs with objectivity". Measurement means assigning numbers to attributes by rules, it is always about some attribute or feature of the object, and it involves quantification. But psychological constructs such as intelligence or anxiety are measured indirectly, with error, so objectivity is something a test aims for and reports through reliability and validity; it is not guaranteed in every measurement.

Answer: D

Mathematical aptitude is not a test in the General Aptitude Test Battery. The GATB includes tests of clerical perception, numerical aptitude and form perception, among others, while the battery has no test called mathematical aptitude. The General Aptitude Test Battery was developed by the United States Employment Service and measures nine aptitudes through twelve tests, including verbal, numerical, spatial, form perception, clerical perception, motor coordination and finger and manual dexterity.

Answer: B

The Thematic Apperception Test is useful for assessing individual differences in several motives, such as achievement, affiliation and power, from the stories a person tells about pictures. The Rorschach inkblot test is mainly for personality structure, the MMPI is a self-report inventory for psychopathology, and the Stanford-Binet scale measures intelligence. In the TAT the person makes up a story for each picture, and the stories are scored for needs such as achievement, affiliation and power, which makes the test a measure of several motives.

Answer: A

The Differential Aptitude Tests were developed by Bennett, Seashore and Wesman. Carroll and Horn are known for the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model of intelligence, Binet and Simon for the first intelligence scale, and Wechsler and Terman for intelligence tests. The Differential Aptitude Tests first appeared in 1947 and measure verbal reasoning, numerical ability, abstract reasoning, clerical speed and accuracy, mechanical reasoning, space relations, spelling and language usage.

Answer: D

Clerical is not among the General Occupational Themes of the Jackson Vocational Interest Survey; expressive, logical and inquiring are themes of the survey. This follows the official key. The Jackson Vocational Interest Survey measures interests through basic interest scales that are grouped into themes. The question asks for the theme that is not part of it, which is the one the key marks as Clerical. Because the paper gives no list, the answer rests on the official key.

Answer: A

The Thematic Apperception Test has 31 cards: 30 with pictures and 1 blank card. Different sets of cards are given to men, women, boys and girls, but the full set is 30 pictured cards and one blank, so the other combinations (31 pictured, 20 pictured, 21 pictured) are not the total. The cards are labelled with letters for gender and age, and each person is generally given about twenty of them, one at a time, and asked to make up a story.

Answer: C

Criterion validity is related to concurrent validity: the test scores are compared with a criterion measured at the same time. Predictive validity is the other form of criterion validity. Content validity, face validity and factorial validity are different kinds. In concurrent validity, test scores and the criterion are collected at about the same time, for instance a new test against an established test taken the same week.

Answer: C

Aggression is not a major scoring variable of the Holtzman Inkblot Test. Reaction time, location and anxiety are among the scoring variables, along with form definiteness, colour, shading and movement; hostility, not aggression, appears among the content variables. The Holtzman test, devised by Wayne Holtzman, uses 45 inkblots and scores several variables, such as reaction time, rejection, location, form definiteness, colour, shading and movement.