AP Psychology Practice Test

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Prepare for the AP Psychology Exam with a comprehensive practice test featuring detailed questions and explanations. Enhance your learning experience as you dive deep into psychological concepts, theories, and important figures in psychology. Get ready for your exam!

Each practice test/flash card set has 50 randomly selected questions from a bank of over 500. You'll get a new set of questions each time!

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What is the purpose of the control condition?

To expose all participants to the treatment
To serve as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment
To measure the dependent variable
To assign participants to experiments by chance

The correct answer is: To serve as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment

The purpose of the control condition is indeed to serve as a comparison for evaluating the effect of the treatment. In experimental research, the control condition typically involves participants who do not receive the experimental treatment or intervention. This allows researchers to observe the effects of the treatment by compared results from the control group with those from the experimental group. By establishing a control condition, researchers can better understand whether changes in the dependent variable are truly a result of the treatment or if they occurred due to other outside factors. This adds rigor to the research findings and helps ensure that the outcomes can be attributed specifically to the manipulation being tested. The other choices focus on different aspects of experimental design but do not accurately describe the function of the control condition. For example, exposing all participants to the treatment overlooks the necessary comparative aspect that defines a control condition. Measuring the dependent variable does not capture the essence of control conditions, as it’s about the structure of the study rather than measurement. Similarly, assigning participants to experiments by chance relates to randomization but is not specific to the idea of a control condition.