AP Psychology · Topic 3.5
Communication and Language Development Practice
Part of Development and Learning.
Practice questions
17
Sample questions
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Sample 1difficulty 2/5
Researchers compare three groups of immigrants who arrived in an English-speaking country at ages 4, 12, and 22. After 10 years of immersion, syntactic test scores are nearly native for the youngest group, intermediate for the middle group, and significantly lower for the oldest group, despite equal exposure. Vocabulary scores show no group differences.
A child in the youngest group says "I goed to the store." This overregularization error best illustrates:
- A
A semantic, not syntactic, deficit
- B
Failure of the LAD to develop
- Ccheck_circle
Application of internalized grammatical rules rather than rote imitation
- D
Telegraphic speech typical of one-year-olds
Why
Overregularization (adding -ed to irregular verbs) shows the child has extracted a productive rule rather than memorizing forms—evidence for rule-based grammar learning.
- A
Sample 2difficulty 3/5
Researchers compare three groups of immigrants who arrived in an English-speaking country at ages 4, 12, and 22. After 10 years of immersion, syntactic test scores are nearly native for the youngest group, intermediate for the middle group, and significantly lower for the oldest group, despite equal exposure. Vocabulary scores show no group differences.
The pattern of syntactic but not vocabulary differences most directly supports:
- Acheck_circle
A sensitive period for grammar consistent with Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device
- B
B. F. Skinner's operant account of language as shaped verbal behavior
- C
Vygotsky's zone of proximal development
- D
Whorf's linguistic relativity hypothesis
Why
Selective decline in grammar with later acquisition while lexical learning remains intact is the classic signature of a critical/sensitive period for syntax, supporting an innate LAD.
- A
Sample 3difficulty 3/5
The smallest meaningful unit of language is the
- A
Sentence
- B
Word
- C
Phoneme
- Dcheck_circle
Morpheme
Why
Morpheme = smallest unit of meaning (e.g., "un-" in "unhappy"). Phoneme = smallest sound unit.
- A
Sample 4difficulty 3/5
Telegraphic speech (two-word stage) typically appears around
- A
Age 1 (around 6-9 months)
- B
Age 5 (around 60 months)
- C
Age 4 (around 36-48 months)
- Dcheck_circle
Age 2 (around 18-24 months)
Why
"Want cookie", "go car" — like a telegram with content words only.
- A
Sample 5difficulty 3/5
In a study, researchers showed Russian and English speakers a series of color chips ranging from light blue to dark blue. Russian has separate basic words for light blue ("goluboy") and dark blue ("siniy"), whereas English uses "blue" for both. Russian speakers were significantly faster than English speakers at distinguishing color chips that crossed the goluboy/siniy boundary, even though physical color differences were equivalent across pairs.
These results most directly support which hypothesis?
- A
Skinner's behaviorist account of language learning
- Bcheck_circle
The linguistic relativity (Whorfian) hypothesis: language influences thought and perception
- C
Chomsky's universal grammar hypothesis
- D
The critical period hypothesis for language acquisition
Why
Whorf's linguistic relativity hypothesis proposes that the structure of one's language influences cognitive processes, including perception. Faster discrimination of categories that have separate words supports this idea.
- A