AP Psychology Unit 1 Practice Test
Twelve original multiple-choice questions on Biological Bases of Behavior — neurons, neurotransmitters, the brain, sleep, and sensation and perception — with instant scoring and an explanation for every answer.
Ready to test yourself?
All 12 questions focus on Unit 1: Biological Bases — shuffled every run.
Pick an answer to see instantly whether you're right and why, then move on. Your score comes at the end.
Question text
What These Unit 1 Questions Cover
The set hits every Unit 1 topic cluster the exam draws from: neural firing (dendrites, resting potential, the all-or-none action potential), neurotransmitters (including GABA as the main inhibitory one), brain structures (hypothalamus, hippocampus, and the four cortical lobes), the sympathetic nervous system, sleep and dreaming (REM), and sensation and perception (transduction, Weber's law) — plus plasticity, the brain's ability to rewire after damage.
Missing more than a few? Reread the Unit 1 study guide — it's organized around exactly these clusters — then come back for a fresh shuffle.
How Unit 1 Shows Up on the Real Exam
Biology questions on the AP exam are rarely bare definitions. They describe a scenario — a patient who can't form new memories, a driver whose heart races after a near-miss — and ask you to name the structure or process responsible. That's why every question here is written as an application, not a flashcard. The unit's terms also feed the free-response side: biological explanations are a favorite source prompt in the EBQ.
Unit 1 Practice Test — FAQ
What does this Unit 1 practice test cover?
All of Biological Bases of Behavior: neural firing, neurotransmitters, brain anatomy, the nervous and endocrine systems, sleep, and sensation and perception.
Why is Unit 1 the hardest to memorize?
It has the heaviest vocabulary load in the course, and the terms come in confusable pairs — sympathetic vs. parasympathetic, occipital vs. temporal. Questions that force you to discriminate between close answers are the fastest fix, which is what this set is built to do.
All 12 Practice Questions with Answers
Prefer to review instead of quiz? Every question in this set is below — open one to reveal the answer and the reasoning. (The interactive version above shuffles both questions and answer positions, so reading this list first won't spoil a retake.)
1. Which part of a neuron receives incoming messages from other neurons?
- Dendrites ✓
- Axon
- Myelin sheath
- Terminal buttons
Why: Dendrites are the branching extensions that receive signals; the axon carries the signal away from the cell body.
2. A neuron's electrical charge while it is inactive and ready to fire is called the:
- Action potential
- Resting potential ✓
- Refractory period
- Threshold
Why: At rest the neuron is polarized (negative inside) — the resting potential. An action potential is the firing itself.
3. Which brain structure regulates hunger, thirst, and body temperature?
- Hippocampus
- Cerebellum
- Hypothalamus ✓
- Amygdala
Why: The hypothalamus governs basic drives and helps maintain homeostasis. The amygdala handles emotion; the hippocampus forms memories.
4. The sympathetic nervous system is primarily responsible for:
- Calming the body after a threat
- Arousing the body for fight or flight ✓
- Controlling voluntary muscle movement
- Forming long-term memories
Why: The sympathetic branch arouses the body for action; the parasympathetic branch calms it back down afterward.
5. The process of converting physical stimulus energy into neural signals is called:
- Perception
- Accommodation
- Transduction ✓
- Adaptation
Why: Transduction is sensory receptors turning stimulus energy (light, sound) into neural impulses the brain can use.
6. Vivid, story-like dreaming most commonly occurs during which sleep stage?
- REM sleep ✓
- Stage 1 (NREM)
- Stage 3 (NREM)
- The hypnagogic state
Why: REM (rapid eye movement) sleep is when most vivid dreaming occurs, alongside heightened brain activity and muscle paralysis.
7. The all-or-none principle of neural firing means that a neuron:
- Fires at full strength once threshold is reached, or not at all ✓
- Fires more strongly for more intense stimuli
- Can fire partially when weakly stimulated
- Never needs to reach a threshold
Why: Once depolarization reaches threshold, the action potential fires completely; stimulus intensity is coded by firing rate, not by a 'stronger' impulse.
8. Which brain structure is most critical for forming new long-term memories?
- Amygdala
- Hippocampus ✓
- Cerebellum
- Medulla
Why: The hippocampus consolidates new explicit memories — damage to it (as in patient H.M.) prevents forming new long-term memories.
9. Visual information is processed primarily in which lobe of the cerebral cortex?
- Frontal
- Parietal
- Occipital ✓
- Temporal
Why: The occipital lobe, at the back of the brain, houses the primary visual cortex. Parietal handles touch; temporal handles hearing.
10. The brain's main inhibitory neurotransmitter, which calms neural activity, is:
- Glutamate
- Dopamine
- Acetylcholine
- GABA ✓
Why: GABA inhibits neural firing (glutamate is the main excitatory counterpart); many anti-anxiety drugs work by enhancing GABA's effects.
11. According to Weber's law, the just-noticeable difference between two stimuli is:
- A fixed amount for each sense
- A constant proportion of the original stimulus ✓
- Larger for weak stimuli than strong ones
- The same for all people
Why: Detecting a difference depends on percentage change, not absolute amount — you notice one candle added to ten, but not one added to a thousand.
12. After a stroke, other brain areas gradually take over functions of the damaged region. This best illustrates:
- The all-or-none principle
- Plasticity ✓
- Transduction
- Sensory adaptation
Why: Plasticity is the brain's ability to reorganize itself — forming new pathways after damage or with new experience, especially in younger brains.
Keep Going
Next up: Unit 2 builds directly on this biology.
Unit 2 Practice TestOriginal questions written for the redesigned AP Psychology course; not reproduced from any official exam. AppsychologyLab is not affiliated with the College Board.
Written and fact-checked by the AppsychologyLab Editorial Team against College Board materials. Last reviewed 2026-08-26. How we verify.