Week 11 — Quiz (auto-graded) · Development Across the Lifespan

Course: Introduction to Psychology (PSYC 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Bennett
Objective tested: Objective 7 — physical, cognitive, and social development across the lifespan.
Points: 10 (1 each) · Assignment group: Quizzes (15% of grade) · Due: end of Module 11.

This is the human-readable quiz with its vetted answer key and feedback. The import-ready Classic QTI is in F-quiz-week-11-qti.xml; the reusable item-bank entries and the Canvas placement block are at the bottom of this file.

Blueprint

No trick questions; distractors target the Week 11 misconceptions named in the lecture outline.

Questions, key, and feedback

Q1 (MC). A psychologist studying how a child's personality forms concludes that it results from inherited temperament together with the child's experiences and environment. This "both, woven together" view best reflects which position on nature and nurture?
- A. Nature alone determines development
- B. Nurture alone determines development
- C. Nature and nurture interact ✅
- D. Nature and nurture never influence the same trait
Feedback: The modern answer is interaction — genes set ranges, and experience shapes where we land inside them (height, for example, has a genetic ceiling and depends on nutrition). The framing was never "nature or nurture."

Q2 (MC). An infant acts as though a toy that is hidden under a blanket has simply ceased to exist. The ability this baby has not yet developed — knowing that objects continue to exist when out of sight — is called object permanence, the hallmark of which Piagetian stage?
- A. Sensorimotor ✅
- B. Preoperational
- C. Concrete operational
- D. Formal operational
Feedback: Object permanence develops during the sensorimotor stage (birth–~2). Before it, "out of sight" is "out of existence" — which is exactly why peekaboo delights a young infant.

Q3 (Multiple answer — select all that apply). Which of the following are true of Piaget's preoperational stage?
- A. The child shows egocentrism (difficulty taking another's point of view) ✅
- B. The child typically does NOT yet grasp conservation ✅
- C. It spans roughly ages 2 to 7 ✅
- D. The child can reason systematically about abstract, hypothetical ideas
- E. It is the stage in which object permanence first appears
Feedback: The preoperational stage (~2–7) is marked by egocentrism, a lack of conservation, and the bloom of language and pretend play. Abstract/hypothetical reasoning belongs to the formal operational stage, and object permanence first appears earlier, in the sensorimotor stage.

Q4 (MC). A 9-year-old is shown a tall, thin glass and a short, wide glass that hold the same amount of water. After watching water poured between them, she says, "It's still the same amount — you just changed the shape." This grasp of conservation places her in which stage?
- A. Sensorimotor
- B. Preoperational
- C. Concrete operational ✅
- D. Formal operational
Feedback: Grasping conservation (and reversibility) for concrete, hands-on situations is the signature of the concrete operational stage (~7–11). A preoperational child would have said the tall glass "has more."

Q5 (MC). In Vygotsky's theory, the gap between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with guidance from a more skilled person is called the —
- A. schema
- B. zone of proximal development ✅
- C. sensorimotor stage
- D. Strange Situation
Feedback: The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is that "not yet alone, but yes with help" space; the support a skilled helper provides there — and gradually removes — is scaffolding.

Q6 (Matching). Match each Piagetian stage to its signature feature.
| Stage | Correct feature |
|---|---|
| Sensorimotor | Object permanence develops; world known through senses and action |
| Preoperational | Egocentrism; lacks conservation; language and pretend play emerge |
| Concrete operational | Conservation and logical reasoning about concrete things |
| Formal operational | Abstract and hypothetical ("what if") reasoning |
Feedback: The order is the real claim — sensorimotor → preoperational → concrete operational → formal operational. Watch the classic mix-up: object permanence is sensorimotor, while conservation arrives in concrete operational.

Q7 (MC). Harlow's monkeys preferred a soft cloth "mother" that provided no food over a wire "mother" that provided milk, and Ainsworth found that an infant who uses a caregiver as a safe base and is comforted at reunion shows secure attachment. Together, these classics show that attachment depends mainly on —
- A. which caregiver provides food
- B. comfort, responsiveness, and a sense of security ✅
- C. the infant's level of intelligence
- D. the size of the caregiver
Feedback: Contact comfort beat food in Harlow's study, and sensitive, responsive caregiving fosters secure attachment in Ainsworth's Strange Situation. Attachment is built on comfort and security, not just feeding.

Q8 (True / False). "Psychological development is complete by the end of childhood."
- True
- False ✅
Feedback: False. Development is lifelong — Erikson's stages run into late adulthood (integrity vs. despair), crystallized intelligence keeps growing, and relationships, identity, and the brain keep changing well beyond childhood.

Q9 (MC). According to Erikson, the central psychosocial task of adolescence — trying on roles and values to answer "who am I?" — is —
- A. trust vs. mistrust
- B. integrity vs. despair
- C. identity vs. role confusion ✅
- D. intimacy vs. isolation
Feedback: Adolescence centers on identity vs. role confusion. (Trust vs. mistrust is infancy; intimacy vs. isolation is young adulthood; integrity vs. despair is late life.)

Q10 (MC). As adults grow older, fluid intelligence (fast, on-the-spot reasoning on novel problems) tends to decline, while another kind of intelligence tends to hold steady or even grow. That kind — accumulated knowledge, vocabulary, and expertise — is —
- A. sensorimotor intelligence
- B. crystallized intelligence ✅
- C. fluid intelligence
- D. egocentric intelligence
Feedback: Crystallized intelligence — stored knowledge and vocabulary — typically holds or rises with age, even as fluid intelligence (processing speed, novel reasoning) gradually declines. "Speed fades; wisdom compounds."

Answer key (quick reference)

Quality gate (self-checked): each single-answer item (Q1, Q2, Q4, Q5, Q7, Q9, Q10) has exactly one correct option; the multiple-answer item (Q3) lists every correct option (A, B, C) and excludes the two distractors (abstract reasoning belongs to formal operational; object permanence to sensorimotor); the matching item (Q6) pairs four stages to four distinct features; the true/false (Q8) is keyed False; no item asserts a fact outside the Week 11 course definitions. No computation in this quiz, so no arithmetic to mis-key.

Item-bank entries (for variants + the midterm/final)

All ten items are tagged course=PSYC1 · week=11 · objective=7 · topic=lifespan-development and deposited in Item Bank: Week 11 — Development Across the Lifespan. The final (Week 16) and the per-term variant updates draw fresh items from this bank. (Tags: q1 nature-nurture, q2 object-permanence, q3 preoperational-stage, q4 conservation-concrete, q5 vygotsky-zpd, q6 piaget-stages-match, q7 attachment-harlow-ainsworth, q8 development-lifelong, q9 erikson-identity, q10 fluid-crystallized.)

Canvas placement block

canvas_object   = Quizzes::Quiz
title           = "Week 11 Quiz — Development Across the Lifespan"
assignment_group = "Quizzes"
points_possible = 10
grading_type    = points
due_offset_days = 6        # 6 days after module start
published       = true
shuffle_answers = true
provenance      = "~ Prof. Bennett's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"