2021, Set 2, Question 1 · Concept Application · 7 points
2021 AP Psychology FRQ 1 (Set 2) answers
A video gamer, his habits and his parents
Apply five concepts to a teen's skill-based gaming with online friends, then describe a fixed-ratio plan his parents could use to get college applications done and how a psychoanalytic therapist would apply free association in working with him.
Skip to the worked answer and scoring (try the question first if you can)
This exam had two free-response questions to answer in 50 minutes, a Concept Application question and a Research Design question, each scored out of 7 points. The current exam has 2 free-response questions in 70 minutes. The skills these questions practice still count.
1 Read the question
The question is College Board's, from the 2021, Set 2 exam. It starts on page 2 of the PDF. College Board no longer posts this exam, so it opens from the copy of College Board's PDF that the Internet Archive saved on March 15, 2026.
2 Write your answer
Answer each part the way you would on the exam, in full sentences, with your work shown. Your writing saves as you type.
3 Score it
Score your answer against College Board's scoring guidelines, one point at a time. Give yourself a point only when your answer says what the guideline asks for.
Scoring guidelines (PDF, page 2) What the exam readers saw (Chief Reader report)
4 Worked answer and scoring
Here is how a response that earns full credit could read, part by part, and what College Board's scoring guidelines look for, put in our own words. Open a part once you have written your own answer to it. The scoring guidelines PDF above is the official word on every point.
Seven concepts, one point each, and every one has to be put to work in Damian's story: his gaming in Part A, his parents and a therapist in Part B. Several terms sit next to a close cousin that does not score (algorithm and heuristic, interposition and other depth cues, fixed ratio and fixed interval), so make the distinguishing feature visible in the example.
Part A 5 points
Model answer
Motor cortex: when Damian presses buttons and moves the joystick, the motor cortex at the back of his frontal lobes sends the commands for those deliberate finger movements.
Algorithm: stuck on a puzzle level, Damian follows a fixed sequence a friend gave him, trying every door in order from left to right until one opens. Working through every option step by step guarantees he finds the exit.
Reciprocity norm: one of Damian's online friends sends him a strategy that gets him past a hard level, so Damian feels he owes the friend and shares his own best tactic in return.
Interposition: on the screen an enemy is partly hidden behind a wall, so Damian sees the enemy as farther away than the wall that covers it, and he aims accordingly.
Mental set: Damian keeps using the same attack plan that won the last five levels, even on a new level where it keeps failing; his habit of approaching problems the old way gets in the way until he tries something new.
What earns each point
- The motor cortex directs a voluntary movement in Damian's gaming, such as pressing the controller buttons. The motor cortex plans and sends commands for deliberate movement. Hearing, seeing or a startle reflex belong to other systems.
- Damian uses a step by step procedure, or tries every possible option, to solve a problem in the game. An algorithm is a methodical procedure that guarantees a solution, slowly. A shortcut or rule of thumb is a heuristic, and noticing patterns is not a procedure, so the example shows each step being followed.
- Damian or a friend does something helpful for the other because they received, or expect to receive, help back. The norm is the pull to repay a favor. Agreeing to help a friend, with no sense of returning something, does not show it.
- Damian sees a partly covered object as farther away than the object blocking it. Interposition is the monocular cue that whatever is blocked is behind. Other cues such as linear perspective, or binocular cues such as retinal disparity, are different and do not score.
- Damian keeps using a strategy that worked before, or has to change one that worked before but now fails. A mental set is a tendency to approach problems the way that has succeeded in the past. Saying he is set in his ways does not show what strategy he repeats.
Part B 2 points
Model answer
Fixed ratio: his parents tell Damian he earns one hour of gaming for every two college application essays he completes. The reward comes after a set number of finished tasks, every time.
Free association: a psychoanalyst would ask Damian to say whatever comes into his head, without filtering anything out, however trivial or embarrassing. The therapist would listen for patterns that point to unconscious conflicts behind his gaming and his avoidance of college.
What earns each point
- Damian is reinforced after a set number of application related behaviors. A fixed ratio schedule rewards after a constant count of responses. Rewarding him at the end of each week is a fixed interval, and rewarding him unpredictably is a variable schedule.
- The therapist has Damian report his thoughts and feelings freely, without censoring them. Free association means saying everything that comes to mind. Discussing his dreams is dream analysis, and answering a cue word with the first word he thinks of is word association, which is different.
Common mistakes
From what the exam readers reported seeing in 2021 students' answers, in our words:
- Giving the motor cortex jobs that belong to other areas, such as hearing or seeing, instead of voluntary movement. Some responses did this.
- Mixing up algorithms with heuristics, which happened often.
- Saying an algorithm guarantees a solution without showing it working through a procedure step by step.
- For the reciprocity norm, describing one character helping another but leaving out the pressure to return the favor, which happened often.
- Treating interposition as a different monocular cue, or reaching for a binocular cue such as retinal disparity.
- Writing about a mental set too vaguely, often without saying how it shapes Damian's strategies in the game.
- Confusing a fixed ratio schedule with a fixed interval one.
- Free association was often mistaken for other kinds of talk therapy.
- Describing a stimulus based technique, such as the Thematic Apperception Test, in place of free association.
Question, scoring guidelines and Chief Reader report: College Board, from the Internet Archive. The title, summary and worked answer are ours.