Most editions of the test consist of approximately 205 multiple-choice questions. Each question in the test has five options from which the examinee is to select the one option that is the correct or best answer to the question.
Some of the stimulus materials, such as a description of an experiment or a graph, may serve as the basis for several questions.
The questions in the Psychology Test are drawn from courses of study most commonly offered at the undergraduate level within the broadly defined field of psychology.
Questions may require recalling factual information, analyzing relationships, applying principles, drawing conclusions from data, evaluating a research design, and/or identifying a psychologist who has made a theoretical or research contribution to the field.
The Psychology Test yields two sub scores in addition to the total score. Although the test offers only two sub scores, there are questions in three content categories:
Experimental or natural science oriented (about 40 percent of the questions), including learning, language, memory, thinking, sensation and perception, physiological psychology, ethology, and comparative psychology. They contribute to the experimental psychology sub score and the total score.
Social or social science oriented (about 43 percent of the questions). These questions are distributed among the fields of clinical and abnormal, developmental, personality, and social psychology. They contribute to the social psychology sub score and the total score.
General (about 17 percent of the questions), including the history of psychology, applied psychology, measurement, research designs, and statistics. They contribute to the total score only.