Can you recall how you felt on your first day of kindergarten. Like many preschoolers, you may have been bewildered, even frightened, as the comforting familiarity of home or day care was suddenly replaced by an environment filled with new names and faces, rules and events. But, like most youngsters, you probably adjusted to this new environment within a few days.
This adjustment to a changed environment can take many forms. Some are simple, as when once-startling sounds from a balky heating system are eventually ignored. Others are more complex. Ringing bells, roll call, and other strange new events become part of children's pattern of expectancies about the world. Youngsters come to expect that certain events, such as the arrival of the music teacher, signal the likely occurrence of other events that are pleasant or unpleasant. They also develop expectancies about which aspects of their school behavior are likely to be rewarded and which are likely to be punished. Talking at will, for example may not be as acceptable at school as at home, but enthusiastic finger painting- perhaps forbidden at home- may bring praise at school. Finally, school children acquire facts about the world and develop skills ranging from reading to kickball.
Adaptation is not confined to school. The entire process of development, from birth to death, involves adapting to increasingly complex, ever-changing environments, using continuously updated knowledge gained through experience. Though perhaps most highly developed in humans, the ability to adapt to changing environments appears to varying degrees in members of all species. According to the evolutionary approach to psychology, it is individual variability in the capacity to adapt that shapes the revolution of appearance and behavior in animals and humans. As Darwin noted, individuals who do not adapt may not survive to reproduce.
Many forms of animal and human adaptation follow the principles of learning. Learning is the process through which experience modifies pre-existing behavior and understanding. The pre-existing behavior and understanding may have been present at birth, acquired through maturation, or learned earlier. Indeed, learning plays a central role in most aspects of human behavior, from the motor skills we need to walk or tie a shoe to the language skills we use to communicate and the object categories -such as food, vehicle, or animal- that help us to organize our perceptions and to think logically about the world. Psychologists study the fundamental principles of learning and how these principles operate in arenas such as medical treatment, psychotherapy, and education.
People learn primarily by identifying relationships between events and noting the regularity in the world around them. When two events repeatedly take place together, people can predict the occurrence of one from knowledge of the other. They learn that a clear blue sky means dry weather, that too little sleep makes them irritable, that they can reach someone on the telephone by dialing a certain number, that screaming orders motivates some people and angers others.
Which relationships do people identify, and how do they do it? What determines whether and how people learn? These and other basic questions about learning are among the most frequently and intensively studied topics in psychology. For several decades, much of the research on learning was guided by the behaviorist approach, which stresses the importance of reward and punishment in altering the frequency of observable behavior. The approach was inspired by the hope that all behavior could be explained by a few basic principles of learning and by the idea that all learning amounted to the automatic formation of associations between stimuli and responses. Research on learning, and on the role of cognitive processes in learning, eventually showed that these ideas about unthinking, automatic associations were over-simplified. Still an understanding of how associations are formed is basic to an understanding of learning.
Adapted from Bernstein, Psychology
Decide whether the following statements are True or False according to the text. (12 pts.)
People adapt or become habituated to events that are repeated often. ______
Children learn through experience that some actions are rewarded; others are punished. ______
Adaptation to changing environments is only limited to humans. ______
Darwin believes that the capacity to adapt is crucial for survival. ______
The behaviorist approach shows that the automatic associations between stimuli and responses are over-simplified. ______
Human learning is not an important topic in psychology. ______
Choose the best answer to complete the following sentences. (20 pts.)
The author uses the example "as when once-startling sounds from a balky heating system are eventually ignored" in paragraph 2 to
Show how a people can automatically get accustomed to a new environment
Show that children as well as adults are very sensitive to surrounding noise
Show that adjustment is a very complicated process beyond human understanding
Show how people sometimes make an effort to ignore disturbing noises
The following can be added to the examples in paragraph 5 except
That the school bell signals the end of class
That the dog barking means a stranger is coming
That a cloudy sky means probable rain
That hamburgers is fast food
The word altering in paragraph 6 most nearly means
setting
changing
determining
stressing
A good title for the text can be
The Evolutionary Approach
The Cognitive Approach
Starting School
An Introduction to Learning
The above text is most likely to be found
in an anthology of literature
in a local newspaper
in an academic textbook
in an entertainment magazine
Find synonyms to the following verbs from the bold-faced words in the text. (18 pts.)
created _______________________
lead _______________________
adapted _______________________
claimed _______________________
confused _______________________
restricted _______________________
Answer the following questions using your own words.
According to the text, define learning and state how people primarily learn. (4 pts.)
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Do you think research on how people learn has implications or is important for teaching? Why? (4 pts.)
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Writing
In a well-organized paragraph, describe the qualities of a good teacher. Your paragraph should be around 180 words. Give your paragraph a title and make sure you include a topic sentence, supporting details and a concluding sentence. (10 pts.)
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Grammar
Correct the following sentences. (20 pts.)
Librarians help sometimes students find books they need for their research assignments.
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I be usually on time.
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My brother is very sociable; he doesn't like be on his own.
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Your final grade partly depends with your participation in class.
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My friend and I we enjoy the Introduction to Education course.
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At that time, there is unrest in many parts of the world.
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Auguste Compte called "The Father of Sociology".
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Sara hopes become a teacher.
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I am applying the BA course in Engineering.
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Currently I working part-time as a teacher assistant.
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Add suitable punctuation marks to the following paragraph. Use capital letters when necessary. (12 pts.)
exercising helps me feel good physically before I started to exercise regularly my muscles felt like foam rubber and I was twenty pounds overweight after three months of regular exercise I saw an improvement in my physical condition in addition my endurance has increased at the end of my workday I used to drag myself home to eat and watch TV all night now I have enough energy to play with my children cook or read a book exercise has made me feel healthy strong and happy
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