Oscar recently had an important exam in his American history class. He had not been doing as well in this class as he would have liked. He studied for hours, but he felt ill on the day of the test and did not perform as well as he had hoped.

Part A

• Point 1 — General adaptation syndrome—According to Selye’s general adaptation syndrome, Oscar pushed himself to exhaustion and, as a result, he became ill and his performance suffered.
• Point 2 — Depth/levels of processing theory—Oscar may not have studied the material at a deep enough level; levels of processing theory holds that the deeper the level at which one processes information, the more likely one will be to remember it.
• Point 3 — Self-fulfilling prophecy—Because Oscar has not been doing well in the class, his teacher may have formed low expectations for him. The teacher may have communicated these expectations to Oscar before or during the exam, thereby increasing the likelihood that Oscar fulfilled those low expectations.

Part B

• Point 4 — Yerkes-Dodson law—The Yerkes-Dodson law states that moderate arousal leads to the best task performance. Oscar should try to make sure that he is at a moderate level of arousal for his future tests.
• Point 5 — A mnemonic device—Oscar might use a mnemonic device, such as an acronym, to improve his ability to memorize information for future exams.
• Point 6 — Spacing effect/distributed practice—Instead of studying for a long time all at once, Oscar would do well to divide his studying over a greater span of time.
• Point 7 — Internal locus of control—If Oscar develops an internal locus of control, he will believe his actions impact his performance and will therefore study, thereby increasing the likelihood that he will succeed in school.
• Point 8 — Negative reinforcement—Oscar could negatively reinforce himself for good scores on future tests by allowing himself to skip chores he dislikes on days that he earns those scores.