EPPP Part 1 (Knowledge) prep: 1,923 practice questions and 11 timed tests

A is correct.Alzheimer's disease is defined neuropathologically by two hallmark lesions: extracellular amyloid-beta plaques, formed when amyloid precursor protein is cleaved into fragments that aggregate between neurons, and intracellular neurofibrillary tangles composed of hyperphosphorylated tau that has detached from microtubules. These lesions, together with synaptic and neuronal loss that typically begins in the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, fit this patient's early episodic memory decline followed by language and visuospatial problems. Lewy bodies made of alpha-synuclein, with depletion of pigmented dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra, characterize Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, which typically present with fluctuating attention, recurrent visual hallucinations, and parkinsonism rather than a primarily amnestic course. Multiple lacunar infarcts with ischemic white matter damage point to vascular neurocognitive disorder, which more often shows a stepwise or patchy course with early slowing and executive dysfunction. Tau-positive Pick bodies with focal frontal and anterior temporal atrophy indicate a form of frontotemporal lobar degeneration, which usually begins with personality change, disinhibition, or language loss while memory is relatively spared. Although these conditions can coexist with Alzheimer's pathology, only plaques plus tangles confirm the Alzheimer's diagnosis.

B is correct.Lazarus's cognitive-mediational theory holds that cognitive appraisal, a person's evaluation of what an event means for her well-being, comes first and then produces both physiological arousal and the emotional response. Primary appraisal judges whether an event is irrelevant, benign, or threatening, and secondary appraisal weighs the resources available for coping. Because the two employees appraised identical feedback differently, one experienced arousal and dread while the other stayed calm, exactly as this theory predicts. The James-Lange theory proposes that bodily changes occur first as a direct response to a stimulus and that emotion is simply the perception of those changes, so it cannot explain why the same stimulus produced arousal in only one employee. The Cannon-Bard theory states that the thalamus sends simultaneous but independent signals that produce arousal and emotion, leaving no causal role for interpretation. The Schachter-Singer two-factor theory requires arousal to occur first and then be labeled from situational cues; here the cues were identical, and the calm employee showed no arousal to label, so the theory fits poorly. Only a theory in which appraisal precedes arousal and emotion accounts for these divergent reactions.

D is correct.Erikson placed generativity versus stagnation in middle adulthood, roughly ages 40 to 65. Generativity is concern for establishing and guiding the next generation, expressed through parenting, mentoring, teaching, creative work, and community contribution; failure to achieve it leaves a sense of stagnation, self-absorption, and personal impoverishment. The accountant's feeling that life has become routine and empty reflects stagnation, while his new mentoring of junior staff and volunteering with youth are classic generative activities, and the virtue that emerges from successful resolution is care. Intimacy versus isolation is the crisis of young adulthood, when the task is forming close, committed relationships with others; nothing in this case concerns partnership or loneliness. Integrity versus despair belongs to late adulthood, when older adults review their lives and either accept them as meaningful or feel regret that time is too short to change course; this client is still building contributions rather than reviewing a completed life. Identity versus role confusion is the adolescent crisis of integrating roles, values, and goals into a coherent self, which the established accountant is not struggling with. His age and his turn toward nurturing others both point to generativity.

C is correct.Gordon's prevention classification, later adapted by the Institute of Medicine for mental disorders, sorts interventions by the population targeted. Indicated prevention is directed at individuals who have been identified, one by one, as being at high risk, typically through detectable markers or minimal subclinical signs that foreshadow a disorder but do not meet diagnostic criteria. Students offered the group because their own screening scores were elevated fit this definition, even though the screening itself reached every student. Universal prevention delivers the intervention to an entire population regardless of risk, such as a depression curriculum taught to all ninth graders; here only the high scorers receive the group. Selective prevention targets subgroups whose risk is above average because of a shared characteristic, such as children of parents with depression, without assessing each person's own signs. Tertiary prevention comes from Caplan's older public health model and aims to reduce disability and relapse among people who already have a diagnosable disorder, whereas these students fall below the diagnostic threshold. The deciding feature is that each participant was selected by an individual risk indicator, which marks the program as indicated prevention.

A is correct.The Tarasoff decisions held that when a therapist determines, or reasonably should determine, that a client poses a serious danger of violence to another person, the therapist must use reasonable care to protect the intended victim. Most state statutes modeled on Tarasoff are triggered when a client communicates a serious threat of physical violence against a reasonably identifiable victim, and they specify protective options such as warning the victim, notifying police, or initiating hospitalization. A client stating he will shoot his ex-wife when she visits Saturday names a specific victim, a lethal method, and a near-term time frame, so the duty clearly applies. Feeling enraged enough to hurt somebody someday expresses anger but names no identifiable victim and no concrete threat, calling for further risk assessment rather than protective disclosure. Wishing an abusive father were dead while denying intent identifies a person but communicates no threat of violence, and such feelings are common material in therapy. A bar-fight assault two years ago is a past act with no current threat; past violence raises risk but does not by itself create a duty to protect. A serious threat plus an identifiable victim is the core trigger.