AP Psychology Practice Test 2026 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

The concrete operational stage of cognitive development, as proposed by Jean Piaget, occurs from about 6 or 7 to 11 years of age. During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events and understand the concept of conservation—understanding that quantity doesn’t change even when its shape does. They also become more adept at organizing their thoughts, categorizing objects, and performing operations that are reversible in nature, such as simple mathematical calculations.

The earlier stages, such as the sensorimotor (birth to about 2 years) and preoperational stages (about 2 to 6 or 7 years), are characterized by different cognitive abilities. For instance, the sensorimotor stage focuses on experiential learning and physical interactions with the environment, while the preoperational stage is marked by the development of language and symbolic thinking but lacks the logical operations present in the concrete operational stage. The formal operational stage, which begins around age 12, introduces the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically. Thus, the concrete operational stage is a critical transition between these earlier forms of thought and the more advanced reasoning that follows.