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Question 1Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

According to Erikson, the psychosocial task of infancy (birth to about 18 months) centers on resolving which crisis?

  1. Autonomy versus shame and doubt
  2. Trust versus mistrust Correct answer.
  3. Initiative versus guilt
  4. Industry versus inferiority

Explanation

Erikson's first psychosocial stage is trust versus mistrust, in which the quality of caregiving determines whether the infant comes to see the world as safe and dependable. Later stages build on the sense of security established here.

Question 2Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A 7-year-old correctly states that a short, wide glass holds the same amount of juice as a tall, narrow one. This response indicates that the child has developed:

  1. conservation Correct answer.
  2. egocentric perspective taking
  3. abstract hypothetical reasoning
  4. object permanence

Explanation

Conservation is the understanding that quantity stays the same despite changes in appearance, and it typically appears in Piaget's concrete operational stage (about ages 7 to 11). The child is now able to reverse mentally and attend to more than one dimension at a time.

Question 3Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A client argues that a law should be obeyed because it was democratically agreed upon to protect everyone's rights, even though following it costs her personally. This reasoning best reflects which of Kohlberg's levels?

  1. punishment and obedience orientation
  2. conventional
  3. preconventional
  4. postconventional Correct answer.

Explanation

Postconventional reasoning appeals to shared principles such as social contract and universal rights rather than to personal consequence or to approval from others. The client subordinates her own gain to a principle she considers just.

Question 4Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A father's employer abruptly changes his shift schedule, so he can no longer attend his son's evening baseball games. In Bronfenbrenner's ecological model, the employer belongs to which system?

  1. microsystem
  2. mesosystem
  3. exosystem Correct answer.
  4. macrosystem

Explanation

The exosystem consists of settings in which the person does not participate directly but which nonetheless shape the person's development, such as a parent's workplace. The effect here travels through the father's availability to the child.

Question 5Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In the Strange Situation procedure, a 14-month-old becomes distressed when the caregiver leaves and is quickly soothed and returns to play when the caregiver comes back. This pattern is classified as:

  1. avoidant attachment
  2. resistant attachment
  3. disorganized attachment
  4. secure attachment Correct answer.

Explanation

Secure attachment is marked by distress at separation followed by effective use of the caregiver to re-establish comfort and resume exploration. The caregiver functions as a reliable secure base.

Question 6Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A hospital employee who is furious with a supervisor but cannot express it comes home and shouts at a roommate over a small mess. Which defense mechanism is operating?

  1. projection
  2. reaction formation
  3. displacement Correct answer.
  4. undoing

Explanation

Displacement redirects an emotional impulse from its original, threatening target to a safer substitute target. The anger is genuinely felt but is expressed toward someone with less power to punish the person.

Question 7Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A student begins volunteering at a food bank after watching a classmate receive praise and recognition for volunteering there. This best illustrates:

  1. operant extinction
  2. modeling Correct answer.
  3. classical conditioning
  4. negative reinforcement

Explanation

Modeling, central to Bandura's social learning theory, is the acquisition of behavior by observing others and the consequences they experience. The classmate's praise serves as vicarious reinforcement.

Question 8Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs, friendship, family, and a sense of community belong to which category?

  1. safety needs
  2. esteem needs
  3. physiological needs
  4. love and belonging Correct answer.

Explanation

Maslow placed social needs, including affection, friendship, and community connection, above physiological and safety needs but below esteem needs. These needs concern relationships rather than bodily survival, security, or status.

Question 9Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A client recently diagnosed with a chronic illness says, 'Why is this happening to me? It is so unfair; nothing ever goes right for me.' This statement is most consistent with which stage?

  1. acceptance
  2. bargaining
  3. denial
  4. anger Correct answer.

Explanation

In the stage model of dying and loss, anger appears as resentment and a sense of injustice, often directed at others, at a higher power, or at fate. The question 'why me' framed as unfairness signals this reaction.

Question 10Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In family systems theory, when two members manage their conflict by repeatedly pulling a third member into it, this pattern is called:

  1. triangulation Correct answer.
  2. enmeshment
  3. differentiation
  4. parentification

Explanation

Triangulation occurs when tension between two people is deflected by involving a third, often stabilizing the system at the third person's expense. It is a key concept in Bowen's family systems theory.

Question 11Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

Members of a newly formed support group argue over ground rules and compete for leadership. In Tuckman's model, the group is in which stage?

  1. norming
  2. performing
  3. forming
  4. storming Correct answer.

Explanation

Storming is the stage in which conflict, role competition, and resistance surface as members negotiate how the group will operate. Cohesion and productivity follow once these tensions are worked through.

Question 12Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

An adolescent immigrant uses the host country's language and customs at school while continuing to follow the family's traditions at home. In Berry's framework, this pattern is described as:

  1. marginalization
  2. separation
  3. integration Correct answer.
  4. assimilation

Explanation

Integration, sometimes called biculturalism, involves retaining one's heritage culture while also engaging with the new culture. It is associated with better adjustment than the alternatives.

Question 13Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A client reports that coworkers repeatedly tell her, 'You speak English so well.' In diversity-informed practice, this remark is best understood as:

  1. institutional discrimination
  2. a microaggression Correct answer.
  3. a stereotype threat
  4. cultural assimilation

Explanation

Microaggressions are brief, often unintentional slights that communicate a demeaning or exclusionary message to members of a marginalized group. The compliment implies that the client is an exception to an assumed norm.

Question 14Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

The idea that overlapping social identities such as race, gender, and class combine to produce unique experiences of privilege and oppression is known as:

  1. pluralism
  2. cultural relativism
  3. intersectionality Correct answer.
  4. ethnocentrism

Explanation

Intersectionality holds that identities interact rather than stack independently, so the experience of a person at several marginalized positions cannot be understood by examining each identity separately. The concept originated in Black feminist scholarship.

Question 15Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

While assessing a family in crisis, a social worker notes that the family has weathered past losses together and has strong ties to its church. This assessment primarily reflects:

  1. psychodynamic theory
  2. the strengths perspective Correct answer.
  3. the traditional medical model
  4. the deficit approach

Explanation

The strengths perspective identifies and mobilizes existing capacities, resources, and supports rather than concentrating solely on pathology. Noting the family's history of coping and its congregational ties puts this orientation into practice.

Question 16Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

The person-in-environment framework directs assessment primarily toward:

  1. the community's formal service system
  2. inner conflicts formed in early childhood
  3. the client's genetic and biological makeup
  4. the fit between person and environment Correct answer.

Explanation

Person-in-environment holds that behavior is understood through the ongoing transaction between the individual and the social and physical settings in which the person lives. Assessment therefore addresses both personal functioning and environmental demands and supports.

Question 17Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

Decades of zoning decisions placed industrial waste sites in neighborhoods where residents of color live, and children in those neighborhoods now have elevated asthma rates. This pattern is best described as:

  1. cultural pluralism
  2. an act of individual prejudice
  3. institutional racism Correct answer.
  4. horizontal hostility among groups

Explanation

Institutional racism refers to policies and practices embedded in organizations and systems that produce disparate outcomes by race, regardless of individual intent. The zoning pattern operates through structures rather than through one person's bias.

Question 18Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

Which perspective on aging holds that well-being in later life depends on maintaining roles, relationships, and activity?

  1. disengagement theory
  2. subculture theory
  3. continuity theory
  4. activity theory Correct answer.

Explanation

Activity theory proposes that older adults adjust best when they remain engaged and replace lost roles with new ones. It developed partly as a corrective to disengagement theory.

Question 19Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

The social model of disability holds that disability is primarily produced by:

  1. genetic inheritance and aging
  2. an individual's medical condition
  3. limited personal motivation
  4. barriers in the environment Correct answer.

Explanation

The social model distinguishes impairment from disability and locates disability in physical, attitudinal, and policy barriers that exclude people. Intervention therefore targets the environment rather than the individual alone.

Question 20Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

Gilligan argued that Kohlberg's theory of moral development undervalued which orientation in moral reasoning?

  1. a care orientation Correct answer.
  2. a social contract orientation
  3. a justice orientation
  4. a punishment orientation

Explanation

Gilligan contended that Kohlberg's justice-based framework treated a care and responsibility orientation, more often voiced by girls and women, as less mature. Her critique opened the way for an ethic of care in developmental theory.

Question 21Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

Cooley's concept of the looking-glass self proposes that self-concept develops through:

  1. imagining how others see and judge us Correct answer.
  2. reinforcement schedules arranged by caregivers
  3. resolving stage-specific crises
  4. inherited temperament patterns

Explanation

The looking-glass self is a symbolic interactionist concept holding that we come to see ourselves as we imagine others perceive us, and we respond to that imagined appraisal. Identity is thus built in social interaction rather than alone.

Question 22Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A worker helps a youth complete a job application by first doing the hardest section jointly and gradually handing the task over as the youth gains skill. This technique is grounded in:

  1. Kohlberg's theory of moral development
  2. Erikson's psychosocial stages
  3. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development Correct answer.
  4. Piaget's stages of cognitive development

Explanation

Vygotsky's zone of proximal development describes tasks a learner can complete with guidance but not yet alone, and scaffolding is the support that is gradually withdrawn. The worker is structuring the task within that zone.

Question 23Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A very active toddler is placed in a quiet, low-stimulation child care room and shows increasing tantrums and distress. Using temperament theory, the best interpretation is:

  1. the child has failed to develop object constancy
  2. the child care setting provides a poor goodness of fit Correct answer.
  3. the child is working through autonomy versus shame and doubt
  4. the child has a difficult temperament that requires medical evaluation

Explanation

Goodness of fit refers to the match between a child's temperament and the demands and characteristics of the environment. A highly active child in a restrictive setting may show distress even though neither the child nor the setting is inherently problematic.

Question 24Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A neighborhood with dense social networks, mutual trust, and active civic associations is able to mobilize resources for its youth. This capacity is an example of:

  1. status attainment
  2. cultural capital
  3. social capital Correct answer.
  4. social stratification

Explanation

Social capital refers to the resources embedded in relationships and networks, such as trust, reciprocity, and shared norms that enable collective action. It is a property of the connections among people rather than of individuals alone.

Question 25Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A woman performs below her usual level on a math test after being told that women typically score lower on it. This outcome is an example of:

  1. learned helplessness
  2. cognitive dissonance
  3. the halo effect
  4. stereotype threat Correct answer.

Explanation

Stereotype threat is the apprehension of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group, which consumes cognitive resources and can depress performance. The effect depends on the stereotype being made salient in the situation.

Question 26Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

According to Erikson's theory of psychosocial development, the central task of adolescence is to resolve which crisis?

  1. Intimacy versus isolation
  2. Autonomy versus shame and doubt
  3. Identity versus role confusion Correct answer.
  4. Initiative versus guilt

Explanation

Erikson placed identity versus role confusion in adolescence, when young people work to integrate values, roles, and group memberships into a coherent sense of self. The other crises belong to earlier or later periods, so they cannot be the adolescent task.

Question 27Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A 9-year-old correctly states that pouring juice from a short, wide glass into a tall, narrow glass does not change the amount. In Piaget's theory, the child has acquired:

  1. Object permanence
  2. Egocentric speech
  3. Conservation Correct answer.
  4. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning

Explanation

Conservation is the recognition that quantity, mass, or volume stays the same despite changes in appearance, and it is the hallmark achievement of the concrete operational stage (roughly ages 7 to 11). Conservation is not present in earlier stages and is not the same as the formal-operational abilities that appear in adolescence.

Question 28Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems model, the settings in which a child directly participates, such as home, classroom, and peer group, constitute the:

  1. Microsystem Correct answer.
  2. Chronosystem
  3. Macrosystem
  4. Exosystem

Explanation

The microsystem consists of the immediate settings in which the developing person takes part face to face. Surrounding layers involve indirect influences, broad cultural patterns, or the dimension of time.

Question 29Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A supervisor stops criticizing an employee as soon as she begins submitting her reports early, and she now submits them early every week. This increase in behavior is best explained by:

  1. Punishment
  2. Extinction
  3. Positive reinforcement
  4. Negative reinforcement Correct answer.

Explanation

Negative reinforcement increases a behavior by removing or ending an unpleasant stimulus after the behavior occurs. Positive reinforcement would add a desirable consequence, and punishment would decrease the behavior.

Question 30Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A social worker meets a refugee family whose primary language is different from the worker's. The most appropriate approach is to:

  1. Use a trained interpreter, speaking directly to the family members Correct answer.
  2. Postpone services until the family has learned enough of the worker's language to participate
  3. Ask the family's 12-year-old child to interpret during the interview
  4. Rely on gestures and simplified speech to convey the content

Explanation

Best practice is to use a trained interpreter and to address remarks to the client rather than to the interpreter, which preserves accuracy, confidentiality, and the family's dignity. Children should not interpret because it distorts family roles and may censor sensitive information.

Question 31Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In Freud's structural model of the mind, the component that operates on the reality principle and mediates between instinctual demands and internalized morality is the:

  1. Ego Correct answer.
  2. Superego
  3. Id
  4. Libido

Explanation

The ego is the executive structure that tests reality, delays gratification, and negotiates between the id's impulses and the superego's prohibitions. The other terms name the instinctual reservoir, the internalized moral agency, and psychic energy respectively.

Question 32Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A client who feels strong hostility toward a coworker insists that the coworker is deliberately trying to harm him. This is best understood as:

  1. Projection Correct answer.
  2. Sublimation
  3. Regression
  4. Denial

Explanation

Projection is an ego defense in which unacceptable feelings are disowned and attributed to another person. The client's own hostility is experienced as coming from the coworker instead.

Question 33Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A family quietly resists a social worker's suggestions so that established routines stay exactly as they were. In systems terms, this pattern illustrates:

  1. Homeostasis Correct answer.
  2. Boundary ambiguity
  3. Entropy
  4. Equifinality

Explanation

Homeostasis is a system's tendency to maintain a stable equilibrium by counteracting input that would change it. Resistance to change in a family is often the visible expression of that balancing feedback.

Question 34Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A client reports that she quit smoking after watching several coworkers quit successfully and be praised for it. Her change is best explained by:

  1. Classical conditioning
  2. Negative reinforcement
  3. Observational learning Correct answer.
  4. Systematic desensitization

Explanation

Observational learning occurs when a person acquires or changes behavior by watching models and the consequences they receive. No direct conditioning pairing or reinforcement of the client's own behavior is described.

Question 35Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In the Strange Situation procedure, a toddler explores freely while the caregiver is present, is distressed when she leaves, and is quickly comforted and returns to play when she returns. This pattern indicates:

  1. Ambivalent attachment
  2. Disorganized attachment
  3. Avoidant attachment
  4. Secure attachment Correct answer.

Explanation

Secure attachment is marked by use of the caregiver as a safe base for exploration, protest at separation, and prompt comfort and return to play at reunion. The insecure patterns differ in whether the child avoids, amplifies, or shows contradictory behavior toward the caregiver.

Question 36Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A child explains that she did not take a classmate's crayons because she would be placed in time-out if she did. In Kohlberg's framework, this reasoning reflects:

  1. Conventional reasoning
  2. Preconventional reasoning Correct answer.
  3. Postconventional reasoning
  4. Formal operational reasoning

Explanation

Preconventional moral reasoning is organized around punishment, obedience, and personal consequences rather than internalized social expectations or abstract principles. Avoiding punishment is the classic example of the first preconventional orientation.

Question 37Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A parent's employer reassigns her to a night shift, which leaves her unable to attend her son's school conferences or supervise his homework. In ecological terms, the employer belongs to the:

  1. Microsystem
  2. Exosystem Correct answer.
  3. Macrosystem
  4. Mesosystem

Explanation

The exosystem contains settings in which the child does not participate directly but which shape the conditions of the child's life through their effect on caregivers. The workplace affects the child indirectly through the parent.

Question 38Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A Black adolescent who had previously given little thought to race is deeply shaken when a store clerk follows her through the aisles, and she begins to question earlier assumptions about herself and society. In Cross's model of Black racial identity development, this experience marks the:

  1. Immersion-emersion stage
  2. Encounter stage Correct answer.
  3. Internalization stage
  4. Pre-encounter stage

Explanation

In Cross's model the encounter stage is triggered by a personal experience of racism that punctures the pre-encounter worldview and creates confusion and questioning. The later immersion and internalization stages involve active exploration and eventual consolidation of a secure identity.

Question 39Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

An immigrant family participates fully in the host country's labor market but deliberately keeps its own language, faith, and customs at home and avoids social contact with the host culture. In Berry's acculturation model, this strategy is:

  1. Integration
  2. Separation Correct answer.
  3. Assimilation
  4. Marginalization

Explanation

Separation describes high maintenance of the heritage culture combined with low participation in the host culture. Integration combines both, assimilation yields to the host culture, and marginalization involves little engagement with either.

Question 40Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A client from a marginalized group states that people from her own group 'just aren't able to succeed' and discourages her children from striving. This statement most directly reflects:

  1. Cultural relativism
  2. Xenophobia
  3. Internalized oppression Correct answer.
  4. Acculturation gap distress

Explanation

Internalized oppression occurs when members of a subordinated group absorb negative societal messages about their own group and act on them, including limiting their own or their children's aspirations. It differs from prejudice held by outsiders or from simple cultural difference.

Question 41Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In crisis theory, a crisis is best described as:

  1. A time-limited period when usual coping fails Correct answer.
  2. A chronic condition that requires long-term treatment
  3. A permanent personality change triggered by a loss
  4. A predictable developmental stage everyone passes through

Explanation

Crisis is understood as a temporary state of disequilibrium in which habitual coping is insufficient and new coping must be mobilized quickly. Because it is time-limited, timely intervention can prevent deterioration and promote growth.

Question 42Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

When beginning an assessment, a social worker asks a family to describe the skills, relationships, and supports that have carried them through previous hard times. This practice is most consistent with:

  1. The medical model
  2. Social exchange theory
  3. The strengths perspective Correct answer.
  4. Labeling theory

Explanation

The strengths perspective begins with client capacity, resilience, and existing resources, and builds intervention on them rather than cataloging deficits. It reflects social work's emphasis on empowerment and client expertise about their own lives.

Question 43Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

In the Carter and McGoldrick family life cycle framework, the stage in which adult children leave home and parents renegotiate the couple relationship is:

  1. Families in later life
  2. Families with young children
  3. Joining of families through marriage
  4. Launching children and moving on Correct answer.

Explanation

The launching stage requires the family system to accept numerous entries and exits of young adults and to reorganize the parental subsystem as a dyad again. Each family life cycle stage carries its own developmental tasks and predicted stresses.

Question 44Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

Residents of a public housing complex organize a rent strike and march on city hall to pressure officials into enforcing housing codes. This best illustrates which community practice model?

  1. Social action Correct answer.
  2. Locality development
  3. Social planning
  4. Case management

Explanation

The social action model organizes disadvantaged groups to confront power holders and redistribute resources or authority. Locality development emphasizes participation and consensus, and social planning relies on technical expertise and data.

Question 45Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

During an interview, an adolescent from a cultural background in which avoiding eye contact with adults signals respect looks at the floor while speaking. The worker should:

  1. Consider the behavior within the client's cultural context Correct answer.
  2. Refer the client for a psychiatric evaluation
  3. Require the client to make eye contact before continuing
  4. Interpret the behavior as evidence of deception

Explanation

Nonverbal behavior carries culturally variable meanings, so the worker must interpret it against the client's own norms before assigning clinical significance. Misreading culturally respectful behavior as avoidance or dishonesty damages rapport and accuracy.

Question 46Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A bereaved client alternates between periods of intensely confronting the loss and periods of attending to daily tasks and setting the loss aside. In Stroebe and Schut's dual-process model, this is:

  1. Disenfranchised grief that others do not recognize
  2. Oscillation between loss and restoration coping Correct answer.
  3. Pathological grief
  4. Anticipatory grief

Explanation

The dual-process model holds that healthy grieving involves moving back and forth between loss-oriented work such as mourning and restoration-oriented work such as rebuilding daily routines. Oscillation, not constant confrontation, is considered adaptive.

Question 47Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

An 80-year-old gives up marathon running, invests more time in swimming, and hires a coach to plan her training schedule. In Baltes's model of successful aging, this best illustrates:

  1. Activity theory of aging
  2. Selective optimization with compensation Correct answer.
  3. Continuity theory of aging and identity
  4. Disengagement theory of aging

Explanation

Selective optimization with compensation describes choosing fewer domains in which to invest (selection), maximizing performance in those chosen domains (optimization), and using resources or strategies to offset decline (compensation). The scenario shows all three elements working together.

Question 48Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A toddler alternately clings to her mother and pushes her away while insisting on doing things by herself. In Mahler's theory of separation-individuation, this behavior is characteristic of:

  1. Object constancy
  2. Symbiosis
  3. Rapprochement Correct answer.
  4. Practicing

Explanation

Rapprochement, occurring around the middle of the second year, is marked by the toddler's ambivalence between asserting independence and returning for emotional refueling. The push-pull quality distinguishes it from earlier and later phases.

Question 49Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

An adult has explored her ethnic background through travel, reading, and conversation, and now holds a confident sense of belonging to her group while relating comfortably to people from other groups. In Phinney's model of ethnic identity development, this reflects:

  1. Unexamined ethnic identity
  2. Internalized ethnic identity
  3. Ethnic identity search (moratorium)
  4. Achieved ethnic identity Correct answer.

Explanation

Phinney's model moves from unexamined identity to a period of exploration and finally to achieved ethnic identity, characterized by secure commitment and comfort with both one's own and other groups. Achievement follows exploration rather than preceding it.

Question 50Content area I (name not enumerated in source)

A 20-month-old insists on carrying a worn blanket and uses it to settle herself at bedtime and in unfamiliar places. In Winnicott's framework, the blanket is best understood as:

  1. Imaginary companion
  2. Sign of insecure attachment
  3. Transitional object Correct answer.
  4. Concrete-operational symbol

Explanation

Winnicott described transitional objects as items that help the young child bridge the gap between dependence on the caregiver and growing autonomy by carrying a sense of comfort and security. Use of such an object is normative rather than a sign of disorder.