Free Masters exam Practice Questions

Sample Practice Questions

Try these 10 sample questions from the Masters exam practice bank. Each includes the answer and explanation. Continue with the interactive practice above to review the full question set.

1. 1A social worker at a community agency is starting services with a new client who has difficulty understanding the primary language used in the practice setting. The agency's consent form exists only in that language. Under the NASW Code of Ethics, what should the social worker do so that the client's consent to services is valid?

   1. A. Take steps to ensure the client's comprehension, such as providing a detailed verbal explanation or arranging for a qualified interpreter or translator
   2. B. Seek permission from an appropriate third party who is authorized to act on the client's behalf
   3. C. Obtain the client's consent before permitting any third party to observe the delivery of services
   4. D. Provide information about the nature and extent of services and about the extent of the client's right to refuse service

   Answer: A

   Explanation: NASW Code of Ethics standard 1.03(b) addresses exactly this trigger: "In instances when clients are not literate or have difficulty understanding the primary language used in the practice setting, social workers should take steps to ensure clients’ comprehension. This may include providing clients with a detailed verbal explanation or arranging for a qualified interpreter or translator whenever possible." The other three options are genuine obligations under the same standard, but each attaches to a different trigger: seeking third-party permission applies when the client lacks the capacity to consent (1.03[c]), consent to observation applies to recording or third-party observation of services (1.03[h]), and explaining the extent of the right to refuse applies when services are received involuntarily (1.03[d]).

   Reference: Social Workers' Ethical Responsibilities to Clients — Ethical Standard 1.03 Informed Consent, paragraph (b)

2. 2Two weeks after surviving a building collapse, a client describes numbness, disorientation, and periods of feeling unreal, but also reports stretches of relative calm and is managing daily tasks. According to SAMHSA's trauma-informed care protocol, how should the social worker understand this presentation?

   1. A. As an immediate reaction to trauma that affects most survivors and is typically self-limited
   2. B. As an early indicator of a trauma-related psychological disorder requiring immediate diagnosis
   3. C. As a delayed reaction, since two weeks have passed since the event
   4. D. As evidence that the client is suppressing the traumatic material and needs to be encouraged to talk about it

   Answer: A

   Explanation: TIP 57 states: "Initial reactions to trauma can include exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, agitation, numbness, dissociation, confusion, physical arousal, and blunted affect. Most responses are normal in that they affect most survivors and are socially acceptable, psychologically effective, and self-limited". It identifies the markers of a more severe course as "continuous distress without periods of relative calm or rest, severe dissociation symptoms, and intense intrusive recollections that continue despite a return to safety", none of which this client shows. Delayed responses are described separately as including "persistent fatigue, sleep disorders, nightmares, fear of recurrence". The TIP also warns against pressing survivors to talk, noting that "The most recent psychological debriefing approaches emphasize respecting the individual’s style of coping and not valuing one type over another".

   Reference: TIP 57 Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services — Part 1, Chapter 3, 'Sequence of Trauma Reactions', with the reactions enumerated in Exhibit 1.2-1

3. 3A social worker meets a client who has survived a violent assault and whose current behaviour is dominated by avoidance. According to SAMHSA's trauma-informed care protocol, what stance should the social worker take when beginning the work, once trauma-related reactions are understood as adaptive?

   1. A. Begin from a hopeful, strengths-based stance built on the belief that the client's responses to traumatic experiences reflect creativity, self-preservation, and determination
   2. B. Begin by explaining that the avoidance is a symptom that treatment will remove
   3. C. Begin by establishing which of the client's coping strategies are maladaptive so they can be listed for change
   4. D. Begin by deferring relationship building until the client's symptoms have stabilised

   Answer: A

   Explanation: TIP 57 states: "In embracing the belief that trauma-related reactions are adaptive, you can begin relationships with clients from a hopeful, strengths-based stance that builds upon the belief that their responses to traumatic experiences reflect creativity, self-preservation, and determination." It describes what this makes possible: "This will help build mutual and collaborative therapeutic relationships, help clients identify what has worked and has not worked in their attempts to deal with the aftermath of trauma from a nonjudgmental stance, and develop intervention and coping strategies that are more likely to fit their strengths and resources." Framing the presentation as a symptom to be removed or a list of deficits, or postponing the relationship, all run against that stance.

   Reference: TIP 57 Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services — Part 1, Chapter 1, 'Recognize That Trauma-Related Symptoms and Behaviors Originate From Adapting to Traumatic Experiences', within the TIC framework set out at Exhibit 1.1-1

4. 4A hospital social worker is arranging post-discharge services for an adult client whose advanced neurocognitive disorder leaves the client unable to give informed consent. The client's court-appointed guardian has signed the consent. During the visit the client asks the social worker what is going to happen next. Under the NASW Code of Ethics, how should the social worker respond?

   1. A. Explain the planned services to the client in a way that matches the client's level of understanding
   2. B. Direct the client's questions to the guardian, who holds the legal authority to consent
   3. C. Postpone any discussion of the plan with the client until the guardian can be present
   4. D. Give the client a written summary of the plan and ask the guardian to review it with the client

   Answer: A

   Explanation: Standard 1.03(c) requires that the client still be informed even when a third party consents: "In instances when clients lack the capacity to provide informed consent, social workers should protect clients’ interests by seeking permission from an appropriate third party, informing clients consistent with their level of understanding." The same paragraph adds that "Social workers should take reasonable steps to enhance such clients’ ability to give informed consent." Routing the client's questions to the guardian, deferring the conversation, or delegating the explanation to the guardian each substitutes the third party's participation for the client's, which the standard does not permit.

   Reference: Social Workers' Ethical Responsibilities to Clients — Ethical Standard 1.03 Informed Consent, paragraph (c)

5. 5A social worker is explaining to a treatment team why a client's guardedness and refusal to leave the house should not be recorded simply as noncompliance. According to the trauma-informed perspective set out in SAMHSA's trauma-informed care protocol, how are trauma-related symptoms and behaviours understood?

   1. A. As the individual's best and most resilient attempt to manage, cope with, and rise above the experience of trauma
   2. B. As symptoms whose meaning is fixed by the diagnostic category into which they fall
   3. C. As behaviours that will resolve once the client accepts the diagnosis
   4. D. As indicators that the client is not yet ready to receive any behavioural health service

   Answer: A

   Explanation: TIP 57 states that a trauma-informed perspective views trauma-related symptoms and behaviors as "an individual’s best and most resilient attempt to manage, cope with, and rise above his or her experience of trauma". It contrasts this with defining clients strictly from a diagnostic label, and describes the shift as one toward "a mindset that views clients’ presenting difficulties, behaviors, and emotions as responses to surviving trauma". The TIP adds that this view "prevents further retraumatization by not defining traumatic stress reactions as pathological or as symptoms of pathology", which is inconsistent with treating the presentation as a barrier to service.

   Reference: TIP 57 Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services — Part 1, Chapter 1, 'Recognize That Trauma-Related Symptoms and Behaviors Originate From Adapting to Traumatic Experiences', within the TIC framework set out at Exhibit 1.1-1

6. 6A student on placement asks why the profession's ethical principles frame the worker's task as strengthening what clients can do rather than doing it for them. Which principle in the NASW Code of Ethics expresses that?

   1. A. Social workers seek to enhance clients' capacity and opportunity to change and to address their own needs
   2. B. Social workers elevate service to others above self-interest
   3. C. Social workers challenge social injustice
   4. D. Social workers behave in a trustworthy manner

   Answer: A

   Explanation: Under "Value: Dignity and Worth of the Person", the Code states: "Social workers promote clients’ socially responsible self-determination. Social workers seek to enhance clients’ capacity and opportunity to change and to address their own needs." The Preamble makes the same point about the profession as a whole: "Social workers seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs." The other three options are the genuine ethical principles attached to the values of service, social justice and integrity respectively, each of which addresses a different aspect of practice.

   Reference: Code of Ethics: English — Preamble; Ethical Principles section, Value: Dignity and Worth of the Person

7. 7A social worker receives a voicemail from a client that suggests the client intends to end their life, and the client cannot be reached by phone or at home. The social worker considers searching the client's social media accounts to find out where the client is. The client has never consented to any electronic search. Under the NASW Code of Ethics, what justifies conducting the search anyway?

   1. A. The search is for the purpose of protecting the client from serious, foreseeable, and imminent harm
   2. B. Information the client posted publicly is no longer covered by standards of confidentiality
   3. C. The client's voicemail constitutes implied consent to be contacted through any available channel
   4. D. The agency's technology policy authorizes staff to locate clients who cannot be reached

   Answer: A

   Explanation: Standard 1.03(i) sets the rule and its narrow exception: "Social workers should obtain client consent before conducting an electronic search on the client. Exceptions may arise when the search is for purposes of protecting the client or others from serious, foreseeable, and imminent harm, or for other compelling professional reasons." Public posting is not an exception: standard 1.07(a) provides that "Once private information is shared, standards of confidentiality apply." A voicemail is not consent to a search, and an agency policy cannot supply the client consent the standard requires.

   Reference: Social Workers' Ethical Responsibilities to Clients — Ethical Standard 1.03 Informed Consent, paragraph (i); Ethical Standard 1.07 Privacy and Confidentiality, paragraph (a)

8. 8A social worker is preparing an in-service on why trauma awareness has to extend beyond the individual client. According to SAMHSA's trauma-informed care protocol, what happens within families of a traumatized member?

   1. A. Family members frequently experience the traumatic stress reactions of the member who was traumatized, which can heighten children's risk for externalizing and internalizing behaviour and for later posttraumatic stress
   2. B. Family members are generally insulated from the effects unless they witnessed the event themselves
   3. C. Family members' distress typically resolves as soon as the traumatized member enters treatment
   4. D. Family members' reactions are best addressed only after the traumatized member has completed treatment

   Answer: A

   Explanation: TIP 57 states: "Family members frequently experience the traumatic stress reactions of the individual family member who was traumatized", giving as examples angry outbursts, nightmares, avoidant behavior and other symptoms of anxiety. It continues that these repetitive experiences can "increase the risk of secondary trauma and symptoms of mental illness among the family, heighten the risk for externalizing and internalizing behavior among children", and can "increase children’s risk for developing posttraumatic stress later in life, and lead to a greater propensity for traumatic stress reactions across generations of the family". It follows that families are not insulated by not having witnessed the event, and the TIP’s response is concurrent rather than deferred: "prevention and intervention services can provide education and age-appropriate programming tailored to develop coping skills and support systems".

   Reference: TIP 57 Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services — Part 1, Chapter 1, 'Promote Trauma Awareness and Understanding'

9. 9A social worker on a hospital interdisciplinary team disagrees with a team decision on ethical grounds. Under the NASW Code of Ethics, what should the social worker do?

   1. A. Attempt to resolve the disagreement through appropriate channels, and if it cannot be resolved, pursue other avenues consistent with client well-being
   2. B. Defer to the team's decision, since interdisciplinary decisions are made collectively
   3. C. Record a dissent in the client's file and take no further step
   4. D. Withdraw from the team so as not to be associated with the decision

   Answer: A

   Explanation: Standard 2.03(b) states: "Social workers for whom a team decision raises ethical concerns should attempt to resolve the disagreement through appropriate channels. If the disagreement cannot be resolved, social workers should pursue other avenues to address their concerns consistent with client well-being." Standard 2.03(a) frames the social worker's contribution to the team as participating in and contributing to decisions "by drawing on the perspectives, values, and experiences of the social work profession", which is inconsistent with silent deference, a filed dissent, or withdrawal.

   Reference: Social Workers' Ethical Responsibilities to Colleagues — Ethical Standard 2.03 Interdisciplinary Collaboration, paragraphs (a) and (b)

10. 10A supervising social worker wants to video record a client session for use in supervision, and a social work student on field placement asks to sit in on the same session to learn interviewing skills. Under the NASW Code of Ethics, what must the social worker obtain before either the recording or the observation takes place?

    1. A. The client's informed consent covering both the recording and the third-party observation
    2. B. The client's consent to the recording only, because observation by a student is part of routine service delivery
    3. C. Written approval from the agency administrator responsible for the field placement
    4. D. A written agreement that the recording will be destroyed when the placement ends

    Answer: A

    Explanation: Standard 1.03(h) covers both acts in a single sentence: "Social workers should obtain clients’ informed consent before making audio or video recordings of clients or permitting observation of service provision by a third party." Consent is therefore needed for the observation as well as the recording, so option B applies the standard to only half of what is planned. Administrative approval and a disposal agreement may both be sound agency practice, but neither is what the standard requires before the session proceeds.

    Reference: Social Workers' Ethical Responsibilities to Clients — Ethical Standard 1.03 Informed Consent, paragraph (h)