Free NCE Practice Questions

Question 1

After the third meeting of a support group for divorced fathers, one member says, “I showed up sure I was the only guy who sits in his car crying before pickup. Turns out half this room does the same thing.” This comment MOST clearly illustrates which of Yalom’s therapeutic factors?

Accepted Answer

Universality

Answer

Catharsis

Answer

Altruism

Answer

Instillation of hope

Question 2

A 34-year-old delivery driver was carjacked at gunpoint five weeks ago. Since then she wakes from nightmares of the attack, refuses to drive past the intersection where it happened, startles at every car horn, and says she feels “numb, like I’m watching my life through glass.” Which diagnosis is MOST consistent with this presentation?

Accepted Answer

Posttraumatic stress disorder

Answer

Panic disorder

Answer

Acute stress disorder

Answer

Adjustment disorder with anxiety

Question 3

A counselor and 10-year-old Liam talk about ‘the Grumbles’—the thing that ‘sneaks up and bosses him into yelling.’ They map when the Grumbles is strongest, name times Liam outsmarted it, and plan how he can shrink its influence. This technique is drawn from:

Accepted Answer

Narrative therapy

Answer

Strategic family therapy

Answer

Acceptance and commitment therapy

Answer

Solution-focused brief therapy

Question 4

During a lunch group, an 8-year-old mentions offhand that the bruises on her arm came from her stepfather ‘when he gets mad.’ She is calm and asks the counselor not to make a big deal of it. What is the counselor’s MOST appropriate response?

Accepted Answer

Make a report to child protective services based on the reasonable suspicion of abuse

Answer

Gather more evidence over several sessions to be certain before reporting

Answer

Contact the stepfather to hear his explanation before deciding

Answer

Honor the child’s request and monitor for further signs

Question 5

A 74-year-old widower keeps returning in session to the same refrain: he cannot stop tallying up where his life went right and where he let people down, and lately he feels a heavy regret that it is now too late to fix any of it. He is not suicidal and functions independently, but the review dominates his mood. This preoccupation is MOST consistent with which Eriksonian stage conflict?

Accepted Answer

Integrity versus despair

Answer

Identity versus role confusion

Answer

Generativity versus stagnation

Answer

Intimacy versus isolation

Question 6

A machinist who spends every weekend rebuilding motorcycle engines takes a job in a busy customer-complaint call center and, within a few months, feels drained and out of place. In Holland’s framework, this mismatch between his Realistic interests and a Social-Enterprising workplace BEST illustrates low:

Accepted Answer

congruence

Answer

differentiation

Answer

consistency

Answer

identity

Question 7

A researcher sets alpha at .05, runs the analysis, and concludes the new intervention outperforms treatment as usual. Unknown to the researcher, the two treatments truly have identical effects in the population. What has occurred?

Accepted Answer

Type I error

Answer

Type II error

Answer

Low statistical power

Answer

A large effect size

Question 8

A site supervisor overseeing a pre-licensure counselor learns the supervisee has begun using an exposure protocol the supervisor has never been trained in and cannot competently evaluate. Which step is MOST consistent with ethical supervision?

Accepted Answer

Arrange for the supervisee to receive oversight from someone competent in that protocol, or ensure the supervisor gains that competence

Answer

Direct the supervisee to stop the protocol permanently, since a supervisor must approve every technique in advance

Answer

Continue signing off on the hours, trusting the supervisee’s judgment about the method

Answer

Report the supervisee to the licensure board for practicing outside supervision

Question 9

A client’s observed score on an aptitude test is reported together with a band of scores within which her true score is most likely to lie. This confidence band around the observed score is based MOST directly on which concept?

Accepted Answer

Standard error of measurement

Answer

Standard deviation of the norm group

Answer

Standard error of the mean

Answer

The standard score conversion

Question 10

During an intake, a client who is Asian American says she often feels unseen at her workplace. The counselor responds warmly, ‘Honestly, I don’t even think of you as Asian — to me you’re just a person like everyone else.’ According to Sue and colleagues’ taxonomy of racial microaggressions, this comment is BEST classified as a:

Accepted Answer

Microinvalidation

Answer

Microassault

Answer

Microinsult

Answer

Countertransference enactment

Question 11

Members newly referred to a counseling group gather for its opening session. They speak cautiously, direct most of their comments to the leader rather than to one another, look to her to tell them what to do, and seem preoccupied with whether they will be accepted. These behaviors are MOST characteristic of which stage of group development?

Accepted Answer

Forming (orientation)

Answer

Storming (transition)

Answer

Performing (working)

Answer

Norming (cohesion)

Question 12

For three weeks Darnell has slept about three hours a night yet feels tireless, has maxed out two credit cards on a startup he cannot fully explain, and talks so fast his partner cannot break in. He insists nothing is wrong and that everyone else is moving too slow, while his partner recalls a two-week stretch of deep depression last winter. This presentation is MOST consistent with which diagnosis?

Accepted Answer

Bipolar I disorder, current episode manic

Answer

Major depressive disorder with anxious distress

Answer

Cyclothymic disorder

Answer

Bipolar II disorder, current episode hypomanic

Question 13

‘Suppose that tonight, while you are asleep, a miracle occurs and the problem that brought you here is completely solved, but you do not know it happened,’ a counselor says. ‘When you wake, what is the first small thing you would notice that tells you life is different?’ This intervention is BEST identified as which technique?

Accepted Answer

The miracle question

Answer

The coping question

Answer

The exception question

Answer

The scaling question

Question 14

“I know exactly where he’ll be on Friday, and I’m going to make him pay,” Devon tells the counselor, then lays out a detailed plan to seriously injure his former business partner, naming the man. The counselor’s MOST appropriate action is to:

Accepted Answer

Take reasonable steps to protect the identified person, which may include notifying him and the authorities

Answer

Terminate the counseling relationship to limit the counselor’s own liability

Answer

Preserve confidentiality, since the statement was made inside a privileged session

Answer

Document the threat and revisit it at Devon’s next scheduled appointment

Question 15

Fifteen-year-old Marcus, asked why he returned a lost wallet, explains: ‘If people just kept whatever they found, nobody could trust anyone and everything would fall apart. Laws exist to keep society working, so I follow them.’ His reasoning is MOST consistent with which Kohlberg stage?

Accepted Answer

Law-and-order orientation (Stage 4, conventional)

Answer

Social contract orientation (Stage 5, postconventional)

Answer

Instrumental exchange (Stage 2, preconventional)

Answer

Universal ethical principles (Stage 6, postconventional)

Question 16

A counselor who grounds her practice in Super’s developmental theory is asked which statement BEST captures his central premise about what a career fundamentally represents:

Accepted Answer

A career is the implementation of one’s self-concept through work

Answer

A career is the search for an environment congruent with one’s personality type

Answer

A career is a wise choice reached by matching personal traits to job factors

Answer

A career is the cumulative result of unplanned events acted upon with curiosity

Question 17

A skewed spread of attendance figures greets an evaluator: across 30 clients tracked for sessions attended before dropout, most came to between 4 and 8 sessions, but one court-referred client attended 47 before transferring. The evaluator wants the single number that best reflects the typical client’s attendance. Which statistic is MOST appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Median

Answer

Mean

Answer

Standard deviation

Answer

Range

Question 18

No clinician ever fully ‘arrives’ at competence with another culture, a supervisor tells her intern; the work is a lifelong practice of self-examination, staying curious about each client as the expert on their own life, and paying attention to the power imbalance built into the counseling relationship. This stance BEST describes which concept?

Accepted Answer

Cultural humility

Answer

Cultural competence

Answer

Cultural encapsulation

Answer

Multicultural orientation to technique

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