ASWB Master's Practice Questions (2026) — Free Sample Questions with Answers

Answer: B

Suggest the family wait a few more days for her to call: Accepts the dismissal; delay is dangerous, and there is no required waiting period to report a missing adult.

Help the family file and document a missing-person report: Correct. Indigenous women and girls go missing and are murdered at high rates, and families' reports are often dismissed. Advocating so that an official report is taken and documented comes FIRST, because it starts an investigation and creates a record for any later steps.

Help the family organize a community search effort: Community searches can help later, but without an official report the disappearance is not being investigated.

With missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives (MMIW), the social worker advocates against dismissive responses, starting with making sure the disappearance is formally reported and documented.

Answer: C

File a complaint about the receptionist on her behalf: An agency response may follow, but filing for her before exploring her wishes overrides her choice.

Explain that the receptionist probably meant it as a compliment: Centers intent over impact and minimizes the client's experience, which can harm the alliance.

Acknowledge the comment's impact and explore her reaction: Correct. The comment is a microaggression that marks her as a foreigner. Validating its impact and exploring her reaction is BEST because it repairs her sense of safety at the agency and lets her decide what, if anything, she wants done next.

Respond to a reported microaggression by validating its impact first; intent does not cancel harm.

Answer: A

Help the client share the decision and wishes with family: Correct. A capable adult has the right to refuse life-sustaining treatment (NASW Code of Ethics (2021) 1.02 Self-Determination). With capacity established, the NEXT step is to support the client in communicating the decision, which also helps the children understand and grieve, rather than trying to change the client's mind.

Request an ethics committee review of the decision: Premature; there is no unresolved question of capacity or conflicting duty that needs committee review.

Ask the physician to reassess the client's capacity: Capacity has already been confirmed; disagreement from family is not a reason to question it again.

When a client with capacity makes an end-of-life treatment decision, the social worker supports and helps communicate it; family disagreement does not override self-determination.

Answer: C

Request an evaluation of the client's decision-making capacity: Premature; the client shows clear understanding, and refusing advice is not by itself a sign of incapacity.

Meet with the daughter to plan the move: Plans the client's life with a third party and overrides her self-determination.

Explore the client's reasons and options for safety at home: Correct. A client with capacity has the right to refuse placement (NASW Code of Ethics (2021) 1.02). Understanding her reasons and reducing risk at home respects that right, so it comes FIRST.

Self-determination includes the right to accept risk; with a capacitated client, the social worker explores reasons and reduces risk rather than persuading or deciding for her.

Answer: C

Briefly share her own recovery to build trust: Disclosure may help later if it clearly serves the client, but this early, before the social worker knows what the question means to a guarded client, it shifts the focus to her.

Explain that personal questions are off limits in sessions: A flat refusal shuts down the client's real concern and can damage early rapport.

Explore what the answer would mean to the client: Correct. In a first session, with a guarded client the social worker barely knows, she first explores what lies behind the question (here, doubt about being understood). This keeps the focus on the client and shows whether any later disclosure would help, so it is the BEST response.

Self-disclosure is used only when it serves the client's goals; first explore the meaning of a personal question and keep the focus on the client.

Answer: B

Ask the attorney to narrow the request to relevant records: Limiting the scope is sound later, but it still moves toward disclosure without the client's consent or a court order; the client is told FIRST.

Contact the client about the subpoena and their wishes: Correct. A subpoena is a request, not a court order. The social worker protects confidentiality in legal proceedings to the extent the law allows (NASW Code of Ethics (2021) 1.07(j)). Informing the client, who holds the privilege, comes FIRST so the client and their attorney can respond.

Send the attorney a summary instead of the full record: A summary still discloses confidential information without consent or a court order.

A subpoena is answered, not automatically obeyed: notify the client, seek legal guidance, and disclose only with consent or a court order, limited to what is needed.

Answer: C

The client who is tearful after the recent breakup: Emotional distress deserves attention, but she denies suicidal thoughts and faces no immediate physical danger.

The client who needs the housing letter: The deadline is real but is tomorrow; it can wait while the medical risk is handled.

The client who is shaking and seeing things: Correct. Tremor and hallucinations two days after stopping heavy daily drinking suggest serious alcohol withdrawal, a medical emergency that can lead to seizures or delirium. He needs immediate medical attention FIRST.

Triage puts immediate threats to life and health, including medical risks such as alcohol withdrawal, ahead of emotional distress and practical deadlines.

Answer: C

She says the fire has caused her no emotional distress: An absence of reported distress can reflect avoidance or minimization; resilience is adaptation despite distress, not the absence of it.

She has rarely asked friends or family for any help: Self-reliance can be mistaken for resilience, but reluctance to use supports is a risk factor, not a strength.

She has rebuilt a daily routine and rejoined her walking group: Correct. Resilience shows in adaptive functioning after adversity: restoring routine and reconnecting with social supports are active, healthy coping despite ongoing stress.

Resilience is positive adaptation in the face of adversity, seen in restored functioning and use of supports, not in the absence of distress or refusal of help.

Answer: C

Arrange an emergency evaluation for possible psychiatric hospitalization: Disproportionate to the assessed risk; the client denies intent and is engaged, so it overrides self-determination without imminent danger.

Ask the client's adult sister to remove the pills from the home: Bringing in a third party without the client's consent; means reduction should be planned with the client first.

Develop a safety plan that includes limiting access to the pills: Correct. With ideation and available means but no intent and strong protective factors, the NEXT step is collaborative safety planning, and reducing access to lethal means is a core part of it.

When assessed risk is present but not imminent, the next step is a collaborative safety plan that includes reducing access to means, not hospitalization or unilateral contact with others.

Answer: B

Refer the child for trauma-focused therapy: May be needed, but referring before assessment assumes the cause and skips the family's context.

Explore the family's migration and stressors: Correct. Assessment comes before intervention. Understanding what the family went through before, during and after displacement, and their current stressors, shows whether the symptoms reflect trauma, adjustment or both.

Reassure the parents that the nightmares will pass: Normalizing without assessment may miss trauma symptoms that need help.

With displaced families, assess pre-migration, migration and resettlement experiences before deciding on intervention.

Answer: B

They most likely reflect self-medication of a primary depression: The self-medication idea is common, but it assumes a direction of cause before the history and timing have been assessed.

Their cause is unclear and needs ongoing assessment: Correct. Heavy drinking can cause depressive symptoms, and depression can also occur on its own. Timing, history and the course during abstinence help tell them apart, so the MOST accurate view is to keep assessing while both conditions are addressed in an integrated way.

They will resolve once the client stops drinking: Assumes the symptoms are alcohol-induced; depression can also be independent, and assuming it will lift risks missing it and suicide risk.

With co-occurring symptoms, distinguish substance-induced from independent disorders over time and treat both in an integrated way rather than in sequence.

Answer: A

Assess the client's current safety and risk of escalation: Correct. The client describes coercive control, a known risk factor for intimate partner violence. Safety assessment comes FIRST, before education or referral.

Explain that coercive control is a recognized form of abuse: Useful psychoeducation, but it is appropriate after the client's current safety has been assessed, not FIRST.

Refer the client to a support group for abuse survivors: A premature referral; it labels the client's experience before assessment and before the client has defined the problem.

Monitoring, financial control and isolation are abuse indicators even without physical violence; assess safety before educating or referring.

Answer: C

It has low reliability and limited usefulness for screening: Consistent scores two weeks apart show good test-retest reliability.

It has good validity but needs a larger sample to confirm it: Poor agreement with the criterion is evidence against validity, not for it.

It has good reliability but questionable validity: Correct. Consistent repeated scores show test-retest reliability. Poor agreement with a criterion (structured interviews) is evidence against criterion validity. A measure can be reliable without measuring what it claims to measure.

Reliability is consistency; validity is accuracy. Reliability is necessary but not sufficient for validity.

Answer: C

Help the client set a quit date and plan for high-risk situations: Good relapse-prevention work, but unsafe before withdrawal risk has been assessed.

Connect the client with a mutual-help group that meets nearby: Supportive later, but it does not address the medical risk of withdrawal.

Refer the client for a medical evaluation of withdrawal risk: Correct. Long-term daily heavy drinking with morning tremors relieved by alcohol points to physical dependence. Stopping abruptly can cause dangerous withdrawal, including seizures, so medical evaluation for supervised withdrawal comes FIRST.

With signs of physical alcohol dependence, medical assessment of withdrawal risk precedes behavioral plans to quit.

Answer: A

Reflect both the client's concern and the relief drinking brings: Correct. A double-sided reflection mirrors the ambivalence the client has just voiced without pushing either side. In motivational interviewing this invites the client to keep exploring and tends to evoke change talk, so it is the BEST response at this moment.

Ask permission to share information about alcohol's health risks: MI-consistent (elicit-provide-elicit), but second-best: giving information before exploring the ambivalence just voiced moves ahead of the client.

Suggest healthier ways to unwind that could replace drinking: Premature advice (the "righting reflex"): the client has neither asked for options nor committed to change.

When a client voices ambivalence, reflect both sides before informing or advising; change talk comes from the client, not the social worker.

Answer: A

Help the client submit a written accommodation request: Correct. A verbal brush-off at the front desk is not a formal decision. Helping the client make a written reasonable-accommodation request is the FIRST advocacy step: it is the least adversarial, client-led route and creates a record if escalation is needed.

File a fair housing complaint on the client's behalf: Escalates before the formal request is made and takes action for the client rather than with her.

Call the housing office director to object to the denial: The social worker takes over and skips the formal process the client can lead.

Case advocacy starts with the least adversarial, client-led step and escalates only if needed.

Answer: B

Arrange emergency shelter for the client tonight: A pressing basic need, but the client has just disclosed suicidal thoughts with a possible method; risk to life is assessed first.

Ask about intent, plan and access to the pills: Correct. The client has disclosed suicidal thoughts and a possible method. Crisis intervention begins with assessing lethality and safety, so asking directly about intent, plan and access to the pills comes FIRST; shelter and supports follow from that assessment.

Help the client list friends or family who could help: Mobilizing supports is a later crisis step and may be part of the safety plan; risk assessment comes first.

In crisis intervention, assess lethality and immediate safety first; then address basic needs such as shelter and mobilize supports.