CPCE Practice Questions (2026) — Free Sample Questions with Answers

Answer: B

keep the disclosure confidential to protect trust: Confidentiality does not cover disclosures needed to protect others from serious and foreseeable harm.

take steps to protect the identified person: Correct. ACA Code of Ethics (2014) B.2.a lifts confidentiality when disclosure is needed to protect others from serious and foreseeable harm. The counselor consults and follows applicable duty-to-warn or duty-to-protect law, which varies by jurisdiction.

end counseling and refer the client elsewhere: Ending counseling does nothing to protect the intended victim, and an abrupt termination may count as abandonment (A.11.a).

A specific threat with a plan and means against an identifiable person triggers the serious-and-foreseeable-harm exception. Tarasoff established the concept, and statutes differ.

Answer: C

leading a mandatory group debriefing about the flood: Mandatory debriefing that pushes survivors to recount the event is not recommended and may increase distress. PFA is voluntary and does not probe.

screening every resident with a trauma symptom inventory: Formal testing of everyone right after a disaster is not the PFA role. PFA gathers information informally to meet current needs.

making nonintrusive contact and meeting immediate needs: Correct. PFA begins with compassionate, nonintrusive contact and attention to safety, comfort and practical needs.

Psychological First Aid is practical, voluntary and focused on immediate safety and needs. It does not push survivors to process the trauma.

Answer: A

acknowledge the comment and invite a reaction: Correct. Naming the possible rupture and inviting the client's reaction takes responsibility and opens a repair, which protects the relationship.

explain what the counselor meant by the comment: Explaining intent centers the counselor's feelings and can minimize the impact on the client.

continue the session and address it only if raised: Waiting places the burden on the client to raise it and leaves a possible rupture unaddressed.

When a counselor may have committed a microaggression, the first step is to acknowledge it and explore its impact, not to defend intent.

Answer: B

pre-encounter: In pre-encounter, a person downplays race or holds mainstream views. The student is now questioning those views.

encounter: Correct. In the encounter stage, an event challenges a person's earlier view of race and starts a search for a new identity.

immersion-emersion: Immersion-emersion follows the encounter and involves immersing oneself in Black culture, often rejecting White culture. That has not happened yet.

In Cross's model, the encounter stage begins with a jarring race-related event that breaks the pre-encounter worldview.

Answer: A

negative reinforcement: Correct. Removing an aversive state (anxiety) after a behavior makes the behavior more likely, which is negative reinforcement; it is how avoidance is maintained.

positive punishment: Punishment reduces a behavior; here, the leaving behavior increases.

negative punishment: Negative punishment removes something pleasant to reduce a behavior, and the behavior here increases.

Reinforcement always increases behavior; "negative" means something aversive is removed. Escape from anxiety negatively reinforces avoidance.

Answer: B

encourage her to decide independently first: Pushing independence imposes an individualistic value on the client and disregards her stated worldview (ACA Code of Ethics, 2014, A.4.b).

invite family input as she wishes, with consent: Correct. ACA Code of Ethics (2014) A.1.d directs counselors to consider enlisting family and other support networks as positive resources, when appropriate and with client consent, which honors Amara's collectivist decision style.

refer the family to a family therapist: Nothing suggests family dysfunction; referral would pathologize a culturally normative decision process.

Culturally relevant career counseling respects collectivist decision-making and involves family as a resource when the client consents.

Answer: C

an incongruent personality type: Nothing in the vignette suggests a mismatch between Wen's interests and engineering; Holland congruence is not the SCCT target here.

an unresolved developmental task: Developmental tasks belong to Super's theory; SCCT focuses on cognitive variables that filter interests into choices.

low self-efficacy beliefs: Correct. In SCCT (Lent, Brown and Hackett), low self-efficacy despite strong performance evidence blocks the path from ability to choice, so the counselor helps Wen re-examine those beliefs against her actual achievements.

SCCT holds that self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations shape which options people consider; inaccurately low self-efficacy can prematurely eliminate a well-suited choice.

Answer: A

low congruence: Correct. Each letter of ESC sits directly opposite a letter of RIA on Holland's hexagon (R–S, I–E, A–C), so the person–environment match is about as poor as it can be.

high congruence: High congruence requires the person's and environment's codes to match or sit next to each other on the hexagon; these codes are opposites.

low consistency: Consistency describes how close the letters within one code are; R and I are adjacent, so RIA is a fairly consistent code, and consistency does not measure person–environment fit.

Congruence is the degree of match between a person's Holland type and the environment's type; opposite types on the hexagon represent the lowest congruence.

Answer: C

a signed no-suicide contract: No-suicide contracts lack research support and can give a false sense of security; they do not teach coping steps.

involuntary hospitalization: Involuntary hospitalization is for imminent danger; this client's assessed risk does not call for it and it would be overly restrictive.

a collaborative safety plan: Correct. A collaborative safety plan (e.g., Stanley and Brown's Safety Planning Intervention) lists warning signs, coping strategies, supports, crisis contacts and means restriction.

For lower-risk suicidal ideation, collaborative safety planning is preferred over no-suicide contracts, and the least restrictive appropriate level of care is used.

Answer: C

identifying unique outcomes: Unique outcomes are times the client resisted the problem's influence; the counselor here is naming the problem as separate from the child, not yet searching for those times.

re-authoring the story: Re-authoring builds a preferred alternative story from unique outcomes; it follows externalizing rather than being this first step.

externalizing the problem: Correct. Externalizing treats the problem ("the Worry") as separate from the person, so "the person is not the problem; the problem is the problem."

In White and Epston's narrative therapy, externalizing conversations separate the person from the problem before unique outcomes are used to re-author the story.

Answer: B

instillation of hope: Instillation of hope comes from seeing others improve, not from finding that one's feelings are shared.

universality: Correct. Yalom's universality is the relief of learning that others share feelings or problems one believed were unique.

group cohesiveness: Cohesiveness is the sense of belonging and acceptance in the group; the stem's cue is "the only one."

Universality counters isolation: "I am not alone in this."

Answer: A

"I notice the group gets quiet whenever conflict comes up.": Correct. Process comments attend to how members relate in the here and now (a pattern of silence around conflict), not to the topic discussed.

"Let's hear more about your job search plans.": This invites more discussion of a topic, which is content.

"What did your supervisor say after that?": This asks for details of an outside story, which is content.

Content is what the group talks about; process is how members interact. Process observations are central to group leadership.

Answer: B

adjustment disorder: DSM-5-TR excludes adjustment disorder when the reaction is better explained by prolonged grief disorder; persistent yearning after a death is the hallmark of that diagnosis.

prolonged grief disorder: Correct. DSM-5-TR added prolonged grief disorder: in adults, at least 12 months since the death, daily yearning or preoccupation, symptoms such as identity disruption and difficulty reintegrating, impairment, and a response that exceeds cultural norms.

posttraumatic stress disorder: PTSD requires exposure to actual or threatened death through a traumatic, violent or accidental event; a death after a long illness does not meet Criterion A, and yearning is not a PTSD symptom.

Prolonged grief disorder (new in DSM-5-TR) requires at least 12 months since the death for adults (6 months for children and adolescents) and grief that exceeds cultural norms.

Answer: B

1. 1. A 95% confidence band is about ±2 SEM.
2. 2. 2 × 3 = 6
3. 3. 110 − 6 = 104 and 110 + 6 = 116

101 to 119: This is ±3 SEM (110 ± 9), about 99.7% confidence.

104 to 116: Correct. A 95% band is about ±2 SEM: 110 ± 6 = 104 to 116.

107 to 113: This is ±1 SEM (110 ± 3), the band of about 68% confidence.

SEM bands follow the normal curve: ±1 SEM ≈ 68%, ±2 SEM ≈ 95%, ±3 SEM ≈ 99.7%.

Answer: C

gather proof before making a report: Counselors report reasonable suspicion; they are not investigators and need no proof.

ask the parents to explain the marks: Contacting the alleged abuser first can put the child at greater risk and interfere with the investigation.

report the suspected abuse: Correct. Suspected child abuse is a legal exception to confidentiality, and counselors report it to the child protective authority as the law requires (ACA Code of Ethics, 2014, B.2.a).

Report reasonable suspicion of child abuse to the proper authority; do not investigate or alert the alleged abuser.

Answer: C

maturation: Maturation refers to natural internal changes in participants over time, such as growing older; the stem points to an outside event.

statistical regression: Statistical regression arises when participants are chosen for extreme scores; the whole student body was included.

history: Correct. History is an external event occurring between pretest and posttest (the incident and assemblies) that could produce the change instead of the program.

History = an outside event during the study; maturation = change within participants over time.