Free NBCC NCE-ABE Practice Exam with Questions & Answers | Set: 3

In the Social and Cultural Diversity core area, counselors study how gender roles and stereotypes affect individuals’ experiences at home, at work, and in society. A well-established theme is the “second shift” or “double burden”, where employed women are often expected to:

Perform paid work and

Take on a disproportionate share of caregiving and household responsibilities, such as child care, elder care, managing the home, emotional caretaking, etc.

These expectations are rooted in traditional gender norms that associate women with nurturing and caregiving roles, even when both partners are employed.

Educational (B) and supervisory (D) responsibilities are not systematically placed more on women because of gender stereotypes in the same pervasive way.

Financial (C) responsibilities are more often stereotypically associated with men as “breadwinners,” not women.

Thus, the type of responsibilities women are especially socialized to take on, compared with employed men, is caregiving (A).

In the Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice core area, counselors are expected to recognize that consultation with colleagues is an important part of maintaining ethical and competent practice. Ethical guidelines emphasize that counselors:

Seek consultation or supervision when facing ethical dilemmas,

Seek consultation when a client’s needs are beyond their current competence,

Use consultation to improve the quality of client care.

While collegial support (options A and D) can be helpful, CACREP-aligned ethical standards specifically highlight consultation as a means to clarify and uphold ethical responsibilities and strengthen clinical decision-making, not simply to vent or replace formal professional development. Thus, the best answer is C. To seek assistance with ethical obligations or professional practice.

Within Counseling and Helping Relationships, CACREP includes knowledge of systemic and family counseling theories, including structural family therapy developed by Salvador Minuchin.

Structural family therapy views the family as a system that seeks homeostasis, meaning it tends to maintain its existing patterns and organization, even when those patterns are dysfunctional. A core idea is that the family structure (subsystems, boundaries, hierarchies, alignments) maintains symptoms to preserve this homeostatic balance. Interventions aim at restructuring these patterns so that healthier, more flexible functioning can emerge. Thus, the concept of homeostatic systems (A) is central to this model.

Catharsis and interpersonal feedback (B) are more characteristic of group counseling models (for example, Yalom’s therapeutic factors), not uniquely structural family therapy.

Therapeutic spontaneity (C) is more closely associated with experiential family therapists such as Carl Whitaker, who emphasized creativity and spontaneity.

Conflict resolution (D) can occur in many counseling approaches but is not the defining core construct of Minuchin’s structural model; the key focus is on family structure and systemic homeostasis.

Therefore, among the options provided, homeostatic systems (A) is the primary component most directly tied to structural family therapy.

In the Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice core area, counselors are trained to understand their roles in prevention, advocacy, and outreach within schools and communities. A rape prevention workshop at a college:

Is aimed at the general student population, not only those who have already experienced trauma.

Focuses on preventing sexual violence rather than treating its aftermath.

Represents the counselor taking services out to the community, rather than waiting for students to present individually for counseling.

This aligns directly with the concept of community outreach and primary prevention.

Option B (tertiary prevention) would involve intervening after the problem has occurred, such as counseling rape survivors to reduce long-term consequences.

Option C (gender-specific group) is not supported because the item does not specify that the group is only for one gender.

Option D (solution-focused technique) refers to a specific counseling approach, not the format or purpose of a prevention workshop.

Therefore, the best description is A. A community outreach effort.

Within the Career Development core area, counselors are trained to view work, career, and leisure as integrated components of overall life satisfaction and well-being. A foundational assumption is that:

Individuals can meet psychological needs (e.g., achievement, affiliation, autonomy, creativity, meaning) through both work roles and leisure activities.

Satisfaction in life may arise from a combination of paid employment, unpaid roles, and leisure pursuits, depending on the client’s values and circumstances.

Thus:

Option C reflects the principle that personal need satisfaction and fulfillment can come from either or both work and leisure, which guides holistic counseling around lifestyle, not just employment.

Options A and D overemphasize a rigid “work-first” ethic and are more value-laden than is appropriate for ethical, client-centered counseling.

Option B assumes that leisure is “preferable” for most adults, which is not supported as a universal counseling assumption and may conflict with many clients’ values around meaningful work.

Therefore, the assumption most aligned with CACREP-based career counseling concepts is C. Personal need satisfaction may be derived from either work or leisure activities.

Within Counseling and Helping Relationships, counselors must understand major counseling theories and their conceptualizations of emotional and behavioral problems.

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by Albert Ellis, holds that:

People do not simply become disturbed by events themselves; rather, they become disturbed by how they interpret the events through irrational or illogical beliefs.

These beliefs are often rigid (“musts,” “shoulds,” “have tos”) and self-maintained by ongoing self-talk and interpretations.

Emotional and behavioral disturbances are thus seen as the result of these self-sustained, irrational thought patterns, and counseling focuses on identifying, disputing, and replacing them with more rational beliefs.

Reality therapy (A) emphasizes choice, responsibility, and meeting basic needs, not primarily irrational beliefs.

Transactional analysis (C) focuses on ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) and life scripts.

Behavior therapy (D) emphasizes learned behaviors through conditioning and reinforcement, typically without the central emphasis on irrational beliefs as the main cause.

Therefore, the approach that specifically maintains that emotional and behavioral disorders stem from clients’ self-maintained illogical beliefs is Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (B).

Within the Counseling and Helping Relationships core area, CACREP emphasizes that effective counseling is grounded in the therapeutic relationship—especially the quality of the working alliance (agreement on goals, tasks, and the emotional bond between counselor and client). Across theories and techniques, outcome research consistently shows that the strength of the counseling alliance is one of the most powerful and consistent predictors of positive client outcome, often more predictive than the specific technique or theoretical orientation used.

While hopefulness (C) and evidence-based treatments (D) are important, they are not as consistently predictive across all modalities and client populations as the quality of the alliance. Technique choice (e.g., CBT, option B) also matters, but CACREP-aligned training and NCE materials repeatedly highlight the helping relationship and working alliance as central to successful outcomes. Therefore, A. A strong alliance with the client is the best answer.

In the Counseling and Helping Relationships core area, CACREP includes knowledge of systemic and family counseling concepts, including circular causality.

Circular causality in family systems theory emphasizes that family members mutually influence one another in ongoing interaction cycles. Behaviors are not understood as simple “A causes B” in a straight line; rather, each person’s behavior is both a response to and a stimulus for others’ behavior.

Option B captures this idea: a child’s behaviors are conceptually inseparable from parents’ behaviors—each is understood in the context of reciprocal interaction patterns, not isolated cause–effect.

Options A and D both reflect linear causality, implying that parents cause children’s actions in a one-way direction or that parents are always the “starting point.” This contradicts the systemic view. Option C is not a defining feature of circular causality; withdrawal may change patterns, but it is not inherent to the concept.

Thus, the statement most consistent with circular causality is B.

In the Counseling and Helping Relationships core area, CACREP identifies basic counseling skills such as paraphrasing, reflecting feeling, summarizing, and using empathy.

Summarization pulls together several client statements over time, capturing multiple pieces of content and associated feelings, and then checking for accuracy.

In the statement given, the counselor:

Integrates several experiences (setting boundaries, explaining maternity leave, fielding questions).

Reflects the emotional tone (tired of colleagues’ behaviors, not feeling they’re meeting her halfway).

Ends with a checking-for-accuracy question (“Am I understanding that correctly?”).

This is characteristic of summarization, not just a brief paraphrase of one point.

Additive empathy would involve going beyond what has been stated and offering a deeper interpretation not yet voiced by the client. Reflection of meaning focuses more on deeper values and life meaning. Paraphrasing is shorter and usually focuses on just one main idea.

Because the counselor is organizing and restating multiple themes and feelings in a concise way, the best skill label in line with NCE content is C. Summarization.

Within Counseling and Helping Relationships, CACREP highlights core conditions from person-centered theory: empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness (also called congruence).

Genuineness/congruence means the counselor’s outer responses match their inner experience—they are authentic, real, and not putting on a professional façade.

Among the options, “congruence” (B) is the technical term that directly corresponds to genuineness.

Paraphrasing (A) and empathic responding (D) are important attending and empathy skills, but they do not automatically mean the counselor is genuine. Self-disclosure (C) can be a tool that may express genuineness, but it is not, by itself, the definition of genuineness and can even be misused.

Therefore, the counselor behavior that most clearly and directly demonstrates genuineness is B. Congruence.