Can you pass the ASWB exam reading just the answers, not the
questions? Well, maybe not pass, but come close, according to a
study cited by Ray Woodcock on his blog, A Social Work
Education (see "How
to Prepare for the LCSW Exam"):
I looked at the two sample questions
provided in ASWB's Candidate Handbook. They were
absurdly easy. This brought to mind some research by Albright
and Thyer (2010). Albright and Thyer gave the
Clinical practice test (from the $30 Study Guide) to 59 first-year
MSW students. More precisely, they gave the answers only,
without the questions. In other words, the MSW students were
looking at something like this:
(A) Work with the foster parents on
a behavior modification plan
(B) Suggest that the child's teacher
refer him for special education placement
(C) Refer the child for assessment
for fetal alcohol syndrome
(D) Work with the child's biological
mother toward reunification
and that's all. There was no
question; just the four possible answers to choose from.
These 59 MSW students had to guess what the question was about, or
just forget that and try to imagine which answer would be most
favored by ASWB. Logically, these MSW students should have
been right about 25% of the time: they would guess one out of
four at random, making them wrong, on average, for three out
of every four questions they answered. Ah, but that's not
what happened. According to Albright and Thyer, these 59 MSW
students averaged a score of 52%.
