Customer Reviews

Master Case Worker Exam 13th ed (Peterson's Master the Case Worker Exam)

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One gets the strong impression that ARCO does not have editors on its staff. The text of the sample questions in this prep book are written in often questionable English, and in many cases the alleged answers are downright WRONG. Perhaps the lack of clarity of the passages is intentional, but there is no excuse for the multiple wrong answers.

For example, the book claims that of 4 choices that include "mastication" and "dietetics," "mastication" is allegedly the correct term for the science of nutrition. That's news to me (and to Websters). Perhaps the worst example, in a scenario where your client is a 55 yr. old pedophile, the book claims the correct emphasis of your treatment should be to "decrease his sexual impulse control!" Decrease impulse yes, but decrease impulse control? What planet are these people living on? Yet another example: A homeless family is moving into a suitable apartment that has been vacant for 3 months. The woman finds out that the previous owner died of AIDS. What do you advise her? The book claims you should tell her to scrub the bathroom and kitchen with bleach. I almost fell off my chair when I read this. Does ARCO not know that the HIV virus can't last outside the body for 3 months? Seems a rather fundamental point to screw up!

So -- bottom line -- save your money and your sanity, and avoid this book!

This book offers a lot of practice exams, which is nice. However there is only about 20 pages of review or discussion. The answer keys do not explain answers, they simply repeat them. As the other review states, accuracy is questionable. There are many questions in the practice exams where the answers given in the key are clearly incorrect. After the first exam I found myself questionning whether I was really missing questions that I was unsure of or whether the book just gave the wrong answer again.

I had no training or work experience in social work and just doing the practice exams in this book taught me enough to pass the case worker civil service exam. I was impressed and very happy about how each answer was explained in the answer key.