Study Guide

Field 023: Health
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions

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Competency 0001
Understand the benefits of personal health and wellness practices and causes, characteristics, treatment, and prevention of illness and disease.

Autoimmune disorders can accurately be described as diseases in which:

  1. the body's early defense system fails to detect infection-causing pathogens.
  2. weakened pathogens enter the blood before they are destroyed in the environment.
  3. acquired active immunity provided by vaccines fails to destroy disease-causing microorganisms.
  4. the antigen-antibody response attacks healthy cells in the body or fails to function altogether.
Answer
Correct Response: D.
Autoimmune disorders, such as juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and celiac disease, cause the body's immune system, which is designed to attack foreign substances in the body, to attack healthy cells and tissues instead. Since the immune system is unable to differentiate between antigens and normal tissues and cells at body sites, it sends antibodies to form immune complexes, which can circulate and cause tissue inflammation.
Competency 0002
Understand principles of nutrition, concepts and issues associated with healthy and unhealthy eating, and strategies and resources for fostering students' lifelong healthy eating habits.

An adequate intake of carbohydrates is essential for nutritional health because the human body:

  1. relies on carbohydrates for the raw material to make antibodies, enzymes, and hormones.
  2. converts carbohydrates to glucose, which is the fuel that supplies the energy needed for daily activities.
  3. uses carbohydrates to transport fat-soluble vitamins and convert cholesterol to vitamin D.
  4. utilizes carbohydrates to activate the essential amino acids needed for muscle and connective tissue growth.
Answer
Correct Response: B.
Carbohydrates are the macronutrients that supply the human body with the energy needed to sustain normal activity. The body metabolizes simple sugars and complex carbohydrates quickly and efficiently, converting them into glucose, the fuel for the body's cells.
Competency 0003
Understand principles, components, and benefits of health-related physical fitness and strategies and resources for fostering students' participation in lifelong physical activity.

A high school student includes cycling and swimming in his personal fitness program. As he participates in these activities, he tries to maintain a target heart rate of 60% to 80% of his maximum heart rate. This fitness goal is based on which of the following training principles?

  1. specificity of training
  2. intensity of training
  3. frequency of training
  4. progression of training
Answer
Correct Response: B.
In this scenario, the student applies the principle of intensity of training in two types of aerobic exercise. Monitoring and maintaining a target heart rate of 60% to 80% of one's maximum heart rate during sustained aerobic exercise provides health-related benefits such as strengthening the cardiovascular system, improving oxygen use and lung capacity, and increasing endurance and stamina.
Competency 0004
Understand factors and conditions that affect mental and emotional well-being, appropriate ways to manage stress, and strategies and resources for fostering students' ability to maintain or improve mental and emotional health.

Which of the following techniques is likely to be most effective for managing stress that arises from pressures related to family, school, and work responsibilities?

  1. defining the stress reaction as a problem, thinking of several concrete strategies to cope with the problem, and trying out a few
  2. visualizing the events that led to stress and then visualizing an alternate positive version of events
  3. identifying types or sources of stress that are even more challenging than those that tend to affect one personally
  4. using self-talk to acknowledge that everyone has innate weaknesses that allow stress to affect them
Answer
Correct Response: A.
Using a problem-solving process to manage stress prompts an individual to identify the source of stress and anxiety, define it as a problem, develop realistic ways of coping with anxious feelings or stressful situations (e.g., participating in physical activity, using a relaxation method, communicating assertively with a person who causes tension), and implement thoughtful and purposeful coping strategies. The ability to accept reality, separate negative events from oneself, and use problem-solving skills to develop coping strategies promotes resiliency, which allows an individual to return to normal functioning after periods of sorrow, stress, or adversity.
Competency 0005
Understand sexual and reproductive health; characteristics, transmission, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV; and strategies and resources for fostering students' ability to abstain from, avoid, and prevent sexual risk behaviors.

In a sexual health curriculum unit, key goals include providing students with medically accurate information on sexual health topics, engaging students in skill-building activities in which they practice assertive communication and refusal and negotiation strategies in realistic situations with other students, and involving students in discussions on the role of personal values and attributes in managing sexual pressure situations. This approach is primarily designed to help students:

  1. separate myth from fact in relation to sexual anatomy and the reproductive process.
  2. develop the ability to self-monitor and self-regulate behaviors in dating relationships.
  3. acquire the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to make responsible decisions in sexual risk situations.
  4. achieve proficiency in the social skills needed for maintaining healthy interpersonal relationships.
Answer
Correct Response: C.
The approach described is designed to foster students' ability to minimize and prevent sexual health risks. Providing students with factual information serves to correct any misconceptions students may have about sex, promotes students' understanding of the consequences of sexual risk taking, and enables students to make decisions based on accurate information. Assertive communication skills enhance students' ability to express a decision to not have sex. Practicing refusal, negotiation, and delaying techniques in realistic skits or role plays allows students to try out different strategies for refusing sexual activity and minimizing health risks. Values exploration and discussion on how to assert personal values in peer pressure or risk-related situations helps build students' self-confidence and supports healthy decision making. All of these techniques increase students' ability to analyze situations for potential sexual health risks, determine alternate courses of action and their consequences, and make purposeful health-enhancing decisions to reduce risks.
Competency 0006
Understand health risks associated with tobacco and alcohol and other drugs, and strategies and activities for fostering students' ability to avoid, reduce, and prevent health risks related to tobacco and alcohol and other drugs.

Use the information below to answer the question that follows.

In a drug prevention lesson, health education students participate in the following activities.

  1. The health education teacher introduces and demonstrates several resistance and refusal skills such as assertively saying no, walking away, suggesting an alternate activity, explaining reasons for declining, and using humor to change the subject or turn down an offer of drugs.
  2. The class watches a video that shows students demonstrating some of the strategies introduced in the first activity. The teacher and students brainstorm and list additional resistance and refusal strategies students could use.
  3. The teacher divides the class into groups of three or four and provides each group with a checklist of resistance and refusal skills. Each group thinks of and acts out a skit related to health risks involving drug use. In each skit, two or three students practice resistance or refusal strategies, while the other student observes and uses the checklist to provide peer coaching. Group members switch until everyone in the group has had a chance to practice at least two strategies.
  4. The class meets as a whole to discuss the strategies students felt comfortable using, and which strategies might work more effectively than others for different purposes or in different situations and why.

Which of the following statements best describes a key advantage of using these activities in a drug prevention lesson?

  1. The activities serve as a hook to motivate students' interest in examining the links between risk-taking behaviors involving drugs and the likelihood of engaging in other unhealthy behaviors.
  2. The activities familiarize students with conflict-management and conflict-resolution skills in a comfortable and nonthreatening environment.
  3. The activities help students recognize and anticipate potential risk situations and develop appropriate strategies and attitudes for responding to real-life pressure to engage in risk activities.
  4. The activities encourage students to develop individualized health-enhancing strategies for dealing with both negative and positive peer pressure.
Answer
Correct Response: C.
The activities described provide students with experiential learning opportunities that help develop their ability to identify and analyze pressure and risk situations and increase their social competence in dealing with such situations. The activities are aligned with a skills-based approach to teaching resistance and refusal strategies that involves modeling and demonstrating the skills, examining examples of the skills being used, practicing the skills in small-group settings, and receiving feedback from others. Thus, the students have multiple opportunities to rehearse, adapt, and internalize the skills, which in turn increases their competence and confidence in applying the skills in the real world.
Competency 0013
Understand practices and activities associated with a coordinated school health program (CSHP) and a comprehensive health education curriculum, as well as how to plan and use instruction and assessment to develop students' health knowledge, skills, and behaviors.

Use the information below to answer the question that follows.

In a drug prevention lesson, health education students participate in the following activities.

  1. The health education teacher introduces and demonstrates several resistance and refusal skills such as assertively saying no, walking away, suggesting an alternate activity, explaining reasons for declining, and using humor to change the subject or turn down an offer of drugs.
  2. The class watches a video that shows students demonstrating some of the strategies introduced in the first activity. The teacher and students brainstorm and list additional resistance and refusal strategies students could use.
  3. The teacher divides the class into groups of three or four and provides each group with a checklist of resistance and refusal skills. Each group thinks of and acts out a skit related to health risks involving drug use. In each skit, two or three students practice resistance or refusal strategies, while the other student observes and uses the checklist to provide peer coaching. Group members switch until everyone in the group has had a chance to practice at least two strategies.
  4. The class meets as a whole to discuss the strategies students felt comfortable using, and which strategies might work more effectively than others for different purposes or in different situations and why.

After activity #4, the teacher asks students to form groups of three again. The teacher provides each small group with three brief written scenarios related to drug use. Each group chooses one scenario and acts out three ways of responding to the situation using resistance or refusal skills. Each group then demonstrates one of the strategies in a role play for the class. This is a particularly useful culminating health education activity primarily because it:

  1. ensures that students will embrace the values inherent in the instructional unit and be able to apply the skills successfully in real-world situations under a variety of conditions.
  2. promotes students' ability to advocate for drug avoidance and prevention efforts using accurate peer and social norms.
  3. serves as authentic practice for students and as a formative assessment that the teacher can use to evaluate students' conceptual understanding and skill performance.
  4. provides students with personalization and closure by allowing them to reflect on skills and tweak the skills to make them their own.
Answer
Correct Response: C.
The culminating activity described allows students to refine the skills previously learned in a new practice context and to benefit from observing additional modeling and demonstration of resistance and refusal skills. The activity also serves as a performance assessment task that the teacher can use to evaluate students' skill development and progress, identify strengths and areas needing improvement, and make adjustments to instruction.
Competency 0007
Understand principles for maintaining safety; factors and behaviors that influence, cause, and reduce violence; and how to foster students' use of safety, injury-prevention, and violence-prevention skills.

Which of the following steps is most appropriate to take first when caring for a conscious child who has accidentally swallowed a prescription or over-the-counter medication?

  1. taking the child to the nearest emergency room
  2. calling the state's Poison Control Center
  3. administering ipecac to induce vomiting
  4. contacting a local pharmacy
Answer
Correct Response: B.
When a child ingests a potential poison such as a prescription or over-the-counter medication, the first step is to call the state's Poison Control Center with the label from the medication in hand. The caller should describe the child who has swallowed the medication, including the child's age and weight; what substance was ingested, how much, and when it was ingested; and any symptoms that are occurring or have occurred (e.g., dizziness, weakness, vomiting). Poison Control Center staff will use this information to decide on a recommendation of what to do next.
Competency 0008
Understand interpersonal communication and how to foster students' use of communication skills to maintain healthy relationships and enhance personal, family, and community health.

Which of the following types of personal attributes is likely to make the greatest positive contribution to the development of healthy interpersonal communication?

  1. being able to rationalize and defend one's behavior and personal beliefs in difficult situations
  2. having an aptitude for making people feel that they are important and beyond reproach
  3. being able to express and reveal one's deepest emotions openly and without fear of judgment
  4. having the ability to listen to and demonstrate respect for the viewpoints of others
Answer
Correct Response: D.
Active listening is a key aspect of healthy interpersonal communication. Effective listeners try to understand the perspectives, thoughts, and feelings of others from what others communicate verbally and nonverbally. Attributes such as demonstrating respect for others' viewpoints and remaining open and willing to listen to and exchange ideas with others are essential for establishing and maintaining positive interpersonal communication and relationships.
Competency 0009
Understand the role of decision making in identifying, implementing, and sustaining healthy behaviors; factors that influence decision making; and how to foster students' use of decision-making skills to enhance health.

Use the scenario below to answer the question that follows.

A high school student is trying to decide whether to attend a weekend party at a classmate's house. The classmate's family will be away and alcohol will be available. The student was planning to spend the night at her classmate's house anyway, so her parents are unlikely to find out. If they did find out, however, she would be in serious trouble and lose her parents' trust. The student also realizes that she risks losing her spot in band and on the volleyball team if someone reported her for violating the school code of conduct. On the other hand, if the student decides not to go to the party, she will miss out on the fun and her friends will think she's a baby.

The student's thought process illustrates the use of which of the following strategies in the decision-making process?

  1. considering alternate options and evaluating possible consequences
  2. reflecting on a personal problem and considering potential barriers to resolving the issue
  3. choosing the best course of action and identifying potential benefits and rewards
  4. articulating realistic goals and evaluating how to monitor progress toward achieving them
Answer
Correct Response: A.
The student in the scenario acknowledges that decisions have positive and negative consequences. She weighs her options and thinks through the pros and cons of attending or not attending the unsupervised party, reflecting mainly on the negative consequences of each option. After clarifying the decision to be made and identifying possible courses of action, students should carefully consider alternate options and brainstorm and evaluate possible positive and negative consequences. This important step in decision making is typically carried out just before making a decision and is essential for helping students choose healthy options.
Competency 0010
Understand the role of goal setting in identifying, adopting, and maintaining healthy behaviors; factors that influence goal setting; and how to foster students' use of goal-setting skills to enhance health.

During a goal-setting lesson, health education students are working on creating personal health goals intended to improve one aspect of wellness or fitness. Several students' draft goals relate to improving body composition. One such goal statement is "I will lose 15 pounds by participating in an hour of moderate to vigorous activity five times a week, decreasing portion sizes, and cutting back on empty-calorie foods and simple sugars." Which of the following types of information would be most important to add to this goal to increase its effectiveness?

  1. a method for measuring progress toward the goal and a reasonable time frame in which to complete the goal
  2. a list of mini goals that could be checked off, or a timeline of interim objectives that could be shaded in when mini goals or objectives are attained
  3. a summary of the personal resources (e.g., time, energy, capability, commitment) needed to help achieve the goal
  4. the specific types of physical activity to be carried out each week and a schedule for varying the activities to maintain motivation and prevent boredom
Answer
Correct Response: A.
In this lesson, students are learning about the importance of developing goals that can be effectively used to make meaningful and health-enhancing lifestyle changes. Many goal-setting models incorporate the same important criteria. For example, the SMART goal-setting model for lifestyle change suggests that in order for goals to be useful, they should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. The given goal fulfills the Specific, Attainable, and Realistic criteria in that it is precise and states how the goal will be achieved, is relevant and meaningful, and can be realistically accomplished. But the goal should specify a time frame or an end point (e.g., at the end of ten weeks' time); knowing that there is a deadline helps motivate individuals to get started. And while the overall weight loss goal is measurable, a strategy for measuring and tracking progress should also be included (e.g., "I will know I am making progress because I will lose 1.5 pounds a week for 10 weeks").
Competency 0011
Understand types and characteristics of reliable health information, products, and services and how to foster students' ability to access, analyze, and select valid information, products, and services to enhance health.

The family of an individual recently diagnosed with high blood pressure wants to learn more about nutritional and physical activity strategies for managing the condition. Which of the following resources is likely to provide accurate information that is most helpful for this purpose?

  1. local department of health
  2. websites sponsored by the manufacturers of blood pressure medications
  3. professional health and fitness journals
  4. nonprofit educational or government-sponsored websites for health consumers
Answer
Correct Response: D.
Many government-sponsored and educational websites for health consumers (e.g., the Mayo Clinic, Healthy People 2020) provide comprehensive, objective, and accurate health-related information, as well as links to other reliable resources. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Heart Association are a few examples of government organizations and voluntary nonprofit health agencies whose websites recommend appropriate nutritional and physical activity strategies for managing high blood pressure and other conditions.
Competency 0012
Understand research and theories related to health behavior; the influence of family, peers, culture, media, technology, and other factors on health; and how to foster students' use of advocacy skills to enhance personal, family, and community health.

Which of the following statements best describes how advertisers target adolescents and attract them to products that pose potential health risks?

  1. Television shows, movies, and magazines feature individuals who embody unrealistic standards of physical beauty.
  2. Advertisers pay television and film companies to place brand-name cosmetics prominently in scenes in television shows and movies.
  3. Fast-food companies arrange promotions and toy tie-ins to coincide with the release of major motion pictures.
  4. Alcohol manufacturers place advertising in magazines, in televised and live sporting events, and on websites popular with young viewers.
Answer
Correct Response: D.
Even though adolescents cannot legally drink alcohol, manufacturers of alcoholic beverages target young people with much of their marketing, especially at sporting events that young people attend or watch on television; in music, entertainment, and sports magazines; and on websites popular with young people. Alcohol advertising and marketing has a significant effect on youth attitudes and helps create an environment that promotes underage drinking. National studies have confirmed that adolescents who are exposed to alcohol advertisements and view them favorably are likely to have positive expectations about alcohol use.