NCOA COMPREHENSIVE EXAM QUESTIONS AND
SOLUTIONS RATED A+
✔✔Feedback - ✔✔is giving and receiving information on how to meet expectations.
✔✔Perceptions - ✔✔are what you experience and observe that becomes your reality.
✔✔Perspectives - ✔✔are your position on a particular subject. It is how you mentally
view a situation.
✔✔Prejudice - ✔✔an adverse or unreasonable opinion or thought about a person or
group without all the facts and usually based on deeply held beliefs...it's a 'pre-
judgment'.
✔✔Primary Dimension - ✔✔includes differences that are inborn and/
or exert an important impact on your early socialization and have an ongoing impact
throughout your life.
✔✔Secondary Dimension - ✔✔includes characteristics about yourself that
can change such as: work ethic, income, marital status, experience, religious and
philosophical beliefs, educational background, and language abilities.
✔✔Social Bias - ✔✔usually the effect of your upbringing, values,
pre-existing beliefs, and interests. This makes it impossible for you to be impartial.
✔✔Social Sensitivity - ✔✔is one's reception and responsiveness to the emotions,
feelings, personality, temperaments, cultural differences, values, and beliefs of those
around them.
✔✔Socio-Behavioral Tendencies (SBTs) - ✔✔the thought processes you use to help
make sense of the world you live in. Influenced by your beliefs and values, they define
who you are, how you act or respond to situations, and how you treat others.
✔✔Stereotype - ✔✔is a standardized mental picture that one person
or group of people hold about another person or group of people.
✔✔Adapting - ✔✔involves adjusting your behaviors and other resources to what you've
diagnosed/observed in
ways that help close the gap between the current situation and what you want to
achieve and is focused on your leadership style.
✔✔ABC's of Behavior - ✔✔antecedents (prior events), behavior (observable behavior),
and consequences (rewards or punishments resulting from prior events). The theory
states that a person will tend to change his or
, her behavior based on consequences, resulting from prior behavior.
✔✔X & Y Theory - ✔✔The Theory X manager assumes that most people prefer to be
directed, and aren't interested in assuming responsibility—all they desire is safety.
Theory X managers tend to direct, control, and closely supervise—the term "micro-
manage" could be used to describe them!
✔✔Hierarchy of Needs - ✔✔Maslow believed that an individual's most basic needs
must be filled before that individual could move on to higher needs or ambitions. If
someone is suffering from great pain or hunger, he or she isn't going to be very
productive.
✔✔Expectation Theory - ✔✔A person expects certain things when he or she works,
such as, money, training, safety, and supervision.
✔✔Motivational Profile Theory - ✔✔Includes achievement, power, and affiliation. People
that fall within the achievement area seek challenges on the job and try to achieve
mastery of certain tasks or certain jobs.The second area is power. Individuals will often
seek status and control in their positions or jobs. The last area of McClelland's theory is
affiliation. People seek affiliation by looking for social aspects of the job.
Being around people or helping people is what they seek and what motivates them.
✔✔Contemporary Motivation Model - ✔✔The three levels are membership (the lowest
end), performance level (mid-level), and the involvement level (highest level) of
commitment.
✔✔Diagnosing - ✔✔Tool that can be used to identify the developmental needs of your
subordinates, a process you can use to find out what's going on in your work center, or
skill you can develop to help your people meet the expectations of the Air Force
✔✔Essential Follower Traits - ✔✔Competence, Integrity, Loyalty, and Initiative
✔✔5 Essential Qualities of Effective Followership - ✔✔self management, commitment,
competent, integrity, and initiative.
✔✔Personal Power - ✔✔is the extent to which followers respect, feel good about, and
are committed to their leader; and see
their own goals being satisfied by the goals of their leader.
✔✔Position Power - ✔✔provides you with the authority to make decisions and requests
based on your position within the
organization.
✔✔System Level Rewards - ✔✔These are rewards the system (USAF) promises to
people as long as they perform at the minimum acceptable standard. System level
SOLUTIONS RATED A+
✔✔Feedback - ✔✔is giving and receiving information on how to meet expectations.
✔✔Perceptions - ✔✔are what you experience and observe that becomes your reality.
✔✔Perspectives - ✔✔are your position on a particular subject. It is how you mentally
view a situation.
✔✔Prejudice - ✔✔an adverse or unreasonable opinion or thought about a person or
group without all the facts and usually based on deeply held beliefs...it's a 'pre-
judgment'.
✔✔Primary Dimension - ✔✔includes differences that are inborn and/
or exert an important impact on your early socialization and have an ongoing impact
throughout your life.
✔✔Secondary Dimension - ✔✔includes characteristics about yourself that
can change such as: work ethic, income, marital status, experience, religious and
philosophical beliefs, educational background, and language abilities.
✔✔Social Bias - ✔✔usually the effect of your upbringing, values,
pre-existing beliefs, and interests. This makes it impossible for you to be impartial.
✔✔Social Sensitivity - ✔✔is one's reception and responsiveness to the emotions,
feelings, personality, temperaments, cultural differences, values, and beliefs of those
around them.
✔✔Socio-Behavioral Tendencies (SBTs) - ✔✔the thought processes you use to help
make sense of the world you live in. Influenced by your beliefs and values, they define
who you are, how you act or respond to situations, and how you treat others.
✔✔Stereotype - ✔✔is a standardized mental picture that one person
or group of people hold about another person or group of people.
✔✔Adapting - ✔✔involves adjusting your behaviors and other resources to what you've
diagnosed/observed in
ways that help close the gap between the current situation and what you want to
achieve and is focused on your leadership style.
✔✔ABC's of Behavior - ✔✔antecedents (prior events), behavior (observable behavior),
and consequences (rewards or punishments resulting from prior events). The theory
states that a person will tend to change his or
, her behavior based on consequences, resulting from prior behavior.
✔✔X & Y Theory - ✔✔The Theory X manager assumes that most people prefer to be
directed, and aren't interested in assuming responsibility—all they desire is safety.
Theory X managers tend to direct, control, and closely supervise—the term "micro-
manage" could be used to describe them!
✔✔Hierarchy of Needs - ✔✔Maslow believed that an individual's most basic needs
must be filled before that individual could move on to higher needs or ambitions. If
someone is suffering from great pain or hunger, he or she isn't going to be very
productive.
✔✔Expectation Theory - ✔✔A person expects certain things when he or she works,
such as, money, training, safety, and supervision.
✔✔Motivational Profile Theory - ✔✔Includes achievement, power, and affiliation. People
that fall within the achievement area seek challenges on the job and try to achieve
mastery of certain tasks or certain jobs.The second area is power. Individuals will often
seek status and control in their positions or jobs. The last area of McClelland's theory is
affiliation. People seek affiliation by looking for social aspects of the job.
Being around people or helping people is what they seek and what motivates them.
✔✔Contemporary Motivation Model - ✔✔The three levels are membership (the lowest
end), performance level (mid-level), and the involvement level (highest level) of
commitment.
✔✔Diagnosing - ✔✔Tool that can be used to identify the developmental needs of your
subordinates, a process you can use to find out what's going on in your work center, or
skill you can develop to help your people meet the expectations of the Air Force
✔✔Essential Follower Traits - ✔✔Competence, Integrity, Loyalty, and Initiative
✔✔5 Essential Qualities of Effective Followership - ✔✔self management, commitment,
competent, integrity, and initiative.
✔✔Personal Power - ✔✔is the extent to which followers respect, feel good about, and
are committed to their leader; and see
their own goals being satisfied by the goals of their leader.
✔✔Position Power - ✔✔provides you with the authority to make decisions and requests
based on your position within the
organization.
✔✔System Level Rewards - ✔✔These are rewards the system (USAF) promises to
people as long as they perform at the minimum acceptable standard. System level
