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Twenty representative DSST Business Ethics and Society questions, each with the answer and a short explanation of why the wrong choices trap test-takers.
By Alex Stone7 min readLast fact-checked January 1970
Twenty practice questions for DSST Business Ethics and Society, in the real exam's style. Score 16 of 20 here and you are in passing range. Miss more than four, and the pattern of your misses points straight at the topic to review next. Every question below is explained on video, including why the wrong answers trap most test-takers.
When I took DSST Business Ethics and Society for my degree at Thomas Edison State University, the move that mattered was steady practice in the exam's format, with an explanation for every miss. Use these the same way: answer, check, and read why the wrong choices are tempting. For the full plan around them, see the DSST Business Ethics and Society pillar guide.
Watch the full video walkthrough above, then test yourself on the twenty questions below. Each one is explained on the video, including why the wrong answers trap most test-takers.
1. Which moral philosophy judges whether an action is right by the amount of overall happiness or good it produces for the greatest number of people? Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism, associated with Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, is a consequentialist theory: an action is right if it produces the greatest good for the greatest number. The outcome, not the intention, is what counts.
2. A manager who insists that lying is always wrong, no matter how good the results might be, is reasoning from which ethical framework? Deontology, or Duty-based Ethics. Deontology, the duty-based ethics associated with Immanuel Kant, judges actions by whether they follow moral rules and duties, not by their consequences. A duty like honesty holds even when breaking it would produce a better outcome.
3. The view that there is no universal standard of right and wrong, and that morality simply depends on the customs of each particular culture, is called: Ethical Relativism. Ethical relativism holds that moral standards are not universal but vary from one society to another, so what is right is whatever a given culture approves. Critics note it makes it impossible to condemn another culture's clearly harmful practices.
4. Virtue ethics, traced back to Aristotle, focuses primarily on: The Moral Character of the Person Acting. Virtue ethics asks not which rule to follow or which outcome to chase, but what a person of good character would do. It centers on cultivating virtues like honesty, courage, and fairness rather than on a single act.
5. The branch of ethics concerned with the moral standards that guide the conduct of people and organizations in commerce is best described as: Business Ethics. Business ethics applies moral principles to the conduct of individuals and organizations in commerce. It asks what a company and its people ought to do, going beyond what the law strictly requires.
6. According to stakeholder theory, a corporation has obligations to: All Groups Affected by Its Decisions, Including Employees, Customers, and the Community. Stakeholder theory holds that a company is responsible to everyone affected by its actions, employees, customers, suppliers, and the community, not just to the shareholders who own it. It widens the circle of those whose interests managers must weigh.
7. The economist most associated with the view that a corporation's primary social responsibility is to increase its profits for shareholders is: Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman famously argued that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits, provided it stays within the rules of the game. This shareholder-primacy view is the classic counterpoint to broad corporate social responsibility.
8. Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, refers to a company's obligation to: Act in Ways That Benefit Society and the Environment Beyond Its Legal Duties. Corporate social responsibility is the idea that a business should go beyond profit and legal compliance to act in the interests of society and the environment. It treats the company as a member of the community with duties to it.
9. When a company pursues profit, environmental protection, and social well-being together, it is applying the framework often called the: Triple Bottom Line. The triple bottom line measures a company's performance against three lines instead of one: profit, people, and the planet. It reframes success to include social and environmental results, not just financial ones.
10. A government agency such as the Securities and Exchange Commission regulates business primarily to: Protect the Public and Ensure Fair, Honest Markets. Government regulation of business exists to protect the public interest, by ensuring fair competition, honest disclosure, and safe products, where the market on its own would not. The SEC, for example, polices securities markets against fraud.
11. An employee who reports illegal or unethical conduct by their employer to authorities or the public is called a: Whistleblower. A whistleblower is an employee who exposes wrongdoing inside their own organization, such as fraud or safety violations. Laws like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act protect whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting in good faith.
12. The long-standing common-law doctrine of employment at will means that, absent a contract or statute to the contrary: Either the Employer or the Employee May End the Employment at Any Time, for Almost Any Reason. Employment at will means the employment relationship can be ended by either side at any time, with or without cause, unless a contract, statute, or public-policy exception applies. Anti-discrimination laws carve out important limits on this default rule.
13. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate in employment on the basis of: Race, Color, Religion, Sex, or National Origin. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It is a cornerstone protection against bias in hiring, pay, promotion, and firing.
14. Unwelcome sexual advances or conduct that creates a hostile or offensive work environment is best described as: Sexual Harassment. Sexual harassment includes both quid pro quo demands and conduct severe or pervasive enough to create a hostile work environment. It is a recognized form of sex discrimination prohibited under Title VII.
15. The process by which a union and an employer negotiate wages, hours, and working conditions is called: Collective Bargaining. Collective bargaining is the negotiation between an employer and a labor union over the terms of employment, such as pay, hours, and safety. The resulting contract governs the workplace for the covered employees.
16. Buying or selling a company's stock based on important nonpublic information about the company is known as: Insider Trading. Insider trading is trading a company's securities using material information that has not been made public. It is illegal because it betrays a duty of trust and gives insiders an unfair advantage over ordinary investors.
17. An ethical conflict in which an employee's personal interests could improperly influence their professional judgment or duties is called a: Conflict of Interest. A conflict of interest arises when a person's private interest, such as a side payment or a family business, could compromise the loyalty and judgment they owe their employer. The standard remedy is full disclosure and recusal.
18. An employee's reasonable expectation that personal information and communications will be protected against improper collection or disclosure is the workplace concern known as: The Right to Privacy. Privacy in the workplace concerns how far an employer may go in monitoring email, internet use, and personal data. The ethical question is balancing the company's legitimate interests against the employee's reasonable expectation of privacy.
19. A multinational company that lowers its ethical or safety standards when operating in a country with weaker regulations is most clearly engaging in: An Ethical Double Standard, Sometimes Called a Race to the Bottom. Applying weaker ethical and safety standards abroad than at home is a double standard, and the competitive pressure that drives it is called a race to the bottom. Critics argue ethical baselines should not stop at a border.
20. The practice in which a firm moves jobs or operations to another country to take advantage of lower labor costs is called: Offshoring. Offshoring is relocating business operations, such as manufacturing or call centers, to another country, usually to cut labor costs. It raises ethical questions about domestic job loss and the treatment of overseas workers.
The point of twenty questions is not the twenty, it is the pattern. When I scored a practice set, I marked which topic each miss came from, then spent my next session on that topic alone. None of it requires starting over, only tightening the spots that cost you points.
A single twenty-question set is a snapshot, not a study plan. To pass with margin you need volume: enough questions, in the exam's format, with explanations that turn a wrong answer into a correction. That is what Flying Prep's DSST Business Ethics and Society practice is built for: every question explained, with a free trial before you decide.
About 16. A passing score works out to roughly 80 percent, so clearing 16 of 20 consistently across a few sets puts you in passing range.
No. These are representative practice questions in the exam's style. The real exam draws from a much larger pool, which is why practice volume, not memorizing any single set, is what moves your score.
The Flying Prep DSST Business Ethics and Society question bank has every question explained and reviewed against the current outline. Start a free trial and drill the topics your misses point to.
Alex Stone founded Flying Prep after earning her bachelor's degree from Thomas Edison State University using 27 CLEP and DSST exams to test out of 99 credits. She built Flying Prep to help working adults and returning students take the same path.
Deep dives
Drill
Applied ethics topics (HR, marketing and advertising, environmental ethics) carry roughly 25 to 30 percent of the exam combined, the second-biggest content area after stakeholder theory and CSR. This guide walks the canonical frameworks and the regulatory anchors (Title VII, ADA, FTC, NEPA) the exam expects you to recognize, plus how the four ethical frameworks apply across each domain.
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Drill
International business ethics (~10 percent) and the legal/regulatory environment (~15 percent) together carry roughly 25 percent of the exam, the under-prepped slice the pillar flags. This guide walks the FCPA, the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, cultural relativism vs absolutism (with Donaldson's middle ground), Sarbanes-Oxley, Dodd-Frank, antitrust statutes, and the legal-vs-ethical distinction at recognition level.
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Plan
Working adults who care about ethics have strong opinions about corporate scandals, executive compensation, environmental controversies, and AI ethics debates. The exam's most common mistake is using those opinions to argue what is right instead of identifying which framework supports a scenario's answer. This 3-week plan trains the suspend-opinions discipline and uses daily business news as scenario-recognition fodder, around 15 to 20 hours total.
Read itSee the full DSST Business Ethics and Society study guide for the practice quiz, study plan, and credit details.