CSLB Safety (Cal/OSHA) Practice Questions

1. Which document is required for EVERY California employer with one or more employees?

Labor Code section 6401.7 and section 3203 require EVERY California employer to establish, implement and maintain a written injury and illness prevention programme - no exemption by size, by industry or by hazard, which is exactly what makes it the answer here. The other three are real documents whose duty is conditional. A safety data sheet is owed for each hazardous chemical PRESENT, so an employer with none owes none (a). A confined space entry permit is owed only where a permit-required space is actually entered (c). And the Form 300 log carries partial exemptions: employers with ten or fewer employees throughout the previous calendar year, and establishments in certain lower-hazard industries, need not routinely keep it - though every employer still owes the serious-injury report under section 342.

2. Cal/OSHA may inspect a workplace:

Cal/OSHA compliance officers may inspect workplaces without advance notice at any reasonable time. Employers are generally required to grant entry. An imminent hazard inspection may occur at any time.

3. At what height above a lower level does California require fall protection for employees in the construction industry?

Section 1670(a) requires an approved personal fall arrest, fall restraint or positioning system where the work exposes an employee to falling IN EXCESS OF 7 1/2 feet from the perimeter of a structure, unprotected sides and edges, leading edges, shaftways and openings. The other three are real triggers borrowed from rules that sit beside this one, which is why they are so easy to pick. Six feet is the federal general construction figure in 29 CFR 1926.501 and, in California, the residential-type framing figure in section 1716.2(e)(1). Ten feet is the federal supported scaffold trigger. Fifteen feet is the steel erection trigger. Roofing is governed by none of them: section 1670(a) routes roofing operations to section 1730, which on a low-slope roof triggers above 20 feet.

4. An excavation or trench that is 5 feet deep or deeper must be:

Section 1541.1(a)(1) requires each employee in an excavation to be protected from cave-ins by an adequate protective system - sloping or benching, shoring, or shielding - except where the excavation is made entirely in stable rock, or is less than 5 feet deep and a competent person's examination shows no indication of a potential cave-in. Every wrong answer controls something else. Road plates (a) bridge the trench for traffic and do nothing for the walls. A building department inspection (b) is a permit matter; section 1541(k) puts the inspection on a competent person, daily before each shift. And the spoil pile (c) is the opposite of a protection: section 1541(j)(2) requires it to be kept at least 2 feet back precisely because its weight is a surcharge load that helps bring the wall down.

5. A "permit-required confined space" in construction is one that:

Section 5157(b) defines a confined space as one large enough to enter and perform assigned work, with limited or restricted means of entry or exit, and not designed for continuous employee occupancy - which is option (c). That is true of every permit-required space and is not what adds the permit. The permit is added by one or more of four conditions: a hazardous atmosphere or the potential for one, a material with the potential for engulfment, an internal configuration that could trap or asphyxiate through inwardly converging walls or a floor sloping to a smaller cross-section, or any other recognised serious safety or health hazard. Neither the size of the opening (b) nor the depth (d) appears in either definition.

6. Employers must provide safety data sheets (SDS) for all hazardous chemicals in the workplace. An SDS must contain how many sections according to the GHS standard?

The Globally Harmonized System (GHS) requires standardized 16-section Safety Data Sheets (SDS). Cal/OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard (HazCom) aligns with this format.

7. Under California heat illness prevention regulations, employers must provide outdoor workers with water, shade, and access to cool-down rest when the temperature reaches:

Cal/OSHA's heat illness prevention standard requires water, shade, and cool-down periods for outdoor workers when temperatures reach 80°F. High-heat procedures kick in at 95°F.

8. A contractor is cited by Cal/OSHA for a "willful violation." This means the violation was:

A willful violation is one the employer committed knowingly, intentionally, or with plain indifference to the requirement. It is defined by the employer's state of mind, not by how dangerous the condition was - which is exactly what separates it from (a), the serious class under Labor Code section 6432, and from (c), the repeat class. Option (d) names one common way of PROVING willfulness, since an employer that was told and did nothing is easy to characterise, but a prior warning is evidence rather than the definition: an employer that knows the rule and decides the schedule matters more is willful with or without a letter. Willful and repeat violations carry the highest penalties under section 6429.