In the early 1900s, a person living in Boston seeking career guidance would most likely have worked with:

• A. Frank Parsons
• B. Sigmund Freud
• C. Carl Jung
• D. William James

Answer: (A)

The idea being tested is who first built a systematic approach to helping people choose careers—someone who actually established the place and method for career guidance in that era.

Frank Parsons is the best fit because he is recognized as the founder of vocational guidance. In the early 1900s in Boston, he created the first organized approach to helping individuals match their abilities, interests, and values with suitable occupations. He even founded the first Bureau of Vocational Guidance in Boston and wrote influential works like Choosing a Vocation, which laid out a practical process—self-assessment, information gathering, and counseling—to steer career decisions.

The other figures were important in psychology and psychotherapy but not in the field of career counseling in Boston at that time. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung developed psychoanalytic theories centered on personality and pathology, not vocational guidance. William James contributed to psychology and philosophy with a broad focus, not a system for guiding people into careers.