Skip first of ethics tests (5)
I believe the answer is:
orals
'tests' is the definition.
(oral is a kind of test)
'skip first of ethics' is the wordplay.
'skip first of' means to remove the first letter (the first letter is skipped).
'ethics' becomes 'morals' (synonyms).
'morals' with its first letter taken off is 'ORALS'.
(Other definitions for orals that I've seen before include "Tests" , "Spoken exams" .)