The Written Exam

Preparation

One of the very first steps in the hiring process, the written examination is designed to evaluate your skills of comprehension, retention, and interpretation. The best preparation you can do for yourself is to regularly read articles, books, and documents in the English language from a variety of sources and covering a broad range of topics. Choosing material that is slightly more difficult than you are normally comfortable with will force your brain to begin understanding contextual clues, which is an additional element that you will find incorporated in the written test.

Examination

On your test date, you will be given the related materials and further instructions on how to complete the test-taking forms. Follow these instructions carefully! Ensure that you are filling your answers in on the required lines, and if you have a question about something prior to the test start, speak up and ask for clarification. When completing the test, allow yourself enough time to complete as many of the questions as possible. This may mean that you will need to skip one question to proceed through the rest, and then return to it later if you have additional time. As a final check, ensure your name is on your paperwork before you turn it back in!

Practice

There are many publicly available resources available which provide practice testing materials, and several are even free. The California P.O.S.T. (Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training) website provides examples of the kinds of questions you may expect to see, as well as a FAQ page with further details. You should practice by any means of self-testing that requires you to review multiple choice options that evaluate for spelling, grammar, and basic punctuation use. Reading comprehension analysis is also a requirement, so examples that require you to read a selected text and then answer some related questions about it should be part of your practice materials. Basic math skills are also a necessity, as is a general understanding of how to read and orient yourself on a map, so brushing up on these skills are encouraged prior to the test date.