Probation Officer:
exam timing and pacing

Seconds per question, section by section

108 questions over 143 minutes averages out at about 79 seconds each, and that average describes almost none of this exam. Comfortable in one section, brutal in the next. Knowing which is which before you sit down is most of what pacing practice buys you.

Where it squeezes

Written Expression is the tightest section here, at about 73 seconds a question. Time Sharing is the loosest at roughly 87. Time Sharing gives you eighty-seven seconds a question, the most generous section here, and it is still the one people run out on.

Where candidates lose time is written expression, and it is rarely because they read slowly. It is because they will not settle on an answer. Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer here, so a marked guess and a candidate who has moved on beats a perfect answer that cost two other questions.

What the City publishes, and what is ours

DCAS names 6 abilities for this title. What the notice does not give is a question count or a time limit, for this title or any other. Nobody outside the City has those two numbers, so a site quoting them is quoting a guess.

The 6 sections above are the City's. The 108 questions and the 143 minutes are ours. We picked them so the practice sitting feels like the real thing, and we would rather tell you that than let you assume the City set them.

How to practice the clock

Sit one section timed before you sit the whole thing. A full sitting tells you your score. A single timed section tells you where the score came from, and here that means finding out what written expression feels like at 73 seconds a question.

Then sit all 143 minutes in one go, at least a week before the real one. The reading is case material: intake summaries, conditions sheets, employer letters. It looks like paperwork because the job is.