Special Officer:
exam timing and pacing

Seconds per question, section by section

100 questions over 127 minutes averages out at about 76 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 72 seconds a question. Information Ordering is the loosest at roughly 78. Five sections of twenty questions each, and no section is much tighter than any other. It is the most evenly paced exam in the line.

Expect written expression to be the one that bites. The fix is committing sooner, not reading quicker. 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 5 abilities for this title, in Notice of Examination 6327. 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 5 sections above are the City's. The 100 questions and the 127 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 72 seconds a question.

Then sit all 127 minutes in one go, at least a week before the real one. No maps, no memory page, no arithmetic. If you have prepared for the Police Officer exam and are sitting this one, half of what you practiced does not appear.