What is on
the NYC Special Officer exam?

Six abilities, twenty questions apiece

Notice 6327 names six abilities for Special Officer, and the sixth is Time Sharing: moving back and forth between two or more sources of information. Our practice exam gives each ability twenty questions, so no section outweighs another, for 120 questions in 156 minutes.

What is missing, and why that matters for prep

There is no memory page, no map, no rotated object and no arithmetic, because the notice names none of them. Calculators are not permitted either. A candidate who prepared for Police Officer or Correction Officer will find half of what they drilled is absent and half of what is here is new.

The Time Sharing case files

In our Time Sharing section each question comes with a case file of two or three building documents, such as post orders, a visitor log, a key log or a property record. The answer depends on reading them together: the visitor log says one thing, the post orders say another, and the question is what the officer on post should do. The notice's own example is an officer responding to an emergency while keeping track of several sources at once. These items take longer to read than anything else on the paper, so we give them the most time per question.

A building rather than a beat

Special officers are peace officers in hospitals, shelters, libraries and City offices, handling admission, property, fire safety and the daily memo book. Problem Sensitivity on this paper means noticing the visitor, the package or the door that is wrong. Information Ordering means the steps of admission or a fire procedure in the order the post requires. You will not be asked to know any building's fire safety plan or voucher procedure beforehand.

The notice sets the age at twenty by appointment, and some assignments require a firearm or a commercial driver license. DCAS does not publish a question count or time, so the 120 and 156 here are ours.

From the notice

Notice 6327 lists a minimum salary of $39,206, an application fee of $54.00, a passing mark of 70%.

Special Officer covers posts at hospitals, libraries and city offices rather than one department, so the eligible list feeds several agencies and the job you are offered may not be the one you pictured.