Exams › Court Officer
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The New York court officer-trainee exam,
memory section included, the way it is sat.

The written exam for court officer-trainee in the New York State courts opens with a memory test: you read an account of an incident, it is taken away, you wait, and then you answer questions about it. Most practice material leaves the account on the page. Ours does not. It follows the published sequence, and the rest of the paper follows the guide’s five subject areas.

Who sits it
Adults applying to be court officers
Length
70 questions, 195 minutes
Memory
5 minutes to read, 10 to wait
What the courts publish

What the guide settles, and what it leaves open.

From the court officer-trainee sample-question guide and exam FAQ at nycourts.gov.

  What is published
Questions70
Time195 minutes, with the memory portion inside that time
Memory sequenceFive minutes with the account, the account removed, then ten minutes before the questions
Subject areasRecalling an incident, reading comprehension, applying rules, clerical checking, and record keeping from tables
GuessingNo penalty for a wrong answer; calculators are not allowed
PassingA rating of 70 out of 100, with the raw cutoff set after the exam is given
Questions per areaNot published

Because the raw cutoff is set after each administration, a number of correct answers cannot be called a pass in advance. Our report gives your score out of 70 and by area. It does not say whether that would pass, because nobody can know that before the real exam is scored.

The memory section

The account goes away, and it does not come back.

You get five minutes with a written account of a courthouse incident. Then it is removed, and ten minutes pass before the ten questions appear. Stopping, refreshing or coming back later does not show the account again: the timing is kept on our server, not in your browser. What the real exam shows you during the wait is not published, so ours shows a plain waiting screen and nothing else.

What we have written

One full-length practice exam.

The five areas are the guide’s. How many questions each one gets is ours, because the guide does not say.

Memory

Ten questions on one original account: who was there, where things were, what happened in what order, and what was done.

Reading

Twenty questions on short passages about court procedure, including passages with missing words to fill in.

Applying rules

Fifteen questions where you are given a set of rules and decide what an officer should do in each situation.

Clerical and records

Ten questions comparing entries for small differences, and fifteen combining figures from court tables.

Questions people ask

What people ask before they book.

How many questions are on the court officer exam, and how long is it?

70 questions in 195 minutes. The memory section’s reading and waiting time is inside those 195 minutes, not added to them.

What score do I need to pass the court officer exam?

The passing rating is 70 out of 100, but the number of correct answers that earns it is set after the exam is given. So no practice exam can tell you in advance whether a score would pass, and ours does not try.

How does the memory section work?

You read an account of an incident for five minutes. It is removed, ten minutes pass, and then you answer questions about it from memory. Our practice exam follows the same sequence and does not let you see the account again.

Has a court officer reviewed these questions?

No. The questions were written from the published guide and have not been reviewed by a serving court officer. We say so plainly rather than imply otherwise.

Where this stands

On sale now.

One full-length practice exam, 70 questions, 5 credits. It has been sat end to end, memory section included, to check that a correct paper scores full marks.