CA POST PELLETB common mistakes
CA POST PELLETB · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Picking the answer that is a reasonable real-world inference but is never actually stated or implied in the passage, instead of the answer the text supports.
Candidates import their own assumptions about police work or everyday life, and test writers deliberately place 'true but unsupported' distractors to catch this.
What to do instead
For every inference item, go back to the passage and put a finger on the sentence or pair of sentences that forces the conclusion. If you cannot point to text, eliminate the answer, no matter how sensible it sounds.
Answering a main-idea question with a sentence that is accurate but covers only one paragraph or one detail.
True details feel safe, so candidates grab them instead of doing the harder work of summarising the whole passage.
What to do instead
Before choosing, ask whether the answer could serve as a title for the entire passage. Check it against the first and last paragraphs, not just the paragraph where you found it.
Filling a cloze blank by reading only the words immediately around it, then moving on without re-reading the completed sentence.
The missing word often depends on a clue in a later clause or the previous sentence, and under time pressure the eye locks onto the blank.
What to do instead
Read the sentence containing the blank plus the sentence before it, pick a word, then substitute the word back in and read the whole sentence aloud in your head before accepting it.
Choosing a cloze word that carries the right meaning but is wrong in form, for example a singular noun after a plural verb or a past tense where the passage needs a participle.
Candidates match on meaning alone and skip the grammar check because the sentence 'sounds fine' once a plausible word is in place.
What to do instead
After selecting for meaning, run a two-part check: subject-verb agreement and verb tense. Then check the preposition or article that follows or precedes the blank.
Writing homophones and near-homophones interchangeably: their/there, affect/effect, counsel/council, peace/piece, cite/site, led/lead, passed/past.
Spell-check and casual reading do not flag these because the misspelling is a real word, so errors survive casual proofreading.
What to do instead
Sort by part of speech before choosing: if the slot needs a verb, effect and affect are the candidates; if it needs a possessive, their. Build a personal list of every homophone pair you have missed and drill it in sentences.
Dropping doubled consonants, silent letters and unstressed vowels in high-frequency report and legal vocabulary: occurrence, recommendation, separate, judgment, license, misdemeanor, affidavit, surveillance, maintenance, accommodate.
These words are pronounced with fewer syllables than they are spelled, so candidates spell them phonetically.
What to do instead
Memorise the standard list as chunked spelling patterns, not as whole words, and say the word in exaggerated syllables while writing it. Re-check any word over three syllables in your draft.
Choosing a synonym for the target word without testing it in the sentence, so the answer matches in one sense of the word but not the sense being used.
Many test words have several dictionary senses, and candidates recall the most familiar one instead of reading the context that selects a different sense.
What to do instead
Write a short definition of the target word as it functions in that sentence, including its part of speech, then eliminate any option whose part of speech or degree does not match that definition.
Selecting a word with the right general meaning but the wrong intensity or connotation, for example 'refused' for 'declined', or 'demanded' for 'requested'.
Candidates treat near-synonyms as interchangeable and ignore the emotional or legal weight the sentence requires.
What to do instead
Rank the options from weakest to strongest on the dimension that matters, such as force, certainty, or formality, then pick the one the sentence's context actually supports.
Leaving vague pronouns such as it, this, they or which in a sentence that is being rewritten or combined, so the reader cannot tell what the pronoun points to.
The referent is obvious to the writer from the surrounding context, so the ambiguity is invisible during a quick check.
What to do instead
Replace every pronoun in the rewritten sentence with the specific noun it stands for, then confirm the sentence still reads correctly and adds no new ambiguity.
Combining two sentences into a run-on or comma splice, or attaching an opening phrase to the wrong subject, such as 'After reading the report, the suspect was released'.
Candidates focus on making the sentence shorter and smoother and lose track of which subject performs the opening action.
What to do instead
Ask who or what performs the action in the opening phrase and make that exact noun the subject that follows the comma. Separately, test every combined sentence by inserting a period; if a comma is holding two complete sentences together, revise with a conjunction or a semicolon.