CA POST study guide
CA POST · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The California POST Entry-Level Law Enforcement Test Battery - commonly called the PELLETB - is a written basic-skills examination used in California peace officer hiring. POST is the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the state body that sets selection and training standards for California law enforcement; the Commission publishes the battery for agencies to administer to entry-level candidates, so the test is typically taken as one step in a department's hiring process rather than as a stand-alone certificate you earn. The CA POST study guide has 5 sections and about 1,599 words.
01Spelling
Most spelling questions ask you to spot the one misspelled word among four, or the one correctly spelled word among near-misses. That means the exam rewards pattern recognition, not a memorized list.
297 words, about 1 min02Vocabulary
These are almost always context questions: a word appears in a sentence or short paragraph and you pick the closest meaning, or you pick the word that best completes a sentence. The sentence, not your memory of the word, decides the answer.
319 words, about 2 min03Reading Comprehension
Passages are short and factual-procedures, incident summaries, policy excerpts, brief arguments. Questions ask for the main idea, a specific detail, an inference, the author's purpose or tone, or the meaning of a word in context.
311 words, about 2 min04Cloze
A cloze passage has blanks, and you choose the word or phrase that completes each one. These items test three things at once: grammar, meaning, and cohesion-whether the sentence flows logically with what comes before and after.
319 words, about 2 min05Writing: Sentence Clarity
These questions ask you to choose the clearest, most concise version of a sentence, or to identify the flaw in a given sentence. Correctness matters, but so do directness and placement of information.
353 words, about 2 min