CJBAT common mistakes
CJBAT · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering written-comprehension items by picking the option that matches what the candidate knows about real police procedure, rather than what the passage actually states.
Candidates with academy, ride-along, or family-in-law-enforcement exposure read the passage once, recognize the topic, and then answer from prior knowledge; the passage often describes a policy that is deliberately narrower or different from general practice.
What to do instead
Treat the passage as the only source of truth. For every option, locate and underline the exact sentence that supports it; if no sentence supports it, eliminate it even when it is true in the real world. Watch for the classic trap options that are generally true but not stated.
Selecting an option because it reuses vocabulary from the passage (same names, same nouns) even though the relationship between those words is reversed or altered.
Under time pressure the eye matches surface words instead of parsing meaning, so 'the supervisor notified the officer' and 'the officer notified the supervisor' feel identical.
What to do instead
Slow down on any option containing two or more passage keywords and check direction of action: who did what to whom, before or after, more or less. Eliminate any option whose only support is word overlap.
Choosing the most formal or official-sounding sentence version ('utilize,' 'commence,' 'at this point in time,' passive constructions) instead of the version that is grammatical and concise.
Candidates associate police report writing with elevated, bureaucratic language and assume the test rewards it, when the test rewards standard written English and clarity.
What to do instead
Judge on two criteria only: is it grammatical, and does it keep the original meaning? Prefer the shortest option that passes both. Reject options that add words, add information, or use inflated diction without need.
Reading the memorization passage straight through once at normal reading speed, then trying to answer from a general impression of the content.
One pass produces gist memory but almost no anchoring for names, numbers, times, and sequence, which is exactly what the questions probe; candidates also burn the reading window re-reading the same opening sentence.
What to do instead
Use two passes over the passage: a fast first pass for the overall scenario, then a slower second pass that tags who, what, where, when, and every number. Group the passage into three or four chunks rather than ten separate facts, and rehearse the chunk sequence once before the passage is removed.
Immediately scanning the answer choices and picking an action, without first stating what the underlying problem or risk in the scenario is.
The question is phrased as 'what should be done,' so candidates treat it as a procedure question; the item is actually testing whether they noticed the hazard, the missing information, or the person at risk before acting.
What to do instead
Before looking at the options, write or silently state one sentence: 'The problem here is ___ and the person most at risk is ___.' Then test each option against that sentence and eliminate options that solve a different problem or ignore the risk.
Reversing a conditional rule, e.g., treating 'all K-9 handlers completed the course' as proving 'everyone who completed the course is a K-9 handler,' or treating 'if the alarm sounds, the unit evacuates' as 'the unit evacuated, so the alarm sounded.'
Everyday reasoning runs in both directions, but formal deduction only runs one way; the reversed inference feels valid because it uses the same words.
What to do instead
Rewrite each rule as an arrow: handler → certified. Then ask whether the option goes with the arrow (valid) or against it (invalid). Also test the negation form: 'not certified → not a handler' is valid; 'not a handler → not certified' is not.
Committing to a pattern rule after two examples and then forcing the remaining items to fit, instead of considering competing rules.
The first rule that fits the opening items is satisfying, and confirmation bias makes later counter-examples look like exceptions rather than evidence the rule is wrong.
What to do instead
Generate at least two candidate rules before choosing, then check both against every item in the set. Prefer the rule that explains all items over the rule that is more elegant but explains fewer, and check whether the pattern is arithmetic, alternating, or positional before assuming the simplest one.
Ordering steps by the sequence in which they appear in the paragraph rather than by which step logically must precede another.
Narrative text often mentions the outcome first or digresses, so paragraph position is a strong but misleading cue; candidates also assume the first-listed step is the first step.
What to do instead
Strip the steps out and identify the two anchors first: the step that cannot have anything before it and the step that cannot have anything after it. Then place the remaining steps by dependency - what must be done, obtained, or confirmed before the next step is possible - and use transition words such as 'after,' 'once,' and 'prior to' as constraints, not decoration.
Mentally rotating the map or diagram along with the direction of travel, so that 'left' becomes 'right' after the second or third turn.
Candidates imagine themselves walking the route, which is natural but causes the reference frame to drift as they turn, and errors compound with each instruction.
What to do instead
Keep the page fixed north-up and never rotate it in your head. Mark the starting point, draw each leg of the route, and label the current facing direction at every turn before answering. When asked for a compass direction (north, southeast), answer from the fixed map; when asked for left or right, derive it from the labelled facing direction rather than from feel.
Trying to picture the whole folded, unfolded, or assembled object at once, rather than following one identifying feature - a marked edge, a dot, a shaded corner - through each transformation.
Whole-object mental imagery is beyond most people's working memory, so the picture collapses partway and the candidate guesses; items are designed so that only one feature needs tracking.
What to do instead
Pick one landmark on the figure (the marked corner or the labelled edge), apply each fold or rotation to that landmark alone, and eliminate options where the landmark lands in the wrong place. If two options survive, track a second landmark rather than re-imagining the entire object.