CSNSW Correctional Officer Round One Assessment common mistakes
CSNSW Correctional Officer Round One Assessment · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering situational judgement items with what a candidate personally believes is 'right' or 'fair', rather than what NSW Corrective Services procedure and lawful authority require, e.g. choosing to informally warn an inmate about a search instead of following search protocol.
Candidates often import values from other workplaces or from popular media portrayals of prisons, and answer as a private citizen rather than as an officer bound by policy, legislation and chain of command. The SJT format rewards procedural reasoning, not moral intuition.
What to do instead
Before answering, ask three questions in order: what does policy/legislation require, what is the safest and most lawful action, and who must be notified. Practise by writing the governing rule next to each option you reject, and prioritise options that escalate through proper channels over options that resolve things informally or personally.
Choosing the most dramatic or forceful response in a situational scenario, such as immediately physically restraining a non-compliant inmate or raising voice and issuing threats, when a graded verbal de-escalation and containment response is the correct first step.
Candidates assume the test wants 'toughness' and confuse decisiveness with aggression. In reality, excessive force creates legal, safety and disciplinary exposure, and the assessment is designed to detect proportionality and restraint.
What to do instead
Memorise the escalation ladder: assess, communicate, direct, contain, request assistance, and only then use force as a last resort and only to the minimum extent necessary. When reviewing options, eliminate any that skip steps or rely on force before communication and backup have been attempted, unless there is an immediate threat to life.
Reading a comprehension passage once at normal speed, then answering from memory and general knowledge instead of locating the specific sentence that supports each option.
Time pressure and confidence lead candidates to skim. Verbal reasoning items often hinge on one qualifier word (all, some, may, must) or a distinction between what the passage states and what it merely implies.
What to do instead
For each question, return to the passage and physically point to or highlight the supporting line before selecting. Write a one-line paraphrase of the stem in your own words, then test each option against the located text, rejecting options that are true in general but not stated in the passage.
Treating 'cannot say' or 'insufficient information' options as a cop-out and avoiding them, forcing a true/false choice even when the passage does not supply the needed fact.
Candidates believe tests penalise non-committal answers, or they conflate 'I don't know the answer' with 'the passage doesn't say'. These are different, and the second is frequently the intended correct response.
What to do instead
Apply a strict test: can I quote the exact sentence that makes this statement true or false? If not, and the statement depends on information outside the passage, select the insufficient-information option. Drill with short passages where you deliberately mark each statement as supported, contradicted, or undetermined before looking at options.
Rushing numerical items by estimating or doing mental arithmetic without writing the calculation, then selecting the closest-looking option among distractors built from common errors.
Under timed conditions candidates skip setting out working, and distractor options are deliberately constructed from dropped decimal places, inverted ratios, or percentage-of-percentage mistakes, so a plausible-looking number is often wrong.
What to do instead
Always write the calculation in full, including units, and do a sanity check before selecting (is the answer the right order of magnitude? does the direction make sense?). Where a calculator is not permitted, practise rote drills on percentages, ratios, unit conversions and averages until they are automatic, and use the inverse operation to verify.
Spending disproportionate time on one hard numerical or reasoning question, leaving later easy questions unanswered or guessed.
Candidates treat the test as a mastery exercise rather than a scoring exercise, and loss aversion makes them reluctant to abandon a problem they have already invested in.
What to do instead
Adopt a strict per-question time cap, flag and move on when it is exceeded, and return only after all questions have been attempted. In practice sessions, time each question and review which question types consistently consume the most time so you can skip them quickly on the day.
Writing incident reports in narrative, first-person storytelling ('I was walking down the wing and then I saw...') with opinion, speculation and emotion mixed into the factual account.
Candidates write as they speak, and everyday storytelling naturally blends observation with interpretation. Reports are read by courts, review bodies and legal representatives, so this style creates credibility and evidentiary problems.
What to do instead
Use a fixed structure: date, time, location, persons present, what was observed, what was said (in quotation marks), action taken, notifications made, signature and date. Write in past tense, third person or neutral first person, chronologically, with no adjectives of judgement. Practise converting emotional sentences into observable facts, e.g. replace 'he was aggressive' with the exact words and actions observed.
Omitting essential report elements such as exact times, full names and identification numbers, witnesses, and the sequence of notifications, or using vague approximations like 'around lunchtime' or 'later on'.
Candidates focus on describing the event and forget the administrative skeleton that makes a report usable. Gaps invite challenge and can invalidate an otherwise accurate account.
What to do instead
Build and memorise a checklist (who, what, when, where, how, witnesses, evidence, actions, notifications) and apply it to every practice report before submitting. Time yourself writing three short reports from prompts and mark your own against the checklist, aiming for zero omissions.
In integrity items, choosing the option that conceals a colleague's minor misconduct out of loyalty, or accepting a small gift or favour from an inmate on the basis that it is harmless and builds rapport.
Candidates misread loyalty as a virtue and underestimate how boundary erosion and gift-giving are used to compromise officers. They also fear being seen as a 'dobber' and answer to avoid social discomfort rather than to the code of conduct.
What to do instead
Learn the principle that any unreported breach, gift or personal relationship with an inmate is a risk to safety and integrity regardless of intent, and that reporting is a protective duty, not betrayal. For each scenario, identify the option that discloses through the correct channel, and reject options that normalise secrecy, personal benefit, or informal resolution.
In interpersonal and teamwork scenarios, selecting the option that avoids conflict by saying nothing, or that escalates straight to a formal complaint, instead of raising the concern directly and respectfully with the person involved first where that is safe and appropriate.
Candidates polarise between passivity and escalation and do not recognise the middle path of direct, respectful, timely conversation followed by escalation if unresolved. Resilience items also tempt candidates to choose 'just push through' over seeking appropriate support.
What to do instead
Use a graded response rule: address the issue directly and privately with the person, then involve a supervisor if it persists or is serious, and always report matters that affect safety or integrity immediately. For resilience items, prefer options that combine personal coping strategies with appropriate use of peer, supervisory and employee assistance support rather than either denial or over-reliance on others.