Met Police Exam flashcards
Met Police Exam · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- PEEL values framework
- The Met's stated values: Policing by Consent, Empathy, Integrity, Transparency. Situational judgement options are scored against these four lenses, so answers breaching integrity or transparency rank lowest.
- National Decision Model
- A six-stage cycle: Code of Ethics, gather information, assess threat and risk, consider powers and policy, take action, review. Answers that omit review or ignore legal powers are scored as weaker.
- Policing by consent
- The principle that police authority derives from public approval and legitimacy rather than force alone. It requires proportionate action, accountability, and explanation of decisions to the community served.
- Safeguarding referral trigger
- Any indication of child risk, domestic abuse, vulnerable adult, or mental health crisis requires a referral regardless of whether the person consents. Consent is not the gate for safeguarding.
- Procedural justice elements
- Four markers: voice (people can explain), neutrality (decisions explained), respect, and trustworthy motives. Situational answers demonstrating these are typically rated most effective.
- Percentage change formula
- Percentage change equals (new minus old) divided by old, multiplied by 100. Percentage points compare two percentages directly and are not the same as percent change.
- Reverse percentage rule
- To recover an original value after a percentage change, divide by the multiplier. After a p percent increase divide by 1 plus p over 100; after a decrease divide by 1 minus p over 100.
- Rate per 1,000
- Rate equals count divided by population, multiplied by 1,000. Areas of different population sizes can only be compared fairly after converting raw counts into rates.
- Weighted average
- Sum of each value multiplied by its weight, divided by the sum of weights. Averaging percentages from unequal-sized groups without weighting gives a wrong result.
- Ratio share formula
- To split total T in ratio a to b to c, each share equals T multiplied by that part, divided by the sum of all parts, a plus b plus c.
- Compound change formula
- Final value equals starting value multiplied by (1 plus r) raised to the power n, where r is the periodic rate and n the number of periods.
- Cannot Say answer
- Correct when the passage gives insufficient information or is ambiguous. Outside knowledge must never upgrade a Cannot Say to True; plausibility alone is not evidence.
- Quantifier discipline
- Statements using all, only, always, or never are False if the passage supports even one exception. Absolute wording is the most common distractor in verbal reasoning.
- Author claim versus reported claim
- A passage may report what others said without endorsing it. Only claims the author asserts support a True answer; reported speech supports only that it was said.
- Scope shift distractor
- A statement widening or narrowing the passage's subject - one division becomes the whole organisation, one year becomes all years. Unsupported scope changes make the statement Cannot Say or False.
- Correlation versus causation
- A passage showing two things occur together does not support a statement that one caused the other. Causal statements need explicit causal evidence in the text.
- Incident report structure
- Chronological order with timestamps, answering who, what, when, where, how, and what action followed. Past tense, third person, full names and roles at first mention.
- Fact versus opinion labelling
- Use explicit framing: I observed, X stated, or In my opinion. Opinion must be labelled rather than blended into factual narrative, or the report loses evidential value.
- Recording exact words
- Admissions, threats, and complaints are recorded verbatim in quotation marks. Paraphrase is permitted only when clearly labelled as a summary of what was said.
- Legal power in reports
- Every use of force, search, detention, or seizure must state the legal power relied on and the grounds for it. A report omitting these is incomplete and returned for amendment.
- Observable behaviour over labels
- Replace conclusory words such as aggressive with observable detail: shouted, clenched fists, refused three requests to step back. Labels alone are unsupported opinion in a statement.
- Five Cs report check
- Clear, Concise, Complete, Correct, Chronological. A report failing any one of these five tests is returned for amendment before it can be used evidentially.
- Syllogism validity test
- A conclusion is valid only if it must be true whenever all premises are true. A single consistent counterexample is enough to invalidate the conclusion.
- Contrapositive rule
- From if P then Q, infer if not Q then not P, which is always valid. The inverse, if not P then not Q, is invalid and is a standard distractor.
- Necessary versus sufficient
- P sufficient for Q means P implies Q. P necessary for Q means Q implies P. Confusing the two directions is the most common logical reasoning error.
- Necessary assumption test
- Negate the candidate assumption. If the argument collapses without it, it is necessary. If the argument survives the negation, the option is not required.
- Some and no quantifiers
- Some A are B does not imply some B are not A. No A are B does imply no B are A, because the exclusion is symmetric between the two sets.
- Confusable character pairs
- Verify letter by letter: zero and O, one and I and l, five and S, eight and B, two and Z. These substitutions cause most data-entry errors in records.
- UK vehicle registration format
- Current series is two letters, two numbers, then three letters, for example AB12 CDE. Verify each block separately when transcribing a VRM.
- 24-hour time recording
- Times use four digits on the 24-hour clock: 07:05 and 23:40. Midnight is written 00:00, never 24:00, and afternoon times add 12 to the hour.
- Cross-field time consistency
- Time of incident must precede time of attendance, which must precede time of report. Any inversion signals a transcription error and invalidates the record.
- Internal figure reconciliation
- Any figure appearing twice in a document, such as totals, counts, or dates, must match. A single mismatch casts doubt on the accuracy of the whole record.