NPOST study guide
NPOST · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The National Police Officer Selection Test (NPOST) is an entry-level written examination used by many law enforcement agencies as one step in screening candidates for police officer and related public-safety roles. It is a basic-skills test, not a test of police procedure: agencies generally want evidence that an applicant can read accurately, write clearly, and handle arithmetic at the level the job demands before investing in academy training. The NPOST study guide has 5 sections and about 1,495 words.
01Mathematics: Arithmetic, Percents, and Word Problems
NPOST math questions are practical: arithmetic with whole numbers, fractions, and decimals; ratio and proportion; percentage change; averages; and single-step algebra hidden inside word problems. You are not expected to know advanced formulas, but you are expected to compute cleanly and quickly without a calculator.
287 words, about 1 min02Reading Comprehension: Main Idea, Details, and Inference
Reading comprehension items ask you to identify the main idea, locate supporting details, determine the meaning of a word in context, recognize the author's purpose or tone, and draw a reasonable inference. Passages are short and factual or workplace-oriented.
315 words, about 2 min03Grammar: Sentence Structure, Agreement, and Punctuation
Grammar items check subject–verb agreement, pronoun agreement and case, verb tense consistency, punctuation (commas, semicolons, apostrophes), and recognition of fragments and run-ons. Subject–verb agreement : find the true subject, ignoring interrupting phrases.
294 words, about 1 min04Incident Report Writing: Objectivity, Chronology, and Precision
Incident report items ask you to choose the clearest, most objective, and most complete wording for a factual account. You will evaluate sentences for vagueness, bias, speculation, and missing essential facts (who, what, when, where, how).
304 words, about 2 min05Basic Writing Skills: Clarity, Coherence, and Mechanics
Basic writing items ask you to choose the clearest, most concise, and most logically organized sentence or paragraph. They test sentence combining, transitions, wordiness, parallel structure, and correct mechanics.
295 words, about 1 min