Postal Exam 955 common mistakes
Postal Exam 955 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Picking an answer choice that is factually true according to the passage but does not answer the question asked - e.g., selecting a supporting detail when the stem asks for the main point, or a cause when it asks for an effect.
Under time pressure, candidates scan for options that echo words from the passage and stop at the first one that 'sounds familiar,' skipping the step of deciding what kind of information the stem actually requires.
What to do instead
Before reading the options, write a five-word prediction of the answer and label the stem's job (main idea / detail / inference / tone). Then eliminate any option whose job does not match, even if it is a true statement about the passage.
Treating an EXCEPT / NOT / LEAST stem like an ordinary question and bubbling the one choice that is supported by the passage.
The brain has been in 'find the true statement' mode for the previous twenty items, and the negative word is a single small token early in the stem that is easy to skim past.
What to do instead
Physically mark the negative operator (circle it, or write 'X' beside the stem) before looking at any option. Evaluate each option as T or F against the passage, then select the lone odd one out, and re-read the stem one final time before transferring the answer.
Producing answers that are off by a factor of ten or by a misplaced decimal point when computing with money, postage rates, piece counts, or unit conversions.
Candidates do the arithmetic mentally or in cramped margins, drop trailing zeros as 'noise,' and never sanity-check the size of the result against the numbers in the problem.
What to do instead
Write every step on scratch paper, align decimal points in a column, and carry units through the calculation. Before selecting, estimate the answer roughly (e.g., 'about 4,000 pieces') and reject any choice outside that magnitude.
Setting up the correct operation but stopping one step early or solving for the wrong quantity - giving the difference when the stem asked for the total, or the per-unit rate when it asked for the batch cost.
Multi-step word problems bury the actual question in the final sentence, and once a number appears that matches an answer choice, the search feels finished.
What to do instead
Underline the final sentence of the stem before computing and restate it as 'I must find ___.' Label the computed result with its units, then ask whether that label matches what was underlined; if not, take the additional step.
Spending four or five minutes grinding on a single hard problem and then having to guess randomly on three or four easy items at the end of the section.
Sunk-cost thinking ('I've almost got it') plus a lack of any explicit per-item time budget, so the clock is only noticed when it is nearly gone.
What to do instead
Adopt a two-pass plan: cap each item at roughly 60–90 seconds, mark and move on, and return only after every item has an answer recorded. Never leave a bubble blank - a fast elimination guess beats an empty line.
Missing transposed digits and look-alike substitutions (0 vs O, 1 vs l or I, 5 vs S, 2 vs Z, rn vs m) when comparing two strings such as addresses, ZIP codes, or account numbers.
The reading brain recognizes words and number groups holistically by shape, so a single swapped character in a familiar-looking string is invisible unless each character is inspected individually.
What to do instead
Compare in fixed chunks of three or four characters rather than whole strings, read the second string right-to-left so the shape-recognition shortcut is broken, and explicitly name the confusable pairs (zero-oh, one-ell, five-ess) as you check them.
Declaring two long strings 'the same' without scanning all the way to the end, or declaring them 'different' at the first mismatch without confirming that is the only one - particularly when the difference sits in the last few characters.
Attention is front-loaded: the first several characters consume the most processing effort, and once a match pattern is established the eye skips to the answer column.
What to do instead
Check the final three characters first, then work leftward through the whole string. Complete the full comparison before marking, and for 'how many differences' items, tally each mismatch on paper rather than holding a running count in your head.
Losing place in a long column of comparison items - skipping a row after a distraction or double-counting one - so the recorded answers are shifted by one relative to the rows.
There is no physical anchor for the eye, and a cough, a page turn, or a hard item breaks the rhythm without any signal that a row was missed.
What to do instead
Use a straightedge, folded paper, or the back of a pencil to cover unread rows and expose one line at a time. Count rows processed and reconcile against the printed item numbers every ten rows, and verify that the answer you are about to mark carries the number of the row you just read.
Answering scenario items with what the candidate personally would do or what feels most morally satisfying - promising a customer personal follow-up, covering for a coworker who left early, or quietly fixing another employee's error - instead of what the postal role actually permits.
Most candidates have no experience in a regulated, unionized, safety-first workplace, so they default to everyday courtesy or loyalty norms that conflict with documented procedure and chain of command.
What to do instead
Rank the priorities explicitly before choosing: safety first, then honesty and accurate records, then following procedure and supervisor direction, then customer service. Eliminate any option that conceals information, alters a record, or makes a promise outside your authority.
Choosing the most forceful or dramatic option - confronting the coworker directly, refusing the assignment, escalating over the supervisor's head, or threatening to call the inspector general - over a moderate report-and-continue response.
Assertiveness reads as 'leadership' and urgency reads as 'caring,' so extreme options feel like the strongest answer, and candidates underestimate how strongly these tests reward staying in role.
What to do instead
Eliminate the two most extreme options first, then choose the remaining option that keeps you within your own duties and moves the information one step up the normal chain (tell the supervisor, document, continue working). Absolutes such as 'always,' 'never,' 'immediately confront,' and 'ignore' are reliable eliminators.