Illinois · Police · Promotional
Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Job Knowledge Exam Prep
Exam authority: Illinois State Police Merit Board · Illinois
Professional promotional exam preparation
Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Job Knowledge Exam Prep
Prepares the Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Promotional Examination
Preparation for the Job Knowledge Exam across six of the seven reading-list categories.
$399one-time
- Access
- 180 days from purchase
- Covers
- 6 prepared areas
- Sources
- Cited on every question
No subscription. No automatic renewal.
Access starts when payment clears, on the email you use at checkout — no password to create.
What this prepares
- ISP Directives
- Troopers, Special Agents & Sergeants CBA
- Master Sergeants CBA (Teamsters Local 700)
- Illinois Compiled Statutes
- ISP Shift Briefings
- ISP Law Bulletins
Every question names the published provision it was written from.
How RankHigh helps you prepare
- Rank-specific practice across this exam’s prepared areas
- Worked explanations after every served question
- Missed-question and due-review queues
- Timed practice in this exam’s configured format
Coverage notes
- The Assessment Exercise is not prepared or simulated
- The reading list's current leadership book is not yet covered
- Timed practice tests do not draw on the Troopers CBA, the Master Sergeants CBA or Law Bulletins; those are covered in targeted study instead.
- Your seniority score is calculated by the Board from your service record — there is nothing to prepare
View coverage details
- The Assessment Exercise is not prepared or simulated
- Timed practice tests do not sample the Troopers CBA, the Master Sergeants CBA or Law Bulletins — current coverage in those categories is reserved for targeted study rather than a thin timed form
- The reading list's current leadership book is not yet covered
- One statute citation in the Board's own reading list is internally inconsistent and is not authored against
- Your seniority score is calculated by the Board from your service record — there is nothing to prepare
Depth and format— see the numbers
- Practice questions
- 236 outside the reserved simulations
- Full-length simulations
- 2 fixed forms of 7 questions
- Worked explanations
- Every served question, including the wrong options
- Timed practice
- In this exam's configured format
If you buy before taking the written examination and your official result says you did not pass, you can ask for your money back. Full conditions
See the questions before you buy
Answer one, then read the explanation you would get.
Sample question 1 of 3
ISP Directives
See what you unlock with RankHigh Prep
More than practice questions — a clear study plan, focused practice across the areas RankHigh prepares, help reviewing mistakes, and a simple way to know what to work on next.
IL State Police Master Sergeant · Today
Example — not your history
Today’s training
15 minutes
Approximately 10–15 questions
Focused on your weakest areas
ISP Directives + Troopers, Special Agents & Sergeants CBA
Your areas
- ISP DirectivesNeeds work58% · 24 answered
- Troopers, Special Agents & Sergeants CBADeveloping71% · 31 answered
- Master Sergeants CBA (Teamsters Local 700)Strong88% · 26 answered
3 items due for review · 5 of 8 areas practised this week
StartOptional baseline
A short baseline sets your starting point. Skip it if you would rather practise.
TodayFocused practice
One session a day, aimed at the areas that need attention.
ReviewLearn from mistakes
The questions you missed come back, each with a worked explanation.
Keep goingFollow your plan
Pick up where you left off, and see how much of the exam you have covered.
$399 one-time · 180 days of access · no subscription
What you have to take
The written test is part of your score. The Board does not say how big a part.
The Merit Board's current promotional-process page states that the Job Knowledge Exam and the Assessment Exercise together comprise 95% of the final score, with seniority worth up to 5% (0.2 points per month in rank, capped at 25 months). The Board does not publish how the 95% splits between the written exam and the Assessment Exercise for this rank, so this page does not guess at one. This product prepares the Job Knowledge Exam — the closed-book, 50-item multiple-choice component. RankHigh is independent third-party preparation and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by the Illinois State Police Merit Board or the Illinois State Police.
What RankHigh covers in this exam
- ISP Directives
- Troopers, Special Agents & Sergeants CBA
- Master Sergeants CBA (Teamsters Local 700)
- Illinois Compiled Statutes
- ISP Shift Briefings
- ISP Law Bulletins
Official exam information
Last successfully checked October 1, 2026- Applications
- The previous cycle has ended. The next cycle has not been publicly announced
- Written exam
- August 31, 2026–September 4, 2026
Verified exam details
- Exact exam
- Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Promotional Examination
- Administered by
- Illinois State Police Merit Board
- Current cycle
- 2026 cycle
- Rank
- Master Sergeant
- Reading list
- 2026 Target Master Sergeant Written Exam Reading List
RankHigh preparation
The Merit Board weights the Job Knowledge Exam and Assessment Exercise together at 95% of the final score, with seniority worth up to 5% — the Board's current page does not publish how the 95% splits between the written exam and the Assessment Exercise
Exam-change alerts are planned as a separate opt-in.
- Scoring
- Job Knowledge Exam + Assessment Exercise together 95% · seniority up to 5% · individual split not published
- Job Knowledge Exam
- 50 closed-book, multiple-choice items
- Ranked
- On the Master Sergeant promotional eligibility list
- Administered by
- Illinois State Police Merit Board
Decides your rank
The Job Knowledge Exam
50 closed-book, multiple-choice items · part of a combined 95% with the Assessment Exercise
Drawn from a published reading list whose page-1 table gives a final-item allocation per source — 26 items from ISP Directives, 5 from Illinois Compiled Statutes, 5 from ISP Shift Briefings, 3 from the Troopers/Special Agents/Sergeants CBA, 3 from the Master Sergeants CBA (Teamsters Local 700), 2 from ISP Law Bulletins, and 6 from one current leadership book — drawn from a larger pool of eligible sections within each source, not a 1:1 topic count. This product prepares the six free/official categories.
Prepared by the modules below
Decides your rank
The Assessment Exercise
In-person · scored by outside assessors · combines with the Job Knowledge Exam for 95% of the final score
Candidates answer questions verbally and demonstrate promotional suitability to assessors drawn from other state police agencies. RANKHIGH DOES NOT PREPARE OR SIMULATE THIS COMPONENT. The current candidate-orientation materials that would name its rating dimensions and scale are posted to a login-gated portal rather than published for public reading, and this product will not coach a guessed format.
Not prepared by RankHigh — current source material is not publicly available
Decides your rank
Your seniority score
Up to 5% of the final score · 0.2 points per month in rank
Calculated by the Board from your time in your current rank, capped at 25 months (5.0 points). There is nothing to prepare here — it is on this page so you can judge what the Job Knowledge Exam is worth against everything else that decides your rank.
Not prepared by RankHigh — calculated by the Board from your service record
Official listing
Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Promotional Examination
Exam identity checked 2026-09-13
Published material used: 2026 Target Master Sergeant Written Exam Reading List · checked 2026-09-17
What this does not cover
The Assessment Exercise, and the reading list's commercial book
This product does not prepare or simulate the Assessment Exercise — see above for why. It also does not yet cover the reading list's current book (6 of 50 Job Knowledge Exam items), because RankHigh has not read it. One statute citation in the Board's own reading list is internally inconsistent between the chapter number and the title it is given; this product does not author against that specific row rather than guess which the Board means.
All three gaps are stated here rather than papered over. Coverage claims on this page describe exactly what is built, never a round number.
Everything included
- Rank-specific practice across this exam’s prepared areas
- Worked explanations after every served question
- Missed-question and due-review queues
- Provision references on source-backed practice
- Timed practice in this exam’s configured format
All of it is online: RankHigh runs in your browser on a phone, tablet or computer. There is nothing to download and nothing is posted to you.
How this preparation is built
These are the automated checks every question goes through before it can be served. They are run over the whole bank, by software, every time it changes.
- Every question is original
- Every question carries an approval record
- Every answer is explained
- Every question names the source it was written from
- The bank is measured, not just proofread
How questions are checked
- Every question is original
- Each one is written for RankHigh. Nothing is taken from a real examination, a competitor's bank or a public question set, and every new batch is checked for duplicates against every other question in the catalog.
- Every question carries an approval record
- A question that has not been through these checks is not served at all. That is what this product serves, not what has been written.
- Every answer is explained
- All of them, not the hard ones. An explanation says why the keyed answer is right and what each of the other options gets wrong, so a question you got wrong is worth more to you than one you got right.
- Every question names the source it was written from
- Every one of them cites the published provision the answer rests on — 250 different ones in all — so any answer here can be checked against the document itself rather than taken on our word. Where the published material is revised, the reference is what makes finding the affected questions a search rather than a re-read. A citation is a statement about provenance and nothing more: it says where the question came from, not that the answer is right.
- The bank is measured, not just proofread
- Answer positions, answer lengths and repeated scenarios are measured across the whole bank against chance. Where a pattern would let somebody pick the answer from its shape instead of its content, the questions are repaired — because a pattern you can learn here is one that will not be there on the day.
$399one-time
180 days of access from payment clearance. No subscription. No automatic renewal.
Questions
Is RankHigh affiliated with the Illinois State Police Merit Board?
No. RankHigh is independent third-party preparation and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by the Illinois State Police Merit Board or the Illinois State Police. We name the examination because that is what it is called and because you need to know which process this prepares.
Does this cover the whole promotional process?
No. The Job Knowledge Exam and the Assessment Exercise together comprise 95% of the final score, with seniority worth up to 5%. The Board does not publish how the 95% splits between the two components for this rank. This product prepares the Job Knowledge Exam only. The Assessment Exercise is not prepared or simulated — the current materials that would describe its rating dimensions are not publicly available, and we will not guess at its format.
Is Master Sergeant the same exam as Sergeant, just renamed?
No. Master Sergeant has its own reading list, confirmed independently rather than assumed: a 50-item exam (not Sergeant's 100), the same underlying Directives/Statutes/Shift-Briefings/Law-Bulletins/current-book source pool as Sergeant, and one genuinely rank-specific source Sergeant's exam never tests — the Master Sergeants CBA, Teamsters Local 700, a separate bargaining agreement from the Troopers/Special Agents/Sergeants CBA both ranks are tested on.
Which reading-list categories are prepared?
Not yet, and we say so rather than rounding up. We add controlled batches over time rather than publishing an uncontrolled pass of hundreds at once — see the FAQ answer above for what each source covers so far, and what does not have an item yet.
What score do I need to pass?
The Board does not publish a passing score for the Job Knowledge Exam on its own — your rank on the eligibility list comes from the combined score across all weighted components.
Are your statute answers checkable?
Yes. Every item that turns on Illinois Compiled Statutes cites the section it was written from, so you can look up the actual public law and check the key yourself. Items built from ISP Directive or CBA topics are clearly built from the general professional or public-sector-labor standard behind the named topic, since the Department's own directive and contract text are not publicly available to us.
More questions (4)
Is there a timed practice test, and does it match the real exam?
RankHigh provides 2 fixed timed forms of 7 questions in 11 minutes, at least 2 from each of three categories. Those figures are RankHigh's, not the Board's: the Board publishes no per-source timing or official practice-form length. The Troopers CBA, the Master Sergeants CBA and Law Bulletins remain in targeted study but are not sampled in the timed forms because current coverage in those categories is not deep enough to support both uses honestly.
Is this a subscription?
No. It is a single payment of $399. Nothing recurring, nothing to cancel, and no card kept on file for later.
How long do I have access?
Your access opens online as soon as payment clears — there is nothing to wait for in the post. Your one-time purchase includes 180 days of access from the time payment clears. No subscription. No automatic renewal. One payment, nothing recurring, nothing to cancel.
Does RankHigh guarantee a passing score?
No, and be careful with anyone who does. What this does is show you which areas are costing you points and give you focused practice on them. The work is still yours to do.
Guides and resources
- How the Illinois State Police Master Sergeant exam is scoredHow much does the written Job Knowledge Exam actually count toward a Master Sergeant's rank on the eligibility list?
- What is on the Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Job Knowledge ExamWhat does the Master Sergeant reading list actually require me to study, category by category?
- Why the Master Sergeant exam tests two different labor agreementsWhy does the reading list name two CBAs, and how are they different?
RankHigh is an independent preparation product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Illinois State Police Merit Board, the Illinois government, or any city, county or department. Application and hiring decisions are made by the hiring authority — check the official posting for anything that decides your application.