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What is on the Illinois State Police Sergeant Job Knowledge Exam

The Merit Board publishes an exact reading list with a per-source item count: 100 closed-book multiple-choice items drawn from ISP Directives, the Troopers/Special Agents/Sergeants CBA, Illinois Compiled Statutes, ISP Shift Briefings, ISP Law Bulletins, and one current commercial leadership book.

Format
100 closed-book, multiple-choice items
ISP Directives
54 final items (50 named sections, effective April 1, 2026)
Illinois Compiled Statutes
15 final items (named chapters and articles, effective February 26, 2026)
ISP Shift Briefings
10 final items (nine dated briefings)
Troopers/Special Agents/Sergeants CBA
6 final items (19 eligible articles, effective July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2027)
ISP Law Bulletins
3 final items (five dated bulletins)
Commercial leadership book
12 items — rotates by cycle; current title: "Leaders Eat Last" by Simon Sinek (entire book eligible)

An unusually precise reading list

The Board's 2026 Target Sergeant Written Exam Reading List does something rare: it names the exact section, article or briefing each item category is drawn from, and states a final-item-count allocation for each — described as an approximation that may vary through development, and drawn from a larger eligible pool per source rather than a strict one-item-per-topic mapping, but a real number rather than a bare list of topics.

This product's Job Knowledge Exam preparation is organized around that same structure, so a candidate studying with RankHigh is training against the same five free/official categories the Board itself lists, plus an honest account of the one category it does not cover yet.

One category is not yet covered, and here is exactly why

The reading list's sixth category is a commercial trade book — currently 'Leaders Eat Last' by Simon Sinek, worth 12 of the 100 final items, with the entire book eligible for testing content. RankHigh has not read this book, and the reading list itself shows the title rotates from cycle to cycle — the prior cycle named a different title entirely. No item may be written against a book nobody here has read, so this slice is not yet part of the product.

The other five categories are free or official material the Board provides to candidates directly, and this product's items are built against the named topic in each — statute items directly and checkably against the actual public law, and directive- and CBA-based items against the general professional or public-sector-labor standard the named topic addresses, since the Department's own directive manual and the CBA's own text sit behind a login gated to a candidate's own Star ID.

What the Board does not publish

There is no published passing score for the Job Knowledge Exam alone — passing is a function of the combined score described on the scoring page. There is no published breakdown of exactly which named directive sections, statute articles or CBA articles receive the most final items beyond the category-level counts above.

Sources

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