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How your score is used

The series test guide publishes no passing score at all. What the jurisdictions publish is the general New York civil service rating rule, and what matters more than passing is where the score puts you on the eligible list.

Passing score in the guide
Not published
On the announcements
Rated on a scale of 100, passing mark 70
What the score does
Places you on the eligible list in rank by score
List life
Set by the jurisdiction — Sullivan County states one year

Where the passing mark actually comes from

This distinction is worth getting right, because most summaries get it wrong. The Department of Civil Service test guide for this series states no passing score — the phrase does not appear in it. The mark of 70 is the general civil service rating rule, and it appears on the jurisdictions' own examination announcements: Sullivan County prints that examinations are rated on a scale of 100 with the passing mark at 70.

So the document to check is your own announcement, because the appointing jurisdiction is what states it. Anyone quoting a passing score as though the series guide published one has not read the guide.

Passing is not the goal

Sullivan County's announcement puts it plainly: passing candidates are included on the eligible list in rank by score. Appointments are then made from that list as vacancies occur, and one list is typically certified across the county's own departments and its towns, villages, school districts and special districts.

That is why a few extra marks are worth more here than the pass mark suggests. Two candidates who both passed are not in the same position; they are in different places in a queue.

What differs between jurisdictions, and what does not

The examination is prepared and rated by the Department of Civil Service, so the exam itself is the State's. Almost everything around it belongs to your local agency: the fee, the sitting dates, whether there is any education or experience requirement, which of the five subject areas the announcement names, how long the resulting list lives, and which employers it is certified for.

Those differ a great deal. Of three announcements read in September 2026, fees were 10, 10 and 15 dollars, one waived the fee for residents and veterans, one imposed no education or experience requirement at all and another required a high school diploma or a year of clerical experience. There is no statewide calendar, so RankHigh publishes no test dates — your agency's announcement is the only place they exist.

Sources

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