New York · Police · Promotional
New York Local Police Captain Exam Prep
Exam authority: Local civil service agencies outside New York City · New York
Make sure this is your examFor local-agency Police Captain promotions outside New York City — not NYSP or NYPD.
Professional promotional exam preparation
New York Local Police Captain Exam Prep
Prepares the New York Local Police Captain Promotional Examination
All five published subject areas, source-cited law practice, targeted review and timed practice under RankHigh pacing.
$399one-time
- Access
- 180 days from purchase
- Covers
- 7 prepared areas
No subscription. No automatic renewal.
Access starts when payment clears, on the email you use at checkout — no password to create.
What this prepares
- Law Enforcement Methods and Practices
- New York State Laws
- Information Presentation From Notes in Outline Form
- Preparing Written Material
- Paragraph Organization
- Understanding and Interpreting Written Material
- Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities
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
- Your agency's examination announcement governs and may cover specialized material the State's guide does not mention. That is not prepared here.
- Subject areas 6 and 7 are not prepared: evaluating information and evidence, and investigative techniques and criminalistics.
- The guide restricts both to investigative titles, so they are not a gap for a Captain title.
- Five of five subject areas is a count, not a share — the Department publishes no item count or weighting.
- A promotional eligible list belongs to the agency that ran the examination, so a result does not travel to another agency.
View coverage details
- Specialized material your own agency adds. The Department's guide says in its own words that not all subject areas that might appear in this series are mentioned in it, and that the Examination Announcement lists what your particular test will cover. That material is unknowable from the guide and is not prepared here.
- Subject areas 6 and 7 — evaluating information and evidence, and investigative techniques and criminalistics. The guide restricts both to investigative titles, so they are not a gap for a Captain title; they are also not prepared here.
- No share of the examination is claimed anywhere on this page. The Department publishes no item count and no weighting, so nobody outside it can say what proportion of your written test these five areas are.
- Nothing here is portable. Each agency runs its own examination number and its own eligible list, so a result does not travel to another agency.
Depth and format— see the numbers
- Practice questions
- 198 outside the reserved simulations
- Full-length simulations
- 2 fixed forms of 40 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
Law Enforcement Methods and Practices
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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.
NY Local Police Captain · Today
Example — not your history
Today’s training
15 minutes
Approximately 10–15 questions
Focused on your weakest areas
Law Enforcement Methods and Practices + New York State Laws
Your areas
- Law Enforcement Methods and PracticesNeeds work58% · 24 answered
- New York State LawsDeveloping71% · 31 answered
- Information Presentation From Notes in Outline FormStrong88% · 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
One test, many local agencies, and your own announcement decides what is on it
The Department of Civil Service writes and rates one multiple-choice test for the Second- and Third-Line Police Supervisors series. Each local civil service agency schedules its own exam under Civil Service Law section 23.2, with its own examination number and its own eligible list. The two most recent Captain announcements read here — City of Ithaca #74855010 and Rockland County #75574010 — reproduce the same five subject areas and were administered on the same day in November 2024. If your announcement points you at the Department's Second- and Third-Line Police Supervisors test guide, this is your examination.
The guide also describes two further subject areas — evaluating information and evidence, and investigative techniques and criminalistics — and restricts both to investigative titles in its own words. A Captain title is not one, so they are neither prepared here nor counted against this product. What the guide does say is that its list is not exhaustive for any particular exam: an agency may add specialized material the guide does not describe, and the Examination Announcement is what lists it. Read yours.
What RankHigh covers in this exam
- Law Enforcement Methods and Practices
- New York State Laws
- Information Presentation From Notes in Outline Form
- Preparing Written Material
- Paragraph Organization
- Understanding and Interpreting Written Material
- Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities
Official exam information
Last successfully checked October 1, 2026- Applications
- Testing dates vary by agency
- Written exam
- Testing dates vary by agency
Verified exam details
- Exact exam
- New York Local Police Captain Promotional Examination
- Administered by
- Local civil service agencies outside New York City
- Rank
- Captain
- Source cutoff
- Set by each local civil service agency's announcement
RankHigh preparation
One test written and rated by the Department of Civil Service and scheduled by each local agency on its own date; the passing grade of 70 and any seniority credit come from your own agency's announcement, not from the Department's test guide
Exam-change alerts are planned as a separate opt-in.
- Administered by
- Your own local civil service agency, on a test the NYS Department of Civil Service prepares and rates
- Test format
- Multiple choice
- Time allowance
- Six hours overall for the series
- Number of questions
- Not published by the Department
- Weighting between areas
- Not published by the Department
- Passing score
- 70, from the local announcements — the Department's test guide states none
- Seniority credit
- Set by your agency: added to a passing score in the Ithaca announcement, none in the Rockland County one
- Calculators
- Prohibited in the Ithaca announcement — check your own
- Assessment center or oral board
- Neither is stated in either announcement read
Decides your rank
The written multiple-choice test
Prepared here — all five published subject areas
Law enforcement methods, practices and procedures; New York State laws; preparing written material in a police setting; understanding and interpreting written material; and planning, supervising and administering police programs and activities. The guide gives the series an overall time allowance of six hours and publishes no item count, so no practice-test length on this page is presented as the Department's. Your own announcement may add specialized material the guide does not describe.
Decides your rank
Seniority credit
Arithmetic, not preparation
Where an agency provides it, seniority credit is added to a passing score on a formula that agency publishes — the Ithaca announcement bands it, and the Rockland County one states none at all. It is fixed by your service record before you sit down, so it is not something a candidate can prepare, and because it is added to a passing score it does not rescue a failing one.
Official listing
New York Local Police Captain Promotional Examination
Exam identity checked 2026-09-12
Subject Area 5
Planning, supervising and administering — written for a supervisor of supervisors
The guide publishes this area's test task in its own words: you are "placed in the role of a police supervisor of a section, which is made up of several units", and "all unit supervisors report directly to you". That sentence is the whole difference between a second- or third-line item and a first-line one, and these 42 questions are written to it — the problem in front of you is usually another supervisor's, and the choice is about how you reach it rather than about what you would do yourself.
- Defining a problem before proposing a solution to it, which is the reasoning the guide's own worked solution sets out
- Directing subordinate supervisors rather than the officers under them, including where going around one is the wrong answer
- Planning, resourcing and evaluating a program, and the interactions an upper-level supervisor has with the supervisors reporting to them
Every question here states the principle it applies and says what is wrong with each of the other three choices on its own terms, because that is how the guide answers its own samples — not with a bare key, but with a reason printed against every option.
Everything included
- 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
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
- 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.
- 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
Which examination is this?
The New York State Department of Civil Service's Second- and Third-Line Police Supervisors series, which local civil service agencies outside New York City administer for Police Captain and equivalent titles. The Department writes and rates the test; your agency schedules it, numbers it and runs the resulting eligible list. If your announcement points you at that test guide, this is your examination.
How many questions are on the real test?
The Department does not publish an item count — the phrase "number of questions" does not appear anywhere in its test guide. What it does publish is an overall time allowance of six hours for the series. Any item count you see quoted for this title is somebody's estimate, and it is not ours.
How is each subject area weighted?
Not published. The word "weight" does not occur in the guide, which lists the subject areas and does not say how many questions come from each. That is why no percentage of the examination appears anywhere on this page.
What is the passing score?
The passing grade of 70 comes from the local examination announcements — City of Ithaca #74855010 and Rockland County #75574010 — and not from the Department's test guide, which states none: the words pass, passing and score do not occur in it at all. We attribute it to the announcements for that reason, and your own announcement is what governs your exam.
Can my agency put something on the test the guide does not describe?
Yes, and the guide says so itself: not all subject areas that might appear in this series are mentioned in it, specialized material is sometimes included and is not described there, and the Examination Announcement lists what your particular test will cover. That material cannot be known from the guide and is not prepared here.
Why are there seven practice areas for five subject areas?
Because subject area 3 is more than one task in the guide's own description — restatements of information given in note form, a page of working notes with several questions on it, and paragraphs whose sentences are out of order. Scoring those as one number would report you weak at "written material" when the lost points came from three different abilities.
More questions (4)
When is the next test?
Each local agency schedules its own exam, so there is no single date. No Captain announcement later than the two read here has been found, and this page states no date rather than guessing one. Watch your own agency's civil service announcements.
Do I need to buy any books?
Not for this examination. The Department's guide names no textbook, no reading list and no publisher. The law questions are written from the Penal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Vehicle and Traffic Law and Family Court Act, which the State publishes free, and the rest is general police practice and administration.
Has a person reviewed these questions?
Not yet, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise. They have been through an automated review pipeline, and every New York State laws question has additionally been checked phrase by phrase against the section of law it cites. No human has read them.
Can I use my result at another agency?
No. Each agency runs its own examination number and its own eligible list, so a promotional result does not travel between agencies.
Guides and resources
- New York Local Police Captain exam formatnys police captain exam format
- Planning, supervising and administering police programs and activitiesnys police captain planning supervising administering questions
- How the New York Local Police Captain exam is scorednys police captain exam passing score seniority
- The New York State laws area of the Police Captain examnys police captain exam penal law cpl vtl
- Written material on the New York Local Police Captain examnys police captain exam written material note form
- Which New York agencies give the Police Captain examwhich new york agencies give the police captain exam
- NY Local Police Captain exam vs the Sergeant examdifference between nys police captain and sergeant exam
RankHigh is an independent preparation product. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Local civil service agencies outside New York City, the New York 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. The blueprint is the Department's own Test Guide for the Second- and Third-Line Police Supervisors series, read end to end and then re-read the same day from freshly fetched bytes by a second instrument, because the first one decodes embedded fonts and could have been wrong in a way no character check would catch. The law questions are written from the statute text the State Senate publishes, and each names the section so you can check it.