RankHighCompetitive Exam Prep

Reasoning and judgment

Deductive reasoning

Applying a stated general rule to a specific case and reaching the right result.

Exams on RankHigh that test this

What follows is our approach, not an official rule. What each question type measures is set by the body that runs the examination. How to work one is RankHigh’s method — it is what a good tutor would tell you, and there is more than one way to be right. Where an examination publishes its own instructions, those govern on the day.

Deductive Reasoning

Tested as “Deductive Reasoning” on Firefighter, Police Officer, NYPD Police Officer, NYC School Safety Agent, CDCR Correctional Officer, NYC Correction Officer.

Applying a general rule to one specific case and getting the right answer.

Where people lose it

Bringing in what you already know. These questions are self-contained, and real experience is the most common reason a strong candidate answers confidently and wrongly.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the rule twice. The second read is for the qualifiers — only, unless, except, more than.
  2. Write the facts of the case in the margin as a short list.
  3. Test each choice against the rule ONE clause at a time.
  4. When two choices both look right, one of them satisfies part of the rule and breaks another. Find which.
  5. Answer only from the rule as written, even where it seems unrealistic.

Everything you need is on the page. Everything you know is a distraction.

Ability to Learn and Apply Information

Tested as “Ability to Learn and Apply Information” on NY Firefighter.

Finding what a supplied training lesson says, and combining two parts of it, with the lesson still in front of you.

Where people lose it

Answering from memory or from what the equipment sounds like it ought to do. Nothing here rewards recall, and the lesson describes equipment that does not exist, so anything you already know about real equipment is a distraction.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the question first, then go to the part of the lesson it names. Do not reread the whole lesson each time.
  2. Match on the exact wording of the condition. Tables like these are built so that two rows differ by one word.
  3. Where a row lists two things to do, note the order it puts them in — an ordering question about that row is the commonest kind.
  4. If the answer is not in the table, it is in the numbered steps or the rule after them. A question needing both is normal.
  5. Point at the line you took the answer from before you mark it. If you cannot, you have inferred rather than read.

The lesson stays on your desk. Every answer is somewhere in it, so find the line rather than remember it.

Apply Rules – Forms

Tested as “Apply Rules – Forms” on BSCC/STC Corrections Entry.

Comparing a list of stated form requirements against a completed form and counting how many requirements were not met.

Where people lose it

Checking whether a field is filled in at all, rather than whether it satisfies the SPECIFIC requirement stated for it. A field can be filled in and still fail to meet the stated rule.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read every requirement first and note exactly what each one demands.
  2. Go through the completed form field by field, checking each one against its specific requirement, not against a general impression of completeness.
  3. Keep a running count as you go rather than trying to total it at the end from memory.
  4. Re-check any requirement you marked as met — a requirement with a specific constraint (a format, a range, a required unit) is where an error usually hides.

A blank field and a wrongly-filled field both count as not met. Check content, not just presence.

Apply Rules – Scenarios

Tested as “Apply Rules – Scenarios” on BSCC/STC Corrections Entry.

Given a set of stated rules or procedures and a narrative describing someone carrying out a task, determining which rules were or were not followed.

Where people lose it

Assuming a violation exists because the question asks about compliance. 'All procedures were followed, in order' is a genuine correct answer on some items.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read every rule/procedure first and number them mentally.
  2. Read the narrative once for the overall sequence of what happened.
  3. Check the narrative against each rule in turn, in the order the rules were stated, not the order events happened to be described.
  4. Be able to name the specific rule and the specific narrative sentence for any violation you find.

Check every rule against the narrative individually. Do not stop at the first thing that looks like a violation.

Applying Facts and Information to Given Situations

Tested as “Applying Facts and Information to Given Situations” on NYS Court Officer-Trainee.

Applying a stated set of facts, procedures, or rules to a new situation and selecting the conclusion those facts require.

Where people lose it

Replacing the given rule with personal experience or with a procedure that feels more practical.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Identify the exact rule or fact pattern that controls the situation before evaluating the choices.
  2. List the conditions in the rule and check the situation against them one at a time.
  3. Reject choices that add an unstated fact, skip a required condition, or reverse the stated sequence.
  4. Use only the information supplied, even if a different practice might be used in an actual workplace.

Apply the rule on the page exactly as written.

Applying Written Information

Tested as “Applying Written Information” on NY Probation.

Reading a procedure printed with the question and working out what it requires in one particular situation.

Where people lose it

Answering from what a probation department would sensibly do. The question is what the printed rule requires, and an option can be good practice and still be wrong here.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the situation for the FACTS the rule turns on — usually a count, a date or who holds a role — before you read the options.
  2. Find the paragraph that sets a threshold and check whether the situation has actually reached it. Half of these items are decided by a count that falls one short.
  3. Then read the paragraph that says who signs, authorizes or approves. Two options will often prescribe the right document and differ only in that step.
  4. Reject anything the procedure does not mention at all. A step that sounds prudent but appears nowhere in the printed rule is the commonest wrong answer.

Underline the number in the rule and the number in the situation, then compare them before you look at anything else.

Assigning Field Units

Tested as “Assigning Field Units” on POST Dispatcher Battery.

Applying a set of assignment rules you have never seen to a run of incidents, deciding for each which units go — one, several, or none.

Where people lose it

Assuming a unit is available because nothing says it is busy, and forgetting that the rules override one another. The exception clause is where the marks are.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the rules twice before the first incident. The pace leaves no time to relearn them per incident.
  2. Write the rules down as a short order of precedence: who covers what, who is available, and what an emergency changes.
  3. Take each incident in three steps — area, then emergency or not, then who is actually free.
  4. NONE is a real answer and appears deliberately. If no rule puts a unit there, that is the answer rather than a mistake.
  5. An emergency usually widens the answer rather than narrowing it: check whether the rules send everyone available.

The rules are invented for the test. Nothing you know about real dispatch policy applies.

Court Record Keeping

Tested as “Court Record Keeping” on NYS Court Officer-Trainee.

Reading court-record rules and entries, then determining how information should be recorded, classified, or retrieved.

Where people lose it

Following the surface wording of a record instead of the specific filing, coding, or sequence rule supplied in the question.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Identify the record field or rule the question is testing before reviewing the entries.
  2. Translate the governing instruction into a short if-then rule.
  3. Apply that rule to every relevant date, identifier, status, or sequence in the record.
  4. Check that the chosen result preserves the exact information required and does not import a convention the question never states.

Let the stated record rule control every field and every sequence.

Evaluating Conclusions in Light of Known Facts

Tested as “Evaluating Conclusions in Light of Known Facts” on NY Probation.

Deciding whether a set of statements proves a conclusion true, proves it false, or leaves it undecided — on the statements alone.

Where people lose it

Using what you know about the world. The statements are the whole of the evidence, and a conclusion that is obviously true in life is undecided here if the statements do not reach it.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Work out what the statements allow rather than what they say. For each person or thing the conclusion mentions, write down every possibility the statements still leave open.
  2. If only one possibility remains and the conclusion names it, the conclusion is proved TRUE.
  3. If the conclusion names something outside the possibilities that remain, it is proved FALSE — which is a definite answer and not a reason to choose inadequate.
  4. If more than one possibility remains and the conclusion names one of them, the statements are INADEQUATE. Watch for a person the statements never place in any category at all.

Three answers means three real outcomes. Proved false is a finding; reach for inadequate only when the statements genuinely leave it open.

Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities — NY Local Police Lieutenant

Tested as “Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities” on NY Local Police Lieutenant.

You are put in command of a section of several units, each with its own sergeant, and asked what a supervisor at that level should do. Planning a program with an objective that can be counted, putting the hours where the analysis says the problem is, judging the result against what you actually set out to do — and, throughout, working through your sergeants rather than around them. This is the area with no first-line counterpart: the Sergeant series asks about supervising a work unit, and this one asks about running a section.

Where people lose it

Answering as the best sergeant in the building rather than as the lieutenant. The option that fixes the problem personally and today is nearly always on the paper, it is nearly always the one that feels most responsible, and it is nearly always wrong — because it does a sergeant's job, and the sergeant still cannot do it tomorrow.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Name the principle before you look at the options. Nearly every item turns on one: direction travels through the sergeant, accountability stays with whoever delegated, routine is settled where it arises, a remedy acts on the cause. Once you can name it, usually only one option survives it.
  2. Find the fact the question turns on and check each option against that fact rather than against your instincts. Where the figures locate a fault in one four-officer detail, an answer that retrains the whole section has not read them.
  3. Ask whether a proposed objective could be reported as met or not met at the end. 'Raise awareness' and 'show greater initiative' cannot be; a percentage against a stated comparison can. The same test settles which report honestly answers an objective already set.
  4. Beware the sweeping option — retrain everybody, countersign everything, bring me every matter. Overreach is the commonest way a wrong answer is built here. But it is a hint and not a rule: sometimes the right answer genuinely does cover all of something, so check it against the facts rather than against the word.
  5. Separate acting early from acting at all. Where the facts say only that somebody has alleged something, the answer that establishes what happened beats both the one that punishes and the one that waits.

Ask what a section commander is for, and answer as one. If an option has you doing the work yourself, going round a sergeant, or acting before anybody has found out what happened, it is usually the distractor.

Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities — NY Local Police Captain

Tested as “Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities” on NY Local Police Captain.

Running a section through the unit supervisors who report to you — planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling the section's work, and the interactions between an upper-level supervisor and the supervisors below.

Where people lose it

Answering as the officer's supervisor instead of the supervisors' supervisor. The role you are placed in has unit supervisors reporting to you, so an action that reaches past them to direct or correct their officers is the wrong action however sensible it looks in isolation.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Establish the problem before you act on it. The examiner's own published solution turns on this: the supervisors cannot evaluate a proposed solution, or offer useful views, until they clearly understand what the problem actually is.
  2. Where the question asks what to do FIRST, order the options rather than rank them by quality. Most of them are defensible actions; the one that is right is the one the others depend on.
  3. Act through the unit supervisor who owns the work. Where a unit's performance is the issue, the person accountable for it is the person to take it up with.
  4. Separate what only you can do from what you should delegate. Setting the objective, resolving conflict between units and committing the section's resources are yours; studying and executing the work belongs to the units.

You supervise supervisors. Before choosing, ask whose job the option describes — if it is a unit supervisor's job, it is not your first action.

Problem Sensitivity and Reasoning

Tested as “Problem Sensitivity and Reasoning” on NY Local Police Officer.

Applying a printed policy to a described situation and choosing the action it calls for.

Where people lose it

Answering from what you think an officer would do. The printed policy decides, even where real practice differs.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the policy before the situation and note what separates its paragraphs.
  2. Identify which paragraph's conditions the situation actually meets — usually one fact decides it.
  3. Check the conditions you rejected: each wrong action is the right action for a neighboring set of facts.
  4. Apply the paragraph as written, not as you would prefer it to read.

Name the paragraph before you pick the action. If you cannot, you have not found it yet.

Supervision

Tested as “Supervision” on NY Local Police Sergeant.

Assigning and reviewing work, evaluating performance, maintaining standards, developing subordinates, implementing change, and handling absenteeism, morale and discipline.

Where people lose it

Choosing the most decisive-sounding action. The examiner's published solution goes the other way: faced with an assignment whose procedure is unknown, the answer is to discuss it with your own supervisor, because that is where the knowledge and the ultimate responsibility sit.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Ask who holds the knowledge the decision needs, and who holds the responsibility for the outcome. Where they are the same person, that is usually the answer.
  2. Where a question asks what to do FIRST, look for the option that establishes facts. A remedy chosen before the cause is known is chosen blind, and that is a distractor in most of these items.
  3. Prefer the specific to the general. Correction, praise and instruction all work here in proportion to how specifically they name the thing being corrected, praised or required.
  4. Keep the standard separate from the person. A rule applied to some officers and not others has stopped being a rule, and the officers held to it can see that.

Two options will usually be reasonable. The one that is right is the one that deals with the situation in front of you rather than with how it arose.

Using a Directory

Tested as “Using a Directory” on NY Clerical.

Applying a list of name, room and extension changes to a telephone directory, then answering the sort of question a caller would ask.

Where people lose it

Answering from the printed directory. Every distractor here is a number that is genuinely on the page and genuinely out of date.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the change list before the directory, and mark which rows it touches.
  2. Where a change contradicts the printed entry, the change wins — that is what makes it a change.
  3. Follow a referral all the way through. A call passed to somebody whose own extension has changed needs both changes applied, not one.
  4. Check whether the caller's name is in the directory at all before looking for a number; an unlisted name usually has its own rule.

Ask what you would actually say to the caller. The answer is the number that would reach somebody today.

Carry this into the room

  • Deductive Reasoning: Everything you need is on the page. Everything you know is a distraction.
  • Ability to Learn and Apply Information: The lesson stays on your desk. Every answer is somewhere in it, so find the line rather than remember it.
  • Apply Rules – Forms: A blank field and a wrongly-filled field both count as not met. Check content, not just presence.
  • Apply Rules – Scenarios: Check every rule against the narrative individually. Do not stop at the first thing that looks like a violation.
  • Applying Facts and Information to Given Situations: Apply the rule on the page exactly as written.
  • Applying Written Information: Underline the number in the rule and the number in the situation, then compare them before you look at anything else.
  • Assigning Field Units: The rules are invented for the test. Nothing you know about real dispatch policy applies.
  • Court Record Keeping: Let the stated record rule control every field and every sequence.
  • Evaluating Conclusions in Light of Known Facts: Three answers means three real outcomes. Proved false is a finding; reach for inadequate only when the statements genuinely leave it open.
  • Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities — NY Local Police Lieutenant: Ask what a section commander is for, and answer as one. If an option has you doing the work yourself, going round a sergeant, or acting before anybody has found out what happened, it is usually the distractor.
  • Planning, Supervising and Administering Police Programs and Activities — NY Local Police Captain: You supervise supervisors. Before choosing, ask whose job the option describes — if it is a unit supervisor's job, it is not your first action.
  • Problem Sensitivity and Reasoning: Name the paragraph before you pick the action. If you cannot, you have not found it yet.
  • Supervision: Two options will usually be reasonable. The one that is right is the one that deals with the situation in front of you rather than with how it arose.
  • Using a Directory: Ask what you would actually say to the caller. The answer is the number that would reach somebody today.

Practice it on your own exam

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