RankHighCompetitive Exam Prep

Reading and writing

Written expression

Choosing wording that is clear, complete and correct. Usually tested as selecting the best of several phrasings.

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.

Verbal Expression

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

Choosing clear, correct, unambiguous wording — the kind that survives being read back in court.

Where people lose it

Picking the version that sounds most official. Longer and more formal is not clearer, and these questions reward plainness.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Ask what the sentence must communicate, then which version does it with the least room for doubt.
  2. Check who did what. Passive constructions that hide the actor are usually the wrong choice.
  3. Rule out anything ambiguous about time, order, or who is responsible.
  4. Where two options are both correct, prefer the one with less room for doubt. That is often the shorter, but brevity is a side effect of clarity rather than the test — sometimes the longer sentence is the one that removes the ambiguity.

Clear beats formal. Every time.

Preparing Written Material

Tested as “Preparing Written Material” on NY Local Police Captain, NY Local Police Sergeant.

Choosing the restatement of a set of notes that presents the facts clearly and accurately.

Where people lose it

Choosing the version that reads best. The examiner's own solutions turn on whether the reader can tell WHO DID WHAT, not on style — the guide says considerations of grammar and style matter only when they affect clarity and accuracy.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Check the pronouns first. Where two people of the same sex are named, a 'he' or a 'his' that could attach to either is the defect the sample question is built on, and it is the hardest to see because nothing in the sentence is false.
  2. Check each fact against the notes in both directions: does the restatement say anything the notes do not carry, and does it deny anything the notes do carry?
  3. Watch for a role that has been swapped. Complainant and subject, finder and loser, the person who acted and the person acted upon.
  4. A restatement does not have to use every note. The guide's own sample discards its first and last lines as not relevant to that question, so a version omitting a note is not wrong for that reason alone.

Read the notes once, then read each option asking only one question of it: could a reader who has not seen the notes be misled by this?

Clarity — POST PELLETB

Tested as “Clarity” on POST PELLETB.

Deciding which of two sentences is written more clearly. Both are real English; one leaves less room for doubt.

Where people lose it

Reaching for the shorter option as a rule. Brevity often wins, but it is a side effect of clarity, not the test — sometimes the longer sentence is the one that removes the ambiguity.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read both. Ask what could be misread in each, not which sounds better.
  2. Check every pronoun. If you cannot name what 'it', 'they' or 'he' points to, that option is the unclear one.
  3. Check what each modifier is attached to. A phrase sitting next to the wrong noun changes who did what.
  4. Check the sentence boundaries — two complete thoughts run together, or one fragment stranded on its own.
  5. If both read cleanly, choose the one whose meaning you could not restate wrongly if you tried.

Ask what could be misunderstood, not what sounds better.

Clarity — POST Dispatcher Battery

Tested as “Clarity” on POST Dispatcher Battery.

Choosing which of two versions of the same sentence is more clearly written.

Where people lose it

Choosing the shorter one. Brevity is not clarity, and the shorter version is often the one whose pronoun could refer to either person.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Ask who did what to whom. If a pronoun could point at two people, that version is the unclear one.
  2. Check whether a describing phrase sits next to the thing it describes. A phrase stranded at the wrong end of a sentence changes its meaning.
  3. Watch for two events run together so that the order or the cause is lost.
  4. Read for what the sentence actually claims rather than what it obviously means to claim — the clearer version is the one that cannot be read a second way.
  5. With two options a wrong answer costs the most it can against the guessing formula. If neither is clearly better, leave it.

Both versions say roughly the same thing. One of them can be misread and the other cannot.

Describing a Scene

Tested as “Describing a Scene” on CDCR Correctional Officer.

Choosing the description that reports a scene completely and accurately, without adding anything that is not there.

Where people lose it

Picking the description that sounds best written. The question is accuracy and completeness, not style — and the most fluent option is often the one that quietly leaves something out or attributes an action to the wrong person.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the scene before the options. Fix who is present, what each one is doing and where they are, so the options are checked against the scene rather than the scene against the options.
  2. Rule out on a single wrong detail. One misattributed action makes the whole description wrong, however good the rest of it is.
  3. Then rule out on omission. Of the descriptions with nothing wrong in them, the answer is the one that leaves nothing out.
  4. Be suspicious of a description that adds a reason or an intention. What somebody appears to be about to do is not in the picture.

This is RankHigh skill practice. It trains the observation and comparison the examination's picture questions test; it does not reproduce the illustrated pictures CDCR uses, and no practice material outside CDCR's own does.

Information Presentation

Tested as “Information Presentation” on NY Probation.

Choosing which version of a report sentence says who did what without leaving the reader to guess.

Where people lose it

Choosing the shorter or the more natural-sounding sentence. Both versions are grammatical; only one of them can be read in a single way.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Find every pronoun and ask how many people before it could be its owner. Two candidates means the sentence does not say what it appears to say.
  2. Do the same for a clause beginning "who" or "which" — it attaches to whatever it sits next to, which is not always what the writer meant.
  3. Check a possessive the same way. "His copy" is ambiguous the moment two men have been named.
  4. Watch where a limiting word like "only" sits, because it limits whatever follows it and moving it changes the fact being reported.

Try to read each version a second way. The one you cannot misread is the answer.

Information Presentation From Notes

Tested as “Information Presentation From Notes” on NY Local Police Lieutenant.

Choosing which of four restatements presents a set of notes, or two or three sentences, clearly and accurately.

Where people lose it

Choosing the version that reads best, or the one that says most. The examiner's own solutions reject options for changing the QUANTITY or the SCOPE of what the source says — one distractor 'makes it sound as if there were nine sessions in total', another 'implies that counties other than the three that are named had sessions'. Both read perfectly well.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Count. Where the source gives numbers, check whether the option keeps the total, the distribution and the 'each' or 'between them' that decides which it is. This is where most of these items are won.
  2. Check the scope words. 'All', 'most', 'several', 'among them' and a plain plural each claim something different about how much of the world the source covered, and only one of them matches.
  3. Check who did what to whom, and what caused what. A restatement that swaps the two people, or makes the consequence into the reason, is wrong however fluent it is.
  4. A restatement does not have to use every note. The guide's own sample discards two lines of its notes as not relevant to that question, so an option is not wrong merely for leaving something out.

Read the source, then ask of each option only this: would a reader who never saw the source come away believing something it does not say?

Information Presentation From Notes in Outline Form

Tested as “Information Presentation From Notes in Outline Form” on NY Local Police Captain.

Choosing the restatement that accurately presents the part of a page of outline notes that a question asks about.

Where people lose it

Choosing the version that reads best. Every option is written to read acceptably, and the one that is right is the only one that does not change a quantity, widen a scope, or add something the notes never said.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Find the lines of the notes the question is actually about before you read the options. The rest of the page is there to be left out.
  2. Check the numbers against the notes one at a time. The examiner's own solution rejects a version for making three sessions sound like nine, and another for implying a larger unspecified total.
  3. Watch the edges of a list. A version that suggests items beyond the ones named, or that drops one of them, has changed what the notes establish even though every word in it is true.
  4. Treat a hedge as a fact. 'May', 'not yet announced' and 'estimated' are part of the notes, and a restatement that firms one of them up has added something.

A restatement is not required to use every note — the guide's own sample leaves two out. It is required not to say anything the notes do not.

Language Fluency

Tested as “Language Fluency” on NY Local Police Officer.

Two tasks under one heading: picking the summary that reports a passage clearly and completely, and finding the one line that carries a spelling, grammar or punctuation error.

Where people lose it

On the summary task, choosing the version that reads best. On the error task, stopping at the first line that looks odd instead of checking all four.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. For a summary, list the facts the passage actually states before you read the options.
  2. A summary that drops one of those facts is incomplete, however well it reads.
  3. Watch what the passage merely SUSPECTS — a summary that turns a suspicion into a fact has changed it.
  4. For an error line, read each line on its own and check spelling, agreement and punctuation separately.
  5. Homophones are the common fault: knew and new, their and there, its and it's.

The best summary is the one that says everything the passage says and nothing it does not.

Writing – Clarity

Tested as “Writing – Clarity” on LASD Deputy Sheriff Trainee.

Given four sentences or sentence pairs, three poorly constructed, choosing the one that is correctly and clearly written.

Where people lose it

Eliminating on style or length instead of on a real fault. Every wrong option has a specific, nameable defect — a dangling modifier, an unclear pronoun, or a run-on — not just a clunky feel.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. For each option, name the fault type before moving to the next: dangling/misplaced modifier, unclear pronoun reference, or faulty parallel structure.
  2. For a modifier at the front of a sentence, check that the very next noun is the thing actually doing the action.
  3. For any pronoun ('it', 'they', 'both'), confirm there is exactly one thing it could point to.
  4. The surviving option should have zero nameable faults, not merely fewer than the others.

Name the fault in each wrong option. The right one is the one you cannot name a fault for.

Writing – Grammar

Tested as “Writing – Grammar” on LASD Deputy Sheriff Trainee.

Given a sentence and an instruction to change it (a different subject, tense, or number), working out how one underlined word or phrase must change as a result — and nothing else.

Where people lose it

Making an extra change the instruction did not ask for. The task explicitly forbids changes that are 'unnecessary or not requested', and an option that over-corrects is wrong exactly because it did more than asked.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Identify exactly what the instruction changes — subject number, tense, or person — and nothing else.
  2. Trace only how that one change forces the underlined word to change (subject-verb agreement, or tense agreement).
  3. Reject any option that changes voice, adds or drops words, or fixes something the original sentence did not have wrong.
  4. Say the whole new sentence in your head with the option substituted in — it should sound like ONE deliberate edit, not a rewrite.

Make the one change asked for. An option that does more than that is wrong regardless of how it reads.

Writing Skills

Tested as “Writing Skills” on CBP Officer.

Grammar, syntax, usage, punctuation, spelling and the order paragraphs belong in — the CBP Officer examination's first scored test.

Where people lose it

Reading for meaning instead of for correctness. A sentence whose point is perfectly clear can still be the wrong answer, and the option that sounds most natural in speech is often the one carrying the error.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Find the subject and its verb before anything else, and ignore whatever sits between them. "A record of the inspections are kept" has a singular subject.
  2. Check the words that get confused rather than misspelled: principles and principals, affect and effect, ensure and insure, site and cite, discrete and discreet.
  3. On a possessive, ask how many owners there are before deciding where the apostrophe goes, and remember that its and whose take none.
  4. On a paragraph-order item, find the paragraph that refers back to nothing — it is first — then follow the back-references. "Taken together" is almost always last.
  5. "No correction is necessary" is a real answer and it is keyed on roughly a quarter of the items that offer it. Do not manufacture an error to avoid choosing it.

This test decides whether you are invited to the Logical Reasoning Test at all. Read the whole sentence before looking at the options; the error is often not where your eye lands first.

Writing Skills for Correction Captains

Tested as “Writing Skills for Correction Captains” on NYS DOCCS Correction Captain.

Detecting grammar, punctuation and sentence-structure errors; choosing the clearest and most accurate restatement of information; and organizing sentences into a coherent paragraph — the three task types the Captain announcement itself names.

Where people lose it

Picking the option that 'sounds official' rather than the one that is grammatically correct and says exactly what the original statements say, no more and no less.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. For error-detection items, read each sentence once for grammar and once for punctuation.
  2. For restatement items, check every restatement against every fact in the original — an added plausible-sounding detail is still wrong.
  3. For paragraph-organization items, find the sentence that must come first before ranking the rest.

Read for what the sentences actually say, not for what a competent Captain would probably mean.

Writing Skills for Correction Lieutenants

Tested as “Writing Skills for Correction Lieutenants” on NYS DOCCS Correction Lieutenant.

Detecting grammar, punctuation and sentence-structure errors; choosing the clearest and most accurate restatement of information; and organizing sentences into a coherent paragraph — the three task types the Lieutenant announcement itself names.

Where people lose it

Picking the option that 'sounds official' rather than the one that is grammatically correct and says exactly what the original statements say, no more and no less.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. For error-detection items, read each sentence once for grammar and once for punctuation — the two errors rarely sit in the same clause.
  2. For restatement items, check every restatement against every fact in the original. An option that adds a plausible-sounding detail not actually stated is wrong even if it reads smoothly.
  3. For paragraph-organization items, find the sentence that must come first (it usually introduces the topic) before ranking the rest.

Read for what the sentences actually say, not for what a competent Lieutenant would probably mean.

Written Communication – Grammar

Tested as “Written Communication – Grammar” on BSCC/STC Corrections Entry.

Reading a short numbered-sentence paragraph and identifying which one sentence contains a grammatical error.

Where people lose it

Flagging a sentence that merely sounds awkward. The task is a specific, nameable grammatical fault — subject-verb agreement, tense consistency, pronoun reference, a fragment or run-on — not a style preference.

How to work itRankHigh method

  1. Read the whole paragraph once for meaning before checking any single sentence.
  2. Check tense consistency across the sentences — a narrative that shifts from past to present without reason is the single most common fault.
  3. Check each pronoun has one clear antecedent.
  4. Be able to name the specific fault in the sentence you pick. If you cannot say what is wrong in one sentence, you have not found it yet.

Exactly one sentence is wrong. The other three are not just acceptable, they are correct.

Carry this into the room

  • Verbal Expression: Clear beats formal. Every time.
  • Preparing Written Material: Read the notes once, then read each option asking only one question of it: could a reader who has not seen the notes be misled by this?
  • Clarity — POST PELLETB: Ask what could be misunderstood, not what sounds better.
  • Clarity — POST Dispatcher Battery: Both versions say roughly the same thing. One of them can be misread and the other cannot.
  • Describing a Scene: This is RankHigh skill practice. It trains the observation and comparison the examination's picture questions test; it does not reproduce the illustrated pictures CDCR uses, and no practice material outside CDCR's own does.
  • Information Presentation: Try to read each version a second way. The one you cannot misread is the answer.
  • Information Presentation From Notes: Read the source, then ask of each option only this: would a reader who never saw the source come away believing something it does not say?
  • Information Presentation From Notes in Outline Form: A restatement is not required to use every note — the guide's own sample leaves two out. It is required not to say anything the notes do not.
  • Language Fluency: The best summary is the one that says everything the passage says and nothing it does not.
  • Writing – Clarity: Name the fault in each wrong option. The right one is the one you cannot name a fault for.
  • Writing – Grammar: Make the one change asked for. An option that does more than that is wrong regardless of how it reads.
  • Writing Skills: This test decides whether you are invited to the Logical Reasoning Test at all. Read the whole sentence before looking at the options; the error is often not where your eye lands first.
  • Writing Skills for Correction Captains: Read for what the sentences actually say, not for what a competent Captain would probably mean.
  • Writing Skills for Correction Lieutenants: Read for what the sentences actually say, not for what a competent Lieutenant would probably mean.
  • Written Communication – Grammar: Exactly one sentence is wrong. The other three are not just acceptable, they are correct.

Practice it on your own exam

Method only sticks against real questions. Every exam in the catalog opens with a free twelve-question diagnostic — in your browser, with a worked explanation for every answer, and no signup.

Find your exam