RankHighCompetitive Exam Prep

CBP Officer or Border Patrol Agent: Which Exam Are You Sitting?

Same employer, same logical reasoning test, one extra scored test. If you are applying for CBP Officer you take a Writing Skills Test that Border Patrol applicants never see.

What is the same

The Logical Reasoning Test. CBP teaches it from the same lesson in both preparation guides, and seven of the eight practice questions printed in the two guides are identical word for word. As far as CBP's published material shows, it is one instrument used for both titles.

So is the Candidate Experience Record, which comes first in both and which CBP says needs no preparation, and so is the 90-day wait after a failing score.

What is different

CBP Officer has three parts to Border Patrol's two. The extra one is the Writing Skills Test, it comes second, and it removes candidates: fail it and you are not invited to the Logical Reasoning Test.

The timings differ too. Border Patrol's reasoning test runs 120 minutes; the CBP Officer version runs 83, with 63 minutes given to writing beforehand. And the roles are different jobs in different parts of CBP — Border Patrol Agents work between the ports of entry, CBP Officers at them.

  • Border Patrol Agent: Experience Record (40 min) then Logical Reasoning (120 min)
  • CBP Officer: Experience Record (60 min), Writing Skills (63 min), Logical Reasoning (83 min)
  • Only CBP Officer has a writing test, and only CBP Officer removes candidates part-way

Which product you want

If you are applying for CBP Officer, you want the writing test as well as the reasoning test, because the writing test is the one that ends applications. If you are applying for Border Patrol Agent, a writing bank prepares nothing you will sit.

RankHigh sells them as two products for that reason, and shares the reasoning bank between them rather than writing it twice.

Sources

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