Free NYS Trooper Exam Flashcards

You are shown three photographs and have six minutes total to study all three. After the six minutes elapse the images are taken away and you answer questions about them. You may not look back at the pictures while answering.

The ability to remember words, numbers, pictures and procedures and recall specific information on request. On the job this is remembering BOLOs, shift briefings, statutes, names, faces, codes, plate numbers and locations.

Use a fixed order every time so nothing gets skipped: people first (count, clothing colors, headwear), then vehicles and license plates, then signs and numbers, then background objects and positions. A repeatable sweep beats random staring.

Concrete, checkable attributes - colors of clothing or uniforms, counts of people and objects, numbers on signs and plates, and where things sit relative to each other. The published sample item simply asks what color the officers' shirts are.

Study a picture you have never seen before, such as one from a newspaper or magazine, for no more than two minutes. Then describe everything you saw, or have someone quiz you on it, without looking back at the image.

On the publisher's 65-item cognitive practice test, memorization is items 1-10 - ten items, twice as many as any other single ability, which each contribute five items. It is the largest single ability block on the cognitive section.

Every reading item gives you a passage, then asks you to summarize its main idea or recall a detail from it. The answer must come from the passage itself, not from outside knowledge.

Choosing an option that is true and lifted straight from the passage but far too specific. A main idea has to summarize the whole passage; an option built on one paragraph or one statistic is a distractor, however accurate it sounds.

Read the question first, then read the passage with that question in mind. As you go, note a one-line summary of each paragraph, then combine those notes into your own answer before you look at the options.

In-context items ask what an underlined word in a reading passage most closely means. No-context items ask you to pick the word with the most similar meaning to a given word, with no passage attached.

Read the sentence containing the target word, then replace it with each answer option in turn and reread. Eliminate every option that changes or breaks the meaning of the sentence, then make your best guess from what remains.

The study guide points candidates to high-school-level study aids - roughly 8th to 10th grade grammar, spelling and vocabulary materials, including GED preparation books - and to looking up unfamiliar words as you encounter them in reading.

You are given a short scenario and must choose the summary that presents the most important details most clearly and accurately. It is a short summary-selection task in multiple-choice form, not an essay or report to be written out.

The best option contains every key action in the scenario and adds nothing that was not there. Eliminate options that skip a key step (such as a warning given before police were called) and options that pad the summary with irrelevant detail.

Summarize a passage in one sentence, then have someone read only your summary. If they can tell what the original passage was about, your summary is complete; if they cannot, you dropped a key detail or buried it in filler.

Items ask you to complete a sentence correctly, covering word usage, spelling and punctuation, using only conventional, commonly accepted rules and commonly used words. Know whether/weather, affect/effect, then/than, their/there/they're and to/too.

Singular possessive adds 's (the child's bike). Plural possessive puts the apostrophe after the s (the twins' parents). Possessive its has no apostrophe; it's means it is. Possessive pronouns such as hers and yours never take one. In a contraction the apostrophe replaces the missing letters (couldn't, not could'nt).

The number of the subject sets the number of the verb (the girls run, the dog chases), pronoun number must match the noun it replaces (Trooper Summers took her break, not their break), and verb tense must stay consistent through a narrative rather than sliding between past and present.

Applying general rules and principles to a specific situation to reach a logical conclusion. Troopers use it when they apply statutes, policies and procedures to what is actually in front of them in the field.

You are given a table or passage of definitions, rules or policies, then a specific fact situation, and must decide the correct outcome. Everything needed to answer is in the supplied rules - nothing outside them is required.

Answering from prior knowledge or assumption instead of reading the whole rule set, usually because the topic looks familiar. Also check both halves of a two-part option: the yes/no verdict AND the reason given must both be correct.

You get a set of statements, often a witness account broken into numbered pieces and shuffled, and must select the answer that lists them in the correct chronological or logical order.

Read all of the statements before ordering anything, then tag each one as before, during or after the central event. Sequence each small group internally, then assemble the groups - this breaks one hard ordering task into several easy ones.

Read your chosen sequence straight through in order and confirm it flows logically. The two most common errors are starting to order before reading every statement, and never rereading the finished sequence - which usually reveals one or two steps that should swap.

Combining separate pieces of information into a general rule or conclusion. Troopers use it when they gather multiple facts about an incident and decide what happened and how to respond.

Every inductive item on this exam presents several witness or bystander accounts of one incident. You synthesize the separate accounts and select the conclusion the combined facts actually support.

Any conclusion resting on one witness's guess, opinion or assumption. Watch for circular sourcing, where a second witness merely repeats what a first witness said - that is still one source, not corroboration. Rely only on facts, and never on a single account.

You are shown a grid or set of figures with one cell missing and must identify the underlying rule or transformation, then pick the option that completes the pattern.

First decide whether the pattern runs across the rows or down the columns. Then name the transformation between adjacent figures - rotation, vertical or horizontal flip, translation, change of shape, change of size - and confirm it repeats in a second row or column before applying it.

The options are deliberately near-identical, so skimming them loses the small difference that decides the item. Predict the missing figure in your head first, then compare each option to that prediction feature by feature.

A target face is shown along with a stated change, such as the man removing his eyeglasses. You then pick the same person out of four similar faces after that change has been made.

Break the face into shapes and work from large features to small: head shape first, then jawline, brow ridge, nose, eyes and eyebrows, lips and cheeks. Eliminate an option as soon as one feature clearly differs from the target.

Skin tone, eye color and other colorations are not intentionally manipulated. Apparent differences there come from shadow, facial angle or hairstyle, so judge only by the shape of facial features.

You are given a street map and a route described in cardinal directions - south on one avenue, west on a street, north on another - and must identify where you end up or which listed intersection is closest to that end point.

Find the compass rose first, mark your starting intersection, then trace the route one turn at a time and mark the end point. Mark each answer-option intersection on the map too, so the final comparison is visual rather than remembered.

Orienting yourself incorrectly - judging a turn from outside the map instead of from the perspective of someone travelling inside it. Practice by printing a map of your own city and writing turn-by-turn directions between two points.

Detecting a known pattern - a figure, face, word or plate number - that is hidden among distracting material. Troopers use it to pick a suspect's face out of a crowd or spot one license plate in heavy traffic.

Scan the whole image once for each answer option rather than reading the image once and hoping. Read every character of each plate: distractor plates often share the first or last characters and differ only in the middle.

Split the image into four quadrants and count the target in one quadrant at a time, then add the quadrant totals. Counting the whole image at once is the reason candidates undercount.

It is 85 of the 150 items on the exam, answered in a separately timed 20-minute block, and it comes in two parts. It measures behavioral characteristics and attitudes rather than cognitive ability.

Part 1 gives statements you rate on a five-point scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. Part 2 gives two statements and asks which one you agree with more - a forced choice with no neutral option.

No. The section is built so that dishonest responding lowers your score. Response strategies such as using only the extreme ends of the scale, or any other pattern, are flagged by the exam. Answer candidly with your first reaction.

150 multiple-choice questions in two hours, delivered as a computer-based test at Pearson VUE test centers. The two sections are timed separately: 65 cognitive ability items in 1 hour 40 minutes, then 85 personality attributes items in 20 minutes.

Reading and writing (Reading/Writing); deductive reasoning, ordering of information, inductive reasoning and pattern recognition (Fluid Intelligence/Reasoning); grammar and vocabulary (Crystallized Intelligence); visualization, spatial orientation and flexibility of closure (Visual Intelligence); and memorization (Short-Term Memory).

Your score is the number of questions answered correctly, with no points deducted for wrong answers, so leave nothing blank and reserve a few minutes at the end to guess on anything skipped. The exam measures no job knowledge - no prior law enforcement training is required.

Application, then the entrance examination at a Pearson VUE center, then placement on a ranked eligibility list, then the Physical Ability Test, candidate processing, background investigation, polygraph examination, medical examination, and finally appointment to the State Police Academy.

You must be 20 to 43 years old to apply, and the maximum age is extended by one year for each year of full-time active military service, up to seven years. You must be at least 21 to be appointed and must be appointed before your 44th birthday.

A High School or Equivalency Diploma to apply. For appointment to the Academy you additionally need one of: 30 college credit hours from an accredited college or university; completion of military Initial Entry Training with an honorable discharge received or expected; or the New York State MPTC-certified Basic Course for Police Officers.

You must be a citizen of the United States. At the time of appointment you must be a New York State resident and hold a valid New York State driver's license.

Candidates are ranked on the eligibility list by exam score plus any applicable veteran's credit. Non-disabled veterans may receive five extra points; disabled veterans may receive ten, if certified by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs with a service-connected disability rated at 10% or more and eligible to receive payments. Credits must be claimed with documentation during the application window.