7.4 Promotion Testing & Test Control

Who Builds the Test

Air Education and Training Command, Studies and Analysis Squadron, Airman Advancement Section, Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, produces all USAF enlisted promotion tests. AFH 1 characterizes them as "written by Airmen for Airmen."

The development process is described in a sequence that generates items:

1. Teams of SNCOs travel to work in-house with test development specialists, applying their knowledge to develop current, relevant, and accurate questions
2. At the beginning of a test development project, the most current tests are administered to the test development teams — giving writers the point of view of the test takers and helping them evaluate how content relates to performance in their specialties
3. Teams carefully check the references of each question for currency and accuracy
4. Only after this do the teams begin developing new test questions
5. Throughout, test development specialists provide psychometric and developmental expertise to ensure tests are credible, valid, and fair to all examinees

Step 2 is the counterintuitive one and therefore the most frequently keyed: test writers take the current test first, before writing anything.

PFE Versus SKT Development

SKT development resources include Career Field Education and Training Plans, occupational analysis data, and experience, to ensure content relates to important tasks performed in the specialty — the direct link back to the Occupational Analysis Program in Section 7D.

The grade distinction matters. PFE questions are written by Chiefs; SKT questions are written by SNCOs in the career field. Items commonly swap these.

The Promotion Catalog

AFH 1 describes the Enlisted Promotions References and Requirements Catalog (EPRRC), published annually on 1 October, which lists all enlisted promotion tests authorized for administration and the study references associated with them.

Two rules define its authority:

• Every question on a promotion test comes from one of the publications listed in the catalog
• Only publications used to support questions on a given promotion test are listed

That second rule is what makes the catalog a genuine blueprint rather than a reading list. If a publication is not listed for your test, no question on your test came from it.

AFH 1 adds a warning worth internalizing: CDCs used as study references may be different from those issued for upgrade training. Do not assume the CDC on your shelf is the CDC your SKT was built from.

The catalog also contains administrative and special instructions for test control officers, and is available at studyguides.af.mil.

Current practice note. The product AFH 1 calls the EPRRC is now published as the WAPS Catalog, issued per grade and per cycle rather than as a single 1 October volume — the 2026 E-5 and E-6 catalogs carry their own publication dates and change pages. The principle is unchanged: the catalog identifies the tests and the references from which every question is drawn.

Administration and Scoring

Promotion tests are administered electronically to all Airmen competing for promotion to Staff Sergeant through Technical Sergeant, and administration procedures are standardized to ensure fairness. All promotion tests are electronically scored at HQ AETC SAS following thorough quality control steps.

Paper administration is the exception, requiring Air Force Personnel Center approval, with strict procedures for handling, storing, and transmitting booklets and answer sheets at all times, and a scanning and scoring process with many safeguards conducted at AFPC.

The Minimum Scores — Know These Cold

This is the closest thing the PFE has to a pass/fail line. The PFE has no standalone pass/fail status in the usual sense — your score feeds the WAPS composite and selection is by order of merit within your AFSC — but an Airman who fails to reach these minimums is rendered a promotion non-select for the cycle regardless of every other factor.

Worked example 1. An Airman scores 42 on the PFE and 46 on the SKT. Each is above the 40 minimum, but the combined score is 88 — below 90. The Airman does not meet the minimum combined score.

Worked example 2. An Airman scores exactly 40 on the SKT. To reach a combined 90 they must score at least 50 on the PFE — which is exactly what AFH 1's rule says.

Worked example 3. An Airman in an SKT-exempt AFSC scores 44 on the PFE only. Doubled, that is 88 — short of 90, and below the stated 45-point minimum. A 45 doubles to exactly 90 and meets the standard.

Promotion Points

AFH 1 keeps this deliberately brief: "Calculating points for promotion can be a somewhat complex, but not complicated process," and directs readers to AFI 36-2502 for the complete charts, exceptions, and notes for calculating points and factors.

For your own planning, the relevant charts in the current AFI set the maximum weighted factors for SSgt and TSgt promotion at 100 points for the SKT, 100 points for the PFE, 25 points for decorations, and 285 points assigned from up to three Enlisted Performance Briefs through the Promotion Recommendation Score — a 510-point maximum composite. Chapter 1 of this guide works that math in full.