This police exam cheat sheet boils the National POST's four scored sections down to the memory hooks examiners test most, so you can cram fast and walk in confident. It's a premium cheat sheet built by Capital Prep — the one premium prep we trust — and it's yours free. Pair it with the rest of your free POST toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
Police Exam exam at a glance
- Test provider: Stanard & Associates, Inc. (National POST)
- Questions: 75 multiple-choice across four sections
- Time: 75 minutes total — each section separately timed
- Passing score: 70% or higher on EACH section (agencies may set higher cutoffs)
- Cost: Set locally — often modest or covered by the hiring agency
- Eligibility: Entry-level; no prior law enforcement experience required
What’s on the Police Exam cheat sheet
- Mathematics (20 Q / 20 min) — no-calculator word problems, fraction-to-percent conversions, and rate and average setups.
- Reading Comprehension (25 Q / 25 min) — main idea versus supporting detail, inference rules, and answering only from the passage — the largest section.
- Grammar, Spelling & Clarity (20 Q / 15 min) — subject-verb agreement, comma and semicolon rules, and the high-frequency trouble and confused words.
- Incident Report Writing (10 Q / 15 min) — the 5 W's and H, facts versus conclusions, and clear chronological order for a usable report.
How to use it in your final week
- Front-load report writing: memorize the 5 W's and H and the fact-versus-conclusion rule, since the Incident Report Writing section still demands its own 70% despite being the shortest.
- Burn in the math shortcuts — 10% shifts the decimal one place, rate = distance ÷ time, average = sum ÷ count — because police math is mental arithmetic with no calculator.
- Do one timed pass per section against the real clocks (Math 20 min, Reading 25 min, Grammar 15 min, Report Writing 15 min) so a fast clock never catches you off guard.
- Read the grammar and spelling trap words the morning of the test — warrant, receive, separate, occurred, plus its/it's and their/there — for a final quick refresh.
The cheat sheet is your review layer — your Police Exam practice test drives the exam-readiness ring at the top of this page. Download it, review, then take a full practice exam (or drill with the study guide and flashcards) to see where you stand.
Police Exam cheat sheet FAQ
Yes — the police exam cheat sheet downloads as a PDF with no sign-up and no paywall. It sits alongside Career Employer's free POST toolkit: the practice test, study guide, and flashcards.
It condenses the National POST's four scored sections — Mathematics, Reading Comprehension, Grammar, and Incident Report Writing — into a fast reference of memory hooks: fraction-to-percent conversions, main-idea versus inference rules, high-frequency grammar traps, and the 5 W's and H for reports.
The common benchmark is 70% or higher, and on the National POST you must clear 70% on each of the four sections independently. Cut scores are set by the hiring agency, so some departments require more and some rank applicants on an eligibility list — always confirm with yours.
The sheet is built around the National POST from Stanard & Associates, but the tested skills — reading, writing, math, and reasoning — overlap heavily with the NCJOSI, FrontLine National, and most civil-service exams, so it transfers to whichever version your agency uses.
No — the sheet is a final-week review and memory-anchor tool, not a substitute for timed practice. Use it to lock in the facts, then run full, separately timed section drills so pacing is automatic on test day.
References
- 1.Stanard & Associates, Inc.. “National POST — Police Officer Selection Test.” Stanard & Associates (APPL First), 2026. ↑
- 2.Stanard & Associates, Inc.. “The National Police Officer Selection Test (POST).” Stanard.com, 2026. ↑
- 3.National Testing Network. “FrontLine National — Law Enforcement Entry-Level Test.” National Testing Network, 2026. ↑
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