- POST stands for National Police Officer Selection Test, developed by Stanard & Associates.
- It is a 75-item, four-section pre-employment test, not a renewable certification.
- Reading Comprehension carries the most items: 25 questions in 25 minutes.
- Arithmetic must be solved without a calculator in a strict 20-minute window.
What Does POST Stand For?
POST stands for National Police Officer Selection Test. It's a pre-employment exam that law enforcement agencies use to screen entry-level candidates before they move on to interviews, background checks, and academy training. If you've been asked to take "the POST test" as part of an application to a police department or sheriff's office, this is almost certainly the exam in question.
The acronym gets confusing fast because several unrelated credentials in different fields also use the letters "POST." This article, and the rest of the content on POST Exam Prep, focuses exclusively on the National Police Officer Selection Test built by Stanard & Associates. If a fact doesn't trace back to that specific exam, we leave it out rather than guess.
Who Develops and Owns the POST Exam
Stanard & Associates develops and publishes the National Police Officer Selection Test. Agencies can administer it in printed or online format depending on what fits their hiring process, which means your testing experience can vary slightly by department even though the content and structure stay the same.
Because Stanard designs the test rather than any single police department, the exam is meant to be a standardized, portable measure of the basic cognitive and communication skills entry-level officers need - not a test tied to one agency's local policies or laws. That standardization is exactly why so many departments across the country rely on the same instrument instead of writing their own screening exams from scratch.
For a deeper look at how the test fits into the broader hiring pipeline, read POST Certification and What Is POST Certification?, which walk through where the exam sits relative to interviews, physical testing, and background investigations.
Inside the Four Timed Sections
The National Police Officer Selection Test contains 75 total items split across four separately timed sections. Each section is scored and timed on its own, so you can't borrow extra minutes from one part to finish another. Understanding this structure in advance is one of the biggest advantages a candidate can have walking in.
Domain 1: Arithmetic
20 questions in 20 minutes. Candidates solve math problems without a calculator, so mental math and quick estimation matter as much as knowing the correct formula.
- No calculator allowed - practice manual computation, not just concepts
- Pace yourself: roughly one minute per question
- Common areas include basic operations, fractions, percentages, and word problems
Domain 2: Reading Comprehension
25 questions in 25 minutes - the largest section on the test by item count. Passages resemble the kind of written material officers encounter on the job, and questions test whether you can extract accurate, literal information under time pressure.
- Largest domain on the exam; expect it to carry significant weight in your prep schedule
- Answer based only on what's stated in the passage, not outside knowledge
- Practice reading quickly while still catching specific details
Domain 3: Grammar
20 questions in 15 minutes, the tightest time-per-question ratio on the test. This section checks whether you can identify correct sentence structure, punctuation, and word usage quickly.
- Fastest pace of any section - roughly 45 seconds per question
- Focus on commonly confused words, punctuation rules, and subject-verb agreement
- Speed comes from familiarity, not guessing - review rules ahead of time
Domain 4: Incident Report Writing
10 questions in 15 minutes, and this section requires writing in complete sentences rather than selecting multiple-choice answers. It simulates the kind of factual, organized writing officers must produce for real incident reports.
- Complete sentences are required - sentence fragments are not acceptable
- Clarity and factual accuracy matter more than elaborate vocabulary
- Practice summarizing scenario details in a logical, chronological order
Because Reading Comprehension has the most items of any section, it's worth extra attention when you plan your study time. For a full breakdown of how the four domains interact and where candidates typically lose points, see POST Exam Domains 2026: Complete Guide to All 4 Content Areas.
Key Takeaway
Treat each of the four sections as its own mini-test with its own clock. Practicing under section-specific time limits - especially the 15-minute Grammar and Incident Report Writing sections - builds the pacing instincts that matter most on test day.
| Section | Questions | Time Allowed | Notable Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arithmetic | 20 | 20 minutes | No calculators permitted |
| Reading Comprehension | 25 | 25 minutes | Largest section on the exam |
| Grammar | 20 | 15 minutes | Fastest required pace |
| Incident Report Writing | 10 | 15 minutes | Requires complete sentences |
Registration, Fees, and Who Sets the Rules
Unlike a national licensing exam with one fixed price, the National Police Officer Selection Test is administered through individual hiring agencies, and those agencies decide the candidate fee, eligibility requirements, and qualifying score cutoff for their own hiring rounds. This means your specific cost and passing threshold depend on which department you're applying to, not on Stanard directly.
If you want to study using official materials outside of an agency's own prep resources, Stanard sells an official online practice test for $17.50 and a study guide for $7.50. These are modest, one-time purchases rather than subscription products, which fits the nature of the exam: it's a single pre-employment screening tool, not a renewable license you maintain over a career.
For candidates trying to plan a hiring timeline around when local departments open testing windows, POST Exam Dates 2026: Testing Windows, Deadlines & Scheduling covers how agency-specific scheduling typically works. And if you're weighing whether the exam and hiring process are worth the time investment, Is the POST Certification Worth It? Complete ROI Analysis 2026 looks at that question directly.
Because each agency sets its own qualifying score, "passing" can mean different things at different departments. If you want a clearer sense of how scoring generally works and what a strong result looks like, POST Passing Score 2026: Exactly What You Need to Pass and POST Pass Rate 2026: What the Data Shows go into more detail on that distinction. Eligibility questions - like what agencies typically require before you can even sit for the test - are covered in POST Requirements 2026: Eligibility, Prerequisites & How to Qualify.
Why the Name Confuses People
Search results for "POST" turn up a mix of unrelated topics because the acronym is reused across different fields. Job seekers researching police hiring exams sometimes land on content describing a completely different credential - different developer, different fee structure, different format - and walk away with facts that don't apply to the actual test they're about to take.
The safest approach: confirm you're looking at content specific to the National Police Officer Selection Test from Stanard & Associates before you rely on any number, fee, or format detail. Related explainer pages on this site - What Does POST Mean? and What Is A POST? - walk through the naming confusion in more depth if you're still verifying which exam applies to your application.
If your recruiter or agency HR page mentions "POST" alongside a police officer job posting, cross-check the section names - Arithmetic, Reading Comprehension, Grammar, and Incident Report Writing - against whatever materials you've been given. If those four names match, you're preparing for the right exam.
A Domain-Aware Way to Prepare
Generic study advice - flashcards, timed drills, review cycles - only helps if it's mapped onto the actual structure of this specific test. Because each section has its own time limit, your prep schedule should mirror that structure rather than treating the exam as one undifferentiated block of material.
Arithmetic Fundamentals
- Drill no-calculator arithmetic: fractions, percentages, basic word problems
- Time yourself at roughly one minute per question to match the real 20/20 pacing
Reading Comprehension Depth
- Practice full-length passages under a 25-question, 25-minute limit
- Focus on answering strictly from passage text, since this section carries the most items
Grammar Speed Work
- Review punctuation, word usage, and agreement rules until recall is near-automatic
- Practice at the compressed 45-second-per-question pace required by the 15-minute limit
Incident Report Writing & Full Run-Through
- Practice writing concise, complete-sentence summaries of sample scenarios
- Take a full timed run of all four sections back-to-back to build stamina
For a more detailed walkthrough of study strategies mapped to each section, POST Study Guide 2026: How to Pass on Your First Attempt expands on this timeline. If you're still gauging how difficult the exam is likely to feel relative to your current skills, How Hard Is the POST Exam? Complete Difficulty Guide 2026 breaks down where most candidates find the exam more or less challenging.
Once you've built comfort with the format, a quick-reference summary can help the week before your test date. POST Cheat Sheet 2026: One-Page Review of Must-Know Facts condenses the section names, timing, and rules into a single review page. And if you're using our practice test platform to simulate the exam, running full timed sections - not just isolated question sets - will give you the clearest read on where you stand.
Key Takeaway
Because Grammar and Incident Report Writing share the tightest time limits, practicing those two sections under real timing pressure earlier in your prep - not just the week before - pays off more than over-focusing on Arithmetic alone.
Beyond the exam itself, it helps to understand where it fits in a law enforcement career path. POST Training and POST Jobs cover what typically comes after a passing score, while POST Salary Guide 2026: Complete Earnings Analysis and POST Certification Cost 2026: Complete Pricing Breakdown address the practical questions candidates often ask once hiring is underway.
Frequently Asked Questions
POST stands for National Police Officer Selection Test, a pre-employment exam developed by Stanard & Associates and used by hiring agencies to screen entry-level police candidates.
No. It's a one-time, pre-employment selection test rather than a renewable certification, so there's no recertification or continuing education requirement tied to the test itself.
There are 75 total items across four separately timed sections: Arithmetic (20), Reading Comprehension (25), Grammar (20), and Incident Report Writing (10).
No. Calculators are not permitted during the Arithmetic section, so candidates must solve all 20 questions by hand within the 20-minute limit.
Individual hiring agencies set candidate fees, eligibility rules, and qualifying score cutoffs, since Stanard & Associates develops the test itself but doesn't control how each department applies it.