How You Are Judged for Your Services Written Exam

If you’re looking to secure a job in a local, state, or government body in New York, then you might need to take the New York State civil service exam.

New York State has one of the largest and most extensively regulated civil systems in the United States and worldwide. Serving over a million employees, the NYC civil system administers municipal and state activities working in coordination with executive and federal governments to benefit the state and adhere to the laws.

The civil service exam is designed to ensure that candidates have the necessary knowledge and skills required to pursue a state job in New York State.

Once you are eligible to sit for an exam and have met the requirements, you can apply for the civil service exam. Passing the exam isn’t usually enough, but seeking higher marks will increase your chances of making it to your dream job. Here’s your guide to the civil service written exam and how you’re judged:

The NYC Civil Service Exam Format

The exam format contains categories that test your comprehension and knowledge.

Oral and Essay Exams

This part of the exam tests your logical and critical reasoning skills. Along with testing your critical reasoning and rationale skills, your ability to speak and write eloquently is also determined in this test. Either you will have to write your answer clearly in the form of a well-developed essay or orally present your answer to a group of people on a panel.

Past Training and Experience Assessment

To ensure the verification of your past training and assessment, you are required to prove or produce evidence in the form of additional supplements for your examination. These supplements can include reports or recommendations from your past employers or trainers.

Multiple Choice Assessment

The position you are applying for will cater to a list of specific categories included in the multiple choice exam. These questions will involve either a description answer or a short answer, even an answer to finish an incomplete statement. You will be asked to choose or select an answer that, according to you, best finishes the statement. 

Performance and Real Life Job Stimulation Exam

For certain positions such as firefighters or law enforcement officers, you may be presented with real-life opportunities, and your response to these situations will be tested. Examples could be testing physical strength, your fitness level, typing speed, and so on.

We’ll focus on the written exam part of the civil service exam, which will cover multiple-choice assessments and what it includes, such as educating and interacting with the public, office record keeping, understanding and interpreting reading material.

How Are You Judged on a Multiple Choice Assessment

As mentioned before, this section allows you to choose based on what you think to be the correct answer. Ensure you read the questions correctly and look for keywords that can help you assess the language and choose with regards to proper reasoning and logic. Below are some of the different types of multiple-choice questions:

The first section is on arithmetic reasoning, which will cover arithmetic problems involving simple calculations. Read the question, understand what is being asked of you, and start by doing what you feel is right.

Educating and Interacting With the Public

This part of the test deals with the duties of a potential civil service candidate. The duty entails informing and educating the public over topics of concern or clarifying and negotiating conflicts. As a civil servant to the state, your duty deals primarily with interacting and discussing with the general public over essential affairs of the state and general public welfare concerns.

This part will present you with situations and assess your response and knowledge of interactions.

Office Record Keeping

This part of the process involves essential civil service duties, which deal with keeping track, organizing, and maintaining crucial confidential information. As a civil servant, you will be constantly exposed to confidential and vital information, and your duty will entail processing and managing all this different information.

This test will involve collecting and organizing data obtained by you from the different sources, maintaining a record system, and presenting data in the correct format with the proper calculations. All of this is to be done in a standardized manner and makes it possible for anyone in authority to assess and understand the document without the officer being present to explain it.

Understanding and Deciphering Written Material

This part of the test will test your interpreting and comprehension skills. You will be presented with reading passages over cases or real-life situations. You will be assessed on your ability to choose the correct interpretive answer based on your assessment and understanding of the question.

Once you’re done with the written part of the exam, be sure to go over each answer and double-check it.

You may need to take the civil services exam if you apply for state positions involving police force, firefighter, NYS Court job, Metro transit bus operator, public safety officer, and environmental conservation officer.

As these positions concern the state and the people, you are bestowed a level of trust. This trust is established by assessing your level of skill and understanding to deal with these situations and respond in the interest of preserving the law of the state.

If you’re looking to prepare for the NYC civil service exams in Suffolk County and secure the top marks to make your selection more probable, we can help you out.

At Civil Service Success, we work to prepare thousands of candidates to appear for a range of state positions. We offer preparatory courses for NYC civil service exams, NYS court officer exam Westchester, Sanitation Worker Exam NYC, NYC Firefighter preparation classes, and much more.

We prepare candidates to ensure top marks in the test and prepare them through the entire process involving interviews and background investigations. Reach out to us to learn more and avail the best preparatory classes for your dream job.