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Federal Examinations
Federal law enforcement positions are filled through a number of different examinations. Most of these
examinations have been developed over the years by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the
government's overall personnel office. Some exams are administered by the OPM for the agencies at their
request. Others are administered directly by the agencies. Some of these exams are known by their
distinctive names such as the Treasury Enforcement Agent Exam (TEA), given to special agent
candidates in a number of agencies and departments. Other OPM exams have descriptive titles such as
the Federal Clerical Examination or are simply known by the job titles for which they test, as in the Border
Patrol Agent Exam. Still other exams are tailor-made for specific positions. These exams tend to draw
questions from the whole gamut of OPM exams as appropriate to the specific position. If you find yourself
taking one of these tailor-made exams, you will surely recognize elements of exams described in these
pages. Your best preparation for any unspecified exam is familiarity and competence with all exam
question types represented in these pages.
The first examination that follows has no distinctive name; the Office of Personnel Management
identifies it by number. This examination is administered to applicants for a variety of government jobs,
not all of them in law enforcement.
This exam includes five different types of questions. The first, name and number comparisons, checks
for detail-mindedness and speed and accuracy of observation and discrimination. The two verbal skills
question types, reading comprehension and vocabulary, seek to measure the applicant's ability
to understand directions and written materials and to communicate effectively. The last two types
of questions, figure analogies and number series, are measures of reasoning, analytical ability, and
creative thinking.
The sample questions that follow are the official sample questions distributed by the Office of
Personnel Management. Try your hand at these questions to evaluate your skill with them and your
chances for success on this exam. We have supplied a full set of explanations of the correct answers to
help you understand the rationale behind the questions and to lead your thinking processes so you can
answer such questions on your own.
The structure of a recent full-length exam was as follows:
Part I:
Name and Number Comparisons
8 minutes; 50 questions
Questions were arranged in order of increasing difficulty so that toward the end of the
section number groups consisted of 8 and 9 digits.
Part II
Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension
25 minutes; 30 questions
15 vocabulary questions; 15 reading questions
Part III: Symbol Reasoning
20 minutes; 20 questions
Questions were based on curves and angles, on sizes of symbols, and on location of symbols
within symbols rather than on quality of lines as in the sample questions.
Part IV: Numerical Sequence
20 minutes; 24 questions
