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WHAT ABOUT ACWA?
If you have friends who have entered federal law enforcement service within the past few years, you have
probably heard about ACWA, the Administrative Careers With America exam. At one time, OPM did
nearly all the testing and hiring for federal agencies, and ACWA was an important component of the
process. With the decentralization of hiring, the ACWA program has been discontinued. Some agencies
may request that OPM administer the ACWA exam rather than a tailor-made exam for certain positions
(the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Inspector position comes to mind), but they are relatively
few. While the ACWA exam itself is seldom used, ACWA-type questions have been liberally adopted
by other examinations. The TEA exam, for instance, includes ACWA reading comprehension and
mathematics. A number of exams make use of or adapt the self-rating section of ACWA known as the
IAR, often without previous warning or sample questions. Since the bulk of the ACWA questions appear
on other exams already described, the following official sample questions represent only a portion of the
set. The Vocabulary and Tabular Completion sections may well be utilized in some tailor-made exams,
so we offer them here for you to examine. They are not a part of the best-known named exams. You cannot
prepare for the self-rating questions, but we are presenting a sampling for you here to spare you the
possibility of disconcerting surprises.
Vocabulary
Law enforcement occupations require you to communicate well in both written and spoken language.
Consequently, a good vocabulary is important for successful job performance. The questions present a
key word and five suggested answers. Your task is to find the answer that is closest in meaning to the key
word. Wrong answers may have some connection with the word, but their meanings will be essentially
different from that of the key word. On the ACWA exam, there are 15 vocabulary questions. ACWA
directions recommend spending no more than five minutes to answer the 15 vocabulary questions.
1.
FRAUDULENT means most nearly
(A) suspicious.
(B) unproven.
(C) deceptive.
(D) unfair.
(E) despicable.
The word fraudulent means characterized by deceit or trickery, especially deliberate misrepresenta-
tion. Therefore, response C, deceptive, is the best synonym. Responses A, D, and E could be viewed as
slightly related to the meaning of fraudulent. Response A, suspicious--sensing that something is wrong
without definite proof--could describe a person's reaction to a fraudulent situation. Response D, unfair,
and response E, despicable, could both be used to describe a fraudulent act. However, the basic meanings
of these three words are completely different from the meaning of fraudulent. Response B, unproven, is
clearly unrelated to the meaning of fraudulent.
2.
ALLEGATION means most nearly
(A) denial.
(B) response.
(C) inquiry.
(D) assertion.
(E) revelation.
