What the CritiCall Test Actually Involves

If you are applying for a 911 dispatcher or public-safety telecommunicator job in the United States, there is a reasonable chance you will sit a pre-employment skills test built by Biddle Consulting Group. Most candidates hear the name long before they see the software, and most of what circulates about it is secondhand: someone's cousin took it, it was brutal, there was a lot of typing. That is not enough to prepare against.

The first thing worth understanding is structural, and it changes how you should think about the whole process.

It is not one test. It is a library.

CritiCall is not a single fixed exam with a fixed running order and a fixed passing score. It is a catalog of short, timed component tests that a hiring agency assembles into a battery. The agency chooses which components to include, sometimes based on a job analysis of what its own dispatchers actually do, sometimes based on what the previous hiring cycle used. Two agencies in the same county can run meaningfully different batteries.

This is why nobody on a forum can tell you exactly what you will face, and why you should be skeptical of anyone who claims to. The honest answer to "what is on the CritiCall test" is: a subset of the following, selected by the agency you applied to, in an order and with time limits you will not know until you sit down.

What you can do is understand the component types well enough that none of them are a surprise, and get your baseline skills high enough that the specific mix stops mattering much.

The component types

Data entry

You are shown information -- a name, an address, a plate, a phone number, a vehicle description -- and you type it into fields. Sometimes you read it from the screen; sometimes you hear it. Accuracy is scored alongside speed, and the numeric and alphanumeric strings are where most candidates bleed points. Ordinary prose typing practice does not fix this, because ordinary prose contains almost no digits. Deliberate work on timed data entry is one of the highest-yield things you can do.

Cross-referencing

You are given a value and a reference table, and you must find the matching row and report or enter something from it. Think of looking up a code in a list, or matching a unit designator to a status. It is a lookup-under-time-pressure task, and it rewards a disciplined eye more than raw speed. Cross-referencing drills train the scanning pattern.

Character comparison

Two strings are shown side by side and you decide whether they are identical. The strings are built to defeat casual reading: transposed digits, a one-versus-lowercase-L substitution, a doubled letter. This is the single most common place where confident, fast readers lose marks, because reading comprehension skills actively work against you here. You need to compare, not read.

Memory and recall

Information is presented, then removed, then you are asked about it -- sometimes after an intervening task designed to disrupt rehearsal. This mirrors the real job, where a caller gives you a description once and does not repeat it. Recall practice works, but it works by teaching you an encoding habit rather than by expanding raw memory.

Reading, spelling, and sentence clarity

Reading comprehension items give you a passage -- often policy-flavored or procedural -- and ask what it does and does not say. Spelling components typically ask you to identify or correct misspelled words drawn from the vocabulary of the job. Sentence clarity asks you to pick the clearest of several versions of the same statement. All three exist because dispatchers write records that get read in court.

Math

Basic arithmetic under time pressure: percentages, elapsed time, simple addition and subtraction, occasionally unit conversion. Nothing beyond high school, but the clock makes ordinary arithmetic feel harder than it is.

Prioritization and decision making

You are given several simultaneous situations and asked which gets attention first, or given a scenario and asked what a reasonable next step is. These items are written against general public-safety logic -- life safety before property, in-progress before cold, confirmed before unconfirmed. Note carefully that this is test logic, not operational instruction. In a real center, your agency's protocol and your supervisor govern what you actually do, and local policy can and does differ from the general reasoning a test rewards.

Map reading

You read a simple grid or street map and determine routes, directions, or the closest unit. It is spatial reasoning with a compass rose, not local geography, so you cannot study a city in advance to prepare.

Audio data entry

You listen to simulated radio or phone audio and type what you hear. Audio quality is deliberately imperfect. Accents, background noise, and stress in the speaker's voice are all part of the test.

Multitasking with interrupts

This is the component that defines the test's reputation. You perform a primary task -- usually data entry or cross-referencing -- and are periodically interrupted by something you must handle, then returned to where you were. The scoring covers both threads. Candidates rarely fail because either task is hard. They fail on the seam: the two or three seconds of disorientation after each switch. We wrote separately about why candidates fail the multitasking sections, because the failure mode is specific and fixable.

Why a universal pass rate cannot exist

You will see pass-rate figures quoted online as though they were properties of the test. They are not, and the reason is worth understanding because it also tells you something about your own odds.

The battery is modular and the minimum scores are set locally. An agency decides which components to include, how they are weighted, and what score constitutes passing for its purposes. That cut score reflects the agency's own job analysis and often its hiring pressure -- a center with vacancies and a small applicant pool sets a different threshold than one with hundreds of applicants for two seats, and the same agency may set it differently between cycles.

So a single national pass rate would have to average across different component sets, different weightings, different thresholds, and different applicant pools. Any figure presented that way is describing nothing measurable. The practical implication: stop asking how hard the test is in the abstract and start asking how clean your typing and comparison work is, because that is the part you control.

How to prepare when you do not know the components

Preparation that assumes ignorance of the mix is actually straightforward, because the components share underlying skills.

• Numeric and alphanumeric typing accuracy. It feeds data entry, audio entry, and the multitasking components at once. If you fix one thing, fix this.
• Comparison discipline. Train yourself to verify character by character rather than reading for meaning.
• Interrupt recovery. Practice with interruptions deliberately built in, not in silence. The skill is resuming, and you cannot train it in a quiet room.
• Sustained attention. Most of these batteries run well over an hour. Do at least a couple of full-length sessions so the fatigue is not new information on test day.

If your test date is close, the sequencing matters more than the volume; our two-week preparation plan lays out an order that front-loads diagnosis. If you want to know about the logistics of the day itself -- ID, timing, what the room is like -- see what to expect on test day.

CritiCall is a registered trademark of Biddle Consulting Group, Inc. DispatchDrills is an independent practice provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Biddle Consulting Group, Inc. We do not reproduce exam content; every example in our material is original and illustrative only.

Common questions

How long does the test take?

It depends entirely on how many components your agency selected. A short battery might run under an hour; a broad one can run substantially longer, and some agencies add breaks between sections while others do not. Your invitation email or the agency's testing coordinator is the authority on this, and it is a reasonable thing to ask when you confirm your slot.

Can I find out which components my agency uses?

Sometimes. Some agencies publish an outline of the skills tested in the job posting or in a candidate information packet. Many do not. It is worth reading the posting closely and asking the human resources contact directly -- the worst answer you get is that they do not disclose it, which is still information.

Is there a typing speed requirement?

Typing minimums for dispatcher roles commonly fall somewhere in the 30 to 45 words per minute range, and they usually function as a hard gate rather than a scored component: you either clear the threshold or you do not continue. The number that binds you is the one printed in the job posting you applied to, not a general figure.

Can I retake it if I fail?

Retake policy is set by the agency, and sometimes by the testing vendor's own rules on how frequently a candidate may sit the same instrument. Waiting periods of several months are common but not universal. Ask before you assume, because reapplying too early can cost you a cycle.

Do practice tests actually help?

They help with the mechanical skills -- typing accuracy, comparison discipline, working while interrupted -- because those are trainable and they transfer directly. They help less with reading comprehension and judgment items, which sit on top of general ability you have already built. The honest framing is that practice removes the surprises and raises your floor; it does not manufacture a score.