POST Dispatcher Test: All 11 Sub-Tests, Scoring and Prep

If you are applying for a public safety dispatcher job in California, the written test you are most likely to sit is the POST Entry-Level Dispatcher Selection Test Battery, published by the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. Candidates usually just call it the POST dispatcher test. This guide covers what it contains, how it is scored and how to prepare, and it is built from POST's own published material rather than prep-industry summaries. Where POST says something that contradicts what circulates online, we say so.

If you want to start practicing straight away, our POST dispatcher practice test page lists the drills that map onto this battery, and the free practice hub needs no account.

The POST dispatcher test at a glance

Question	What POST says
What it measures	Four abilities: verbal, reasoning, memory and perceptual
How many tests	Eleven short tests, each with its own instructions and time limit
Format	Six written multiple-choice tests and five where you listen to audio and then answer multiple-choice questions in a booklet
How long	About 2½ to 3 hours including a short break; individual tests run about 5 to 15 minutes
Wrong answers	A fraction of a point is subtracted for each wrong answer; blanks neither add nor subtract
Score	A T-score (average 50, standard deviation 10), not a percentage
Passing score	Set by each hiring agency; POST recommends agencies set it within 48 to 57
Retakes	Wait 30 calendar days; retesting sooner, with any agency, invalidates the result
Score validity	POST says the score has no shelf life, but each agency can set its own limit
Study material	A free Examinee Guide with sample items; POST says there is no study guide or reading list

Who has to take it

POST's dispatcher selection regulations (Commission Regulations 1956 and 1957) require every public safety dispatcher candidate at an agency in the POST Public Safety Dispatcher Program to demonstrate verbal, reasoning, memory and perceptual abilities. The POST battery is the standard way to do that, but it is not the only one: POST's own FAQ confirms that "other job-related tests of verbal, reasoning, memory and perceptual abilities are acceptable," and the regulation also recognizes candidates who already hold a POST Public Safety Dispatcher Basic Certificate or who completed the Basic Course and probation. Not every California agency is in the POST dispatcher program either. So a California posting may name the POST test, a different vendor's test, or its own. Read the posting before you prepare.

The 11 sub-tests

These are the eleven tests described in POST's Examinee Guide. The ability shown is the one POST's user manual lists as each test's primary measure. The descriptions are ours, summarizing POST's; the guide itself has a simplified sample item for every test and is worth reading once.

#	Test	Ability	What you do
1	Public Safety Bulletin	Memory	Study a one-page shift bulletin describing several events for 3 minutes, then answer questions about it from memory
2	Assigning Field Units	Reasoning	Apply a new set of rules to decide which units, if any, go to each incident
3	Evaluating Facts	Verbal	Read a set of facts and judge whether each conclusion is true, false or cannot be determined
4	Setting Priorities	Reasoning	Apply a given set of priority rules to rank events presented in sets of three
5	Reading Comprehension	Verbal	Read a short passage and answer questions on its facts, meaning and conclusions
6	Sentence Clarity	Verbal	Pick the more clearly written of two versions of a sentence
7	Recalling Facts & Details	Memory	Listen to a simulated call with no notes allowed, then answer questions from memory
8	Call-Taking	Reasoning	Listen to several simulated calls, taking notes, then answer questions using your notes
9	Oral Directions	Reasoning	Listen to a radio call from a field unit, taking notes, then answer questions about the tasks, their order and the details
10	Checking Coded Information	Perceptual	Hear short letter-number codes and mark the matching one among five written options, at a pace that keeps speeding up
11	Checking & Listening	Perceptual	Compare names, addresses and plates against a hot sheet while also logging unit status updates from simulated radio traffic

Three things in that table are easy to miss.

• There is listening, and some of it allows notes. Five tests are delivered by audio. You may take notes during Call-Taking and Oral Directions, and your notes are not scored. You may not take notes during Recalling Facts & Details.
• The priority and unit-assignment tests give you the rules. Setting Priorities and Assigning Field Units are reasoning tests: the rules are new to you and printed in front of you. The right answer is whatever those rules produce, not what you think a real dispatch center would do. Answering from habit or from how you imagine a real center works is the easiest way to lose points here.
• Some tests are built so that nobody finishes. POST warns that certain tests work up "to a pace where no one can keep up." Falling behind on Checking Coded Information is expected. Do not let it rattle you for the next test.

Notice also what is not on the list: no typing, no data entry, no spelling test and no vocabulary test. There is also no job knowledge. POST says the battery measures general abilities, not "job-specific knowledge or skills that are taught in training," so you do not need radio codes or penal code sections.

Working the hardest sub-tests

POST's guide has a short description and one sample item for each test. These are the ones where knowing the format in advance makes the biggest difference. The examples below are ours, not POST's.

Public Safety Bulletin and Recalling Facts & Details (no notes)

On the Bulletin you get three minutes with a one-page shift bulletin describing several separate events, then answer from memory. On Recalling Facts & Details you hear one simulated call with no notes allowed. POST's sample questions ask for specifics, such as how a suspect was described or the caller's name, so what you are holding is which detail attached to which person, not the gist.

• Impose a structure as you read: who, what, where, when and descriptors, for each event in turn.
• Choose what to encode. Names, numbers, locations and descriptions earn their place in three minutes; narrative colour does not.
• On the audio test, do not repeat the whole call to yourself. Rehearsing what was just said costs you what is being said now.
• Answer from memory, not reconstruction. Filling a gap with what plausibly happened is how the wrong option gets picked, and wrong answers carry the deduction.

Assigning Field Units

You read a rule set POST calls "novel" (not California practice or any agency's policy) and decide which units go to incidents that differ by area and by whether they are emergencies. Three features catch people. First, the answer can be no units, one, or several: POST's instructions say to mark more than one letter where needed and a separate "N" space when no unit is assigned, so do not default to one. Second, several rules apply at once, typically area coverage, availability and an emergency rule, with an exception clause on top that can override the others. Third, dispatch experience can hurt, because real-world assumptions are exactly what the invented rules may contradict.

Work it the same way every time: read the rules before the incidents and the exceptions twice, extract which unit covers which area once, then check each incident in a fixed order (area, call type, availability) and ask whether the override changes your answer before you mark it.

Setting Priorities

You apply a supplied priority scheme to events presented in sets of three, ranking each set first, second and third. POST's illustrative scheme has three tiers: injury or threat to life first, property loss or damage second, everything else third. Under rules like that, a break-in at an empty house ranks below a fight that is happening now, however serious the crime sounds, because the governing question is whether anyone can be hurt. Read all three events before ranking any, classify each on the stated criterion, then order within a tier. Watch for the single word that changes the tier: "unoccupied," "currently," "was" against "is."

Checking Coded Information

You hear random codes of two to four letters and numbers and, for each one, mark the matching code among five written alternatives on a code sheet. The pace starts slowly and speeds up until the task becomes very difficult. The alternatives are built to be confused: characters that look alike (1 and l, 3 and 8), characters that sound alike, and the same characters in reversed order, which is the classic error in reading back a plate. Hear the whole code before you start scanning, look for the one position that separates the options, and drop a missed code immediately rather than chasing it into the next two. Falling behind near the end is the design, not a sign you are failing.

Checking & Listening

The last test runs two tasks at once: comparing a list of names, addresses and plate numbers against a hot sheet, while logging unit status from simulated radio broadcasts. When the broadcasts end you stop the comparison and answer questions about each unit's status. The usual failure is getting absorbed in the hot sheet, which shows visible progress, while the radio, which the questions are about, becomes background noise.

• Treat the radio as the primary task. The hot sheet will still be there in ten seconds; the transmission will not.
• Log in a fixed shape, unit then status then time, abbreviated however you like. POST says notes are not scored.
• Compare in short bursts of two or three items, then look up.
• Accept a lower hot-sheet count, and keep logging even when you fall behind: a partial log of later transmissions beats one that stops halfway.

The four abilities

POST defines the four abilities the battery measures as follows. Paraphrased:

• Verbal ability. Reading and listening to information, picking out the facts and drawing conclusions, and writing clearly.
• Reasoning. Applying general rules to specific problems to reach logical answers, and following rules to put things or actions in the right order.
• Memory. Storing and retrieving facts, details and other information.
• Perceptual ability. Comparing letters and numbers quickly and accurately, both spoken and written, and switching between two or more sources of information while working.

How the POST dispatcher test is scored

Wrong answers cost you

This is the rule that matters most on the day, because it reverses the usual advice. POST's Examinee Guide says "there is no advantage to guessing at random. A fraction of a point will be subtracted from your test score for each wrong answer," and a blank "will not count towards or against your score." POST's own worked example uses a four-option question: guess blindly on four and you expect one right and three wrong, gaining one point and losing a third of a point three times, which nets to zero.

The penalty is calibrated to random guessing, so an informed guess is still worth making. Rule out one of four options and your odds of being right become one in three while the deduction stays the same, so the expected value turns positive. The practical rule: if you can rule out at least one option, answer. If you genuinely have no idea, leave it blank. And when time runs out on a speeded test, do not fill the remaining bubbles at random; it gains nothing on average, and unanswered items at the end of a test built so that nobody finishes are expected. Within each test every item counts the same, and POST suggests answering the ones you can do quickly first and coming back to the hard ones.

The deduction is applied to your raw score before it is standardized, and you are scored against a reference group rather than a fixed mark, so points thrown away on random guesses are points handed to every candidate who did not throw them away.

T-scores, not percentages

Your result is a T-score. POST converts your raw score (right answers minus the guessing deduction) on each of the eleven tests into a standard score against a reference group, adds them up, and standardizes the total. Each test counts equally. On the T-score scale, 50 is the reference-group average and every 10 points is one standard deviation. POST describes 40 or below as below average and 60 or above as above average.

The trap is reading a T-score as a percentage. A candidate who gets a 55 and thinks "fifty-five percent" concludes they did badly. They actually scored above the reference average. Agencies receive a breakdown for verbal, reasoning, memory, perceptual and the total, and POST requires agencies to give each applicant their T-score breakdown in writing within 30 days. POST does not send scores to candidates directly.

What score do you need?

POST sets no pass mark. In its own words it has established "neither a mandated nor recommended cut score"; each agency sets its own. POST does give agencies a recommended range of 48 to 57 on the overall T-score to set that cut within. That is a real, citable figure, but it describes where agencies are advised to set their own number, not a pass mark. POST also notes that some agencies use a minimum passing score while others combine the battery score with other assessments. The number that decides your outcome is the one your department uses, and asking the recruiter is a normal question.

This is not the PELLETB

The PELLETB (POST Entry-Level Law Enforcement Test Battery) is the written test for peace officer applicants. It is a different test, with sections for spelling, vocabulary, clarity and reading comprehension. Some prep sites file dispatcher material under PELLETB names, which is how candidates end up drilling vocabulary for a dispatcher test that has no vocabulary section. If a resource is built around the PELLETB, it is not built for this test.

Where to take it

You cannot book the POST dispatcher test on your own. It is given by hiring agencies (or a testing provider working for an agency) under a security agreement with POST. POST does not keep a list of testing locations, so you get tested by applying to agencies that are hiring and following their instructions. The answer sheets go to POST for scanning, and your agency receives the scores.

Two rules apply wherever you test. You must wait 30 calendar days before retesting, and a retest inside that window is invalidated even if it is with a different agency. And although POST says a score has no shelf life, many departments only accept a recent one, so check each posting's rule before relying on an old result.

Is there a typing test?

Not in this battery, and POST's selection standards do not set a typing requirement. POST's user manual for the battery says manual speed and dexterity "were not targeted for measurement" and recommends assessing them "through other means." Many California agencies add a separate typing test of their own, usually with a net words-per-minute minimum stated in the posting. If yours does, that is a separate gate. Our dispatcher typing test guide explains how those are scored, and the free typing test gives you a net WPM figure to compare against the posting.

How to prepare for the POST dispatcher test

POST is clear that "there is no study guide or reading list," because the battery measures general abilities. That does not mean preparation is pointless. POST itself recommends getting familiar with the formats, and suggests that people who get tense in tests practice activities similar to the samples. Here is what that looks like in practice for each ability.

• Memory. The bulletin gives you three minutes and then takes the page away. Practice organizing details by category as you read (who, where, vehicle, numbers) rather than re-reading top to bottom. For the audio test, practice holding a spoken description without writing anything down; the recall format of our call-taking drill plays calls with no notes allowed. Our guide to memory and recall sections covers the technique, and the memory recall drill trains it on written material.
• Rules-based reasoning. For Setting Priorities and Assigning Field Units, read the rules slowly once, then apply them literally, every time. Practice ranking sets of incidents against a stated scheme with our prioritization drill and sending units by a rule sheet with the unit assignment drill, and remember that on this test the printed rules win over any instinct.
• Listening with notes. Build a fixed shorthand: location first, then what happened, then people and vehicles. Abbreviate however you like, since the notes are not scored. Practice by taking notes on a radio or podcast segment you cannot pause, then answering questions about it, or use the with-notes format of our call-taking drill.
• Verbal. For Reading Comprehension and Evaluating Facts, answer only from what the text says. "Cannot be determined" is a real answer, and it is often right when an option sounds sensible but is not actually stated. Reading comprehension, evaluating facts and sentence clarity drills cover the written side.
• Perceptual speed. For the checking tests, compare in small chunks (two or three characters) rather than reading whole strings, and expect the pace to get ahead of you. Our character comparison drill trains the chunking habit, the audio memory drill ends with spoken codes matched against look-alikes at a rising pace, and the multitasking drill pairs a hot-sheet check with a radio log. On the real test you mark a paper booklet rather than a screen.
• Stamina and paper. The battery runs close to three hours. Do at least one long practice session on paper, with a pencil and a clock, so the format is not the new part on the day.

If you are also applying outside California, other agencies use different instruments. Our overview of what is on the 911 dispatcher test compares them, and our dispatcher requirements by state table covers the state certification side.

Sources

• POST, Entry-Level Dispatcher Selection Test Battery Examinee Guide (test formats, sub-test descriptions and sample items, guessing rule, timing, scoring). The guide is dated February 1996 and is the examinee document POST currently publishes; confirm current arrangements with the agency testing you.
• POST, Dispatcher Test Battery Applicant FAQs (retesting, score shelf life, study materials)
• POST, Dispatcher Test Battery Agency FAQs (T-scores, recommended 48 to 57 range, score reports)
• POST, Public Safety Dispatcher Selection Requirements FAQs (alternative tests)
• POST, PELLETB Applicant FAQs (the separate peace officer test)

POST refers to the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training. DispatchDrills is an independent practice provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by POST. We do not reproduce exam content; our practice items are original.

Common questions

What is on the POST dispatcher test?

Eleven short tests covering verbal, reasoning, memory and perceptual abilities: Public Safety Bulletin, Assigning Field Units, Evaluating Facts, Setting Priorities, Reading Comprehension, Sentence Clarity, Recalling Facts and Details, Call-Taking, Oral Directions, Checking Coded Information, and Checking and Listening. Six are written and five use audio. There is no typing, spelling or job-knowledge section.

What is a passing score on the POST dispatcher test?

POST does not set one. Each hiring agency sets its own minimum T-score, and POST recommends agencies set it somewhere between 48 and 57 on the overall T-score. Check the posting or ask the agency which number applies.

Is guessing penalized on the POST dispatcher test?

Yes. POST subtracts a fraction of a point for each wrong answer, and a blank item counts neither for nor against you. Answer when you can rule out at least one option; leave it blank when you have no basis to choose.

Can you take notes on the POST dispatcher test?

On some tests. Notes are allowed on Call-Taking and Oral Directions, and they are not scored. Recalling Facts & Details allows no notes, and the Public Safety Bulletin is answered from memory after a three-minute study period.

Can the answer on Assigning Field Units be more than one unit?

Yes, and it can be none. The response format covers no units, one unit or several, with a separate mark for no units.

Should I fill in the remaining answers when time runs out?

No. Random answers gain nothing on average because of the wrong-answer deduction, and several tests are built so that nobody finishes them.

How long does the POST dispatcher test take?

About two and a half to three hours including a short break. Each of the eleven tests has its own instructions and time limit, from about 5 to 15 minutes.

Is there an official POST dispatcher study guide?

POST publishes a free Examinee Guide that describes each test format and includes a simplified sample item for each. POST says there is no study guide or reading list, because the battery measures general abilities rather than knowledge.

How soon can I retake it?

You must wait 30 calendar days. Retesting within 30 days, with the same or a different agency, invalidates the result. Agencies can add rules of their own.

How long is a POST dispatcher test score valid?

POST says the score has no shelf life, but each department can decide how recent a score it will accept, and many only accept recent results. Check each posting.

Is the POST dispatcher test the same as the PELLETB?

No. The PELLETB is the peace officer written test, with spelling, vocabulary, clarity and reading comprehension sections. The dispatcher battery is a separate eleven-test instrument that includes listening, memory and rules-based reasoning tests.