Top Test-Taking Strategies to Ace the NYS Court Officer Exam

Civil Service exams occur once every four or more years; this gap immensely limits the window of opportunity in this field. Not qualifying for the job at the intended time can become a big setback in your career and delay you from pursuing future opportunities in the court administration.

With the added-pressure of competition and a time limit of 3 hours and 15 minutes, having a test-taking strategy can prove life-saving; it can help you effectively answer questions, troubleshoot efficiently, and ensure you give an equal effort to all sections of the exam.

Based on the content of NYS Court Officer exams, here are a few test-taking strategies that guarantee a positive result.

1. Before Taking the Exam

These test-taking strategies are to ensure you prepare adequately for the exam and understand the course material.

• Become Familiar with all the Sections

The NYS Court Officer exam has a standard layout. It contains five sections; each one has multiple choice questions. These sections include remembering information, reading comprehension, application of facts, clerical checking, and record-keeping.

These sections require you to interpret a text, assess a situation based on a law, or identify errors in a data set; knowing what each part expects from you helps you practice and polish those skills before the exam.

• Solve Past Papers

Attempting past exam papers is the closest you come to replicating the experience of giving a civil service exam before your own. They offer you a glance at the difficulty you can expect in your exam paper.

Your performance on the past papers highlights where your preparation falls short and helps you adjust your studying strategy accordingly.

• Time Your Practice

Many candidates end up compromising their performance on the exam because they’re anxiously racing against the allotted time. To ensure you don’t spend the entire test looking up at the clock, you practice to out-run time.

Measure how long it takes you to finish each practice exam; keep an eye on questions that take you the most time to solve. Once you recognize those sections, you can increase their practice to help improve your performance.

• Joining Exam Prep Courses

Nowadays, tutoring companies across the state offer in-person and online classes for civil service exams. At such institutions, you get a chance to study from professionals with experience working in the field.

Studying under their guidance can help you better understand the expectations from candidates, and you can improve your performance in the exam to highlight those qualities.

These prep courses allow you to participate in a classroom-setting; if you have any misconceptions or confusions; there’s an available space for all those questions to get answered. They also provide additional learning material that can allow you to continue the same quality of learning beyond the classes.

Keeping in mind all the listed strategies, it is important to make sure you’re rested and eating well before the exam because a lack of each results in poor exam performance.

2. During the Exam

Once the exam begins, it is important to not get nervous as unnecessary anxiety is directly correlated to poor scores on exams. Here are a few more test-taking strategies to follow.

• Remember the Elimination Method

Since NYS Court Officer exams are multiple-choice question-based, answering the entire test with the same strategy gets slightly easier.

One effective method to speedily answer multiple-choice questions is the elimination method; it means ruling out the wrong answers first. The strategy helps reduce the possibility of making a mistake; since you recognize the errors first, you can avoid them.

• Attempt All the Questions

Most candidates make the mistake of leaving questions unsolved if they run out of time because they believe there’s a penalty for wrong guesses.

Luckily, no marks are deducted in a NYS Court Officer exam; if you have limited time left, make sure you fill in all the answers before submission.

• Save Difficult Questions for Later

Time is your most valuable asset during an exam. If you come across a difficult question and cannot find an answer, skip forward.

Sitting stuck on questions wastes away time you could have used to finish other sections.

Moving onto other parts not only ensures the rest of the paper gets solved, but you also get plenty time to recall the answer you couldn’t remember.

• Double-Check Error-Recognition Questions

The clerical checking and record-keeping sections of the NYS Court Officer exam are meant to test a candidate’s ability to identify errors and sort data. Giving accurate answers is crucial is this section to leave a good impression of your skills.

Revisit all your answers once you’re done and double-check questions that need any calculations or precise response.

Get Started on Your Preparations Today

Now that you know the strategies to improve your preparation, you might be looking for a tutoring company to help you study. At Civil Service Success, we’re ready to help you begin learning!

With a range of civil service exam courses and trained instructors, we’ve been helping candidates prepare for the NYS Court Officer exams for over 45+ years now. From lectures, to workshops, learning materials, and practice exams; we provide all the tools you need for a comprehensive preparation.

Want to enroll in our exam prep course? Register now and choose a class!