Behavioral Attributes · 4 min read
Behavioral Attributes
A Different Kind of Section
Section I contains 47 behavioral-attribute items and allows 20 minutes. Instead of testing reading or reasoning, these items ask how you typically think, feel, and act at work and in daily life. According to the official candidate information, this section measures "various job-related behavioral attributes that indicate how successful you will be as a law enforcement or correctional officer."
Items in this kind of section are usually short first-person statements, such as "I finish tasks even when no one is checking," to which you respond on a scale (for example, from strongly disagree to strongly agree) or by choosing the statement that best describes you. Your responses count toward the overall score of 70 that you need to pass, but they do not count toward the separate requirement of 30 correct answers out of the 50 memorization and cognitive items.
Pacing
Forty-seven items in 20 minutes gives you about 25 seconds per item, which is plenty for statements about yourself. The risk in this section is overthinking, not running out of time. Read each statement once, answer, and move on.
Behavioral items for public-safety jobs are written around a set of work styles that job analyses link to success on patrol and inside facilities. Knowing these themes helps you recognize what a statement is really asking.
| Example statement | Attribute it reflects |
|---|---|
| When I make a mistake at work, I report it even if no one noticed. | Integrity |
| I rarely lose my temper, even when someone is rude to me. | Emotional control |
| Rules exist for a reason, even when I do not agree with them. | Respect for rules and authority |
| I prefer to finish one task completely before starting another. | Dependability / conscientiousness |
| I stay focused during emergencies. | Stress tolerance |
Why Honesty Is the Best Strategy
Applicants for law enforcement and corrections positions go through a background investigation, and many agencies add a polygraph or a psychological evaluation. Answers that paint an unrealistic picture can create inconsistencies later in that process. More immediately, inventories of this type commonly repeat the same idea in different words; answering one version one way and its reworded twin the opposite way lowers the credibility of the whole section.
Reflection Exercise
Before the exam, take five minutes to write one real example from work, school, or the military for each attribute card above. Candidates who can recall concrete examples of their own dependability or calm under pressure tend to answer behavioral statements quickly and consistently, and the same examples are valuable later in an oral interview.
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