Q: How will taking the Police Tutorial Service course help me prepare for my upcoming Police entrance or promotional examination?

A: Police Tutorial Service courses provide our students with all of the information and materials necessary for their success on their New York Law Enforcement/Police Officer & Deputy Sheriff Entrance promotional examination, New York Sergeant/First-line Supervisor/Criminal Investigator promotional examination, New York Lieutenant & Captain/Second & Third-Line Supervisor promotional examination, and New York Police Chief & Assistant Police Chief promotional examination. The P.T.S. courses are delivered to our students in a series of sessions through an online asynchronous learning management platform.  In each session, we break down the subject matter areas that may appear on the examination. Each session includes one or more lectures covering the topics contained in the written materials (P.T.S. Digests that break-down, analyze and make understandable the source materials used by the examiners), together with scores of practice questions with answers. Completions of each session and the entire online course is self-paced.  Entrance exams are cognitive skills based and all promotional exams are largely content based, but also include specific types of reading comprehension questions (i.e. interpreting and preparing written material, paragraph/sentence rearrangement, sentence coherence, etc.). Each P.T.S. course includes “on target” instruction and practice questions that strengthen the reading and reasoning skills of our students and fully prepare them to succeed by maximizing their score and list position. 

Q: Does P.T.S. hold live online or in-person courses?

A: P.T.S. routinely, and timely with the administration of the given civil service examination, holds one-day live "CRAM" Courses - usually in the several weeks immediately before an upcoming examination. The P.T.S. CRAM Courses are conducted both online via Zoom and in-person at targeted locations around New York State.  P.T.S. announces the CRAM Courses well in advance and every enrolled student receives the P.T.S. CRAM Course material to use during and after the CRAM Course. The best way to stay informed about P.T.S. full online and one-day CRAM courses is to sign up on the P.T.S. website to receive P.T.S. Announcements.

Q: I am thinking about becoming a Police Officer in New York. How will taking the P.T.S. course help me prepare for my upcoming New York Law Enforcement (Police Officer & Deputy Sheriff) Entrance Examination?

A: The P.T.S. entrance courses provides our students with all the information and materials necessary for their success on the entrance examination.  The P.T.S. entrance courses, online and live in-person, at least five hours of instruction and volumes of material covering the seven (7) subject matter areas that test specific cognitive ability skills of the candidate.  The P.T.S. entrance courses hone the key cognitive ability skills as well as strengthen our students’ overall  reading and reasoning skills and provides them with the proven and necessary techniques to answering the specific types of questions used by the examiners.  P.T.S. entrance exam students are always at the top of the civil service hiring lists.

Q: When are police entrance and promotional examinations given in New York?

A: Police entrance and promotional examinations (outside of New York City) are regularly offered each year as follows:

March – Chief/Deputy Chief Promotional Examination

April & September - Entry-Level Police Officer/Deputy Sheriff

June - Sergeant/First-Line Supervisor/Investigators Examination

October - Lieutenant & Captain/Second & Third-Line Supervisor

Special, non-statewide entrance and promotional examinations are held periodically by jurisdictions such as Suffolk County and Nassau County.  P.T.S. runs special coursed for these specific examinations.

And, New York City has its own civil service rules and offers its entrance examination on a continuous basis and its promotional examinations irregularly.  P.T.S. does not provide New York City specific entrance or promotional examination training.

Q: How do I know when the next police (entrance or promotion) examination will be given and how do I apply to take it?

A: Police civil service examinations (outside of New York City) are prepared by the New York State Department of Civil Service and administered by municipal civil service offices. Each jurisdiction (outside of New York City) usually offers a police examination each year with each level of police examination being on a 2 to 4-year cycle.  You must contact the local municipal civil service offices to find out when the next police entrance or promotional level examination will be given. The New York State Department of Civil Service directory of municipal civil services offices is available at https://www.cs.ny.gov/employees/local/local.cfm.

Q: Do I need to have a college or advanced degree to take a police entrance or promotional civil service examination inside of New York?

A: No, except some police departments may require candidates to obtain a minimum number of college credits before appointment. Even rarer is the requirement that a candidate possess a college or advanced degree before promotion. Any such requirements will be spelled out in the official civil service examination announcement. Nonetheless, all police entrance and promotional examinations are designed to test critical reading and reasoning skills which are often associated with higher education. That being said, every P.T.S. course includes instruction that closes the “formal” education gap and positions all of our students to conquer the toughest exam questions and score at the top of the list.

Q: What is P.T.S. FIT FOR DUTY?

A: In order to pass the physical fitness screening test, Law Enforcement (Police Officer and Deputy Sheriff) Candidates must achieve the minimum requirement set forth by the Department of Civil Service. As such, you will need to meet or exceed the standards to be eligible for hire as a Police Officer inside of New York State. It is a fact that nearly 50% of Police Officer Candidates who are selected from a civil service eligibility list for employment as a Police Officer inside of New York State fail the physical fitness screening test and are immediately removed from the hiring eligibility list. The high failure rate is a direct result of a lack of information about the physical fitness agility test and the short notice candidates are given to appear for it.  In our FIT FOR DUTY program, our primary goal is to help educate and prepare Police Officer Candidates to pass the police physical agility fitness pre-employment screening test.  The online FIT FOR DUTY program is free to all our students and we also occasionally run live physical fitness testing and training classes for our students.

Q: Is there a single degree or course of study I should pursue to enhance my knowledge and skills in preparation to becoming a New York police officer or a New York police supervisor?

A: Not necessarily. Undergraduate criminal justice and law classes may give you a foundation to build upon. What is most important is the acquisition of strong reading, writing and reasoning skills. All educational learning experiences and every earned degree can make a difference – in how you will perform on civil service examinations and in the field. In our opinion, a Juris Doctorate (Law School Degree) is the pinnacle of higher education in the field of law enforcement. Law school is the study of statutory construction and legal reasoning – skills and knowledge needed to both practice and enforce the law. P.T.S. students, many of whom have risen to the highest ranks, have attended law school. Consider the similar nature of Police Civil Service Examinations and the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). Both are highly competitive gateway examinations – meaning, nobody gets into the desired group without beating out the competition – designed to test your critical reading and reasoning abilities. Regardless of educational background, everyone who wants to succeed on a police examination or on the LSAT must engage in focused and targeted preparation.