How to Master Grammar for the Police Exam!

Police Test Grammar? Why!?

Nobody likes grammar. You don’t, I don’t – nor does 99% of the population. And that’s perhaps a good thing. That being said, candidates need to have a strong knowledge of grammar to succeed at the police written exam. That’s where we come in, with our complete guide on how to master grammar for the police exam.

As a prospective law enforcement officer, you may have asked yourself – why are we even studying grammar in the first place?

It’s a fair question – but grammar does have a legitimate place on the exam.

If we take a step back, the reason becomes clear. Grammar is the foundation of language and language is the foundation of effective communication. As a police officer, you will be expected to have robust communication skills – not just verbally, but also in the written form, too.

In the police exam, candidates are asked questions on grammar, spelling, and reading comprehension. All these questions are asked for a reason. Police departments need to be confident that you have the communication skills needed to succeed in the workplace.

Alright, you may be thinking – “that makes sense”, but now what? How will I improve my spelling and grammar in time? Where do I even start?

Do not fear, as these are entirely normal questions. What matters is how you intend on answering them. At Police Test Study Guide, we recommend the following top three ways to improve grammar.

Let’s get straight to it.

Start Reading – and Take Notes!

One of the best ways to improve grammar is to just start reading.

At first, it can be anything. But, in time, you need to start reading more about your own chosen profession – law enforcement. There are innumerable online websites from which you can begin to learn about the profession – including ours, your own police department, or news within the industry.

What you read doesn’t even need to be directly related to policing, though that is preferable. For example, you could think about reading:

• Crime reports – weekly reports from your town or city, as well as annual reports issued by federal sources.
• Criminology – what better way to master law enforcement than by always seeking to improve your knowledge of criminology. You can purchase many great affordable books that teach you far more than just the basics.
• Professional studies – don’t just learn about crime and policing. Start to think tangentially about what it takes to advance in any career. This means learning more about public speaking, communication techniques, how to build a successful resume, how to maximize your performance during interviews, and how to deal with conflict resolution. Furthermore, reading and studying more in this field is an enormously powerful way to improve your ability to answer oral board questions during the police interview.
• Fiction – not everyone likes fiction, but many people do. If this is something you may be interested in, think about picking up a best-seller with a theme in law enforcement, crime, or investigations.

Don’t read passively. Always read actively.

This means pinching yourself if you find yourself daydreaming, distracting yourself, or not directly thinking about the material you are reading. It means thinking hard about the issue and coming up with your own conclusions. It also means taking notes of any concepts or police vocabulary you hitherto never knew before. Always review these notes to convert those short-term memories into long-term equivalents.

The more you read, the more your brain subconsciously absorbs grammar patterns. You already have experience in this; it’s the way you learned grammar from birth. The more we are exposed to the rules of grammar, the greater our ability to assimilate and apply these rules elsewhere.

Read more, assimilate more, write more and vocalize more. Do this and you will see results on the day of your police test.

Practice Police Grammar Questions!

Preparing for the police written exam should always involve practicing questions.

The more relevant exam-like questions you practice, the greater your ability to identify strengths and weaknesses – an important survey of where you are going right and where you are going wrong. For that reason, you should not be disheartened if you score low. If anything, it’s a positive – as it gives you added opportunity to remedy those weak spots and turn them into newfound strengths.

At Police Test Study Guide, we have already put together some sample police grammar questions for you to practice. If you would like more, take a few minutes to become a registered member. Explained answers are provided at the end of each question to maximize your learning experience.

You may notice that you struggle with one or more grammar topics. This is entirely normal. Once you have completed sample questions and identify a pattern, now is the time to fix things.

You should adopt the following approach:

• Identify the topic where you are going wrong.
• Re-study that subject and understand the theory behind the grammar.
• Create imaginative sentences to demonstrate that you understand the topic.

That latter point is the most important.

By creating your own sentences – and not something copied from elsewhere – your brain goes into overdrive and thinks harder. The more you think about a topic, the greater your ability to commit that topic to memory. Furthermore, don’t just limit that practice to paper! Always try to proactively apply grammar principles in verbal speech too.

Taken together, the written and verbal practice cements these grammar principles into long-term memory stores.

Gather All Study Materials!

You cannot learn in a vacuum.

Instead, you must have the best study materials available to pass the police written exam. Try to avoid books that are heavy in detail. You are not expected to become a grammar professor at the end of the police test. Instead, you need to know the basics that are used all the time in regular use and within law enforcement.

Alternatively, if you are taking the police exam, we have put together online lessons that teach you the must-know grammar principles that always get tested. Our lessons are also mobile and tablet-friendly, so unlike a textbook, you can take them with you as and when you need to revise.

But whatever method you choose, it’s important to have all the study materials you need. You do not want to leave half a dozen topics out – as these just might be the 6 topics that get tested on the day of your exam! Instead, you must ensure that you cover all grammatical bases.

Then, at that point, you can put together a comprehensive study plan of what you intend to study and when you intend to study it – ticking off each topic in the weeks and months ahead as the police exam approaches. Only by doing this can you guarantee success on the day of your test.

Grammar for the police exam doesn’t need to be challenging. By incorporating these tips into your long-term strategy, you guarantee success on the day of your exam as well as your passage into the police academy.