Passing the Police Officer Exam: Judgment questions

You will encounter some questions on the Police Officer Exam that ask you to draw a conclusion and/or decide on the appropriate course of action based on the information provided.  These questions are usually more difficult to answer than the other types of questions found on the exam because each of these questions requires you to make a judgment call based on your analysis of a particular situation.  The judgment questions cannot be answered simply by following some simple directions or using your basic math, memory, and/or English language skills.  They are designed to make sure that you look at a situation and really think about it, so these questions can be significantly more difficult.  There are a number of things that you may want to keep in mind while you are attempting to answer the judgment questions that appear on the exam.
 
First, in order to answer any of the judgment questions that may appear on the exam, you will have to think like a police officer.  These questions are not interested in what it would you would do, or what an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), firefighter, or a licensed physician would do, but rather what it would make sense for you to do in each situation if you were a police officer.  Read the situation presented in the passage, ask yourself what would a police officer do in this situation, and then decide on the most logical response for a police officer based on the information provided.  This does not mean that you need to know exactly what a police officer is supposed to do in these situations, or that you need to know any of the specific tasks that an officer is typically required to perform.  Instead, you will simply need to have a basic idea of the role that an officer is supposed to play in the community.
 
Secondly, remember that these questions are looking for the most logical response in each situation, and not necessarily the response that you want to take.  Police officers are sometimes required to make difficult decisions.  As a result, you might have to make a choice that seems objectionable, but makes sense under the circumstances.  Some of the may be followed by a response that seems perfectly reasonable, but the response is actually incorrect because it's not what a police officer would logically have to do in that situation.  
 
Example
You have recently been assigned to patrol a neighborhood with a large number of reported thefts.  As you are patrolling the area, you see a man knock down a young woman, take her purse, and rush into a crowd of people.  The woman doesn't appear to have any serious injuries, but she is obviously shaken-up.  The first thing that you should do in this situation is: (A) Stop to offer assistance to the woman(B) Call for backup(C) Pursue the suspect(D) Order the crowd to disperse.
 
In this particular situation, you might be tempted to choose option 'A' as it may seem like the 'right thing to do' under the circumstances, but the correct answer is actually choice 'C' because the woman is not seriously injured or in imminent danger.  The suspect, however, is running through a crowd of people after mildly injuring a woman, so the suspect needs to be stopped before he is able to injure someone else or is able to commit another crime.
 
Third, you should never assume that anything is true in a particular situation unless you can base your assumption on the information that is stated in the passage.  Some of the questions on the exam will try to trick you by offering you a response that seems reasonable, but the response is actually incorrect because it is based on an assumption that may not be accurate.  
 
Example
You have recently been assigned to patrol a neighborhood with a large number of reported thefts.  As you are patrolling the area, you see a man knock down a young woman, take her purse, and rush into a crowd of people.  The first thing that you should do in this situation is:(A) Stop to offer assistance to the woman(B) Call for backup(C) Pursue the suspect(D) Order the crowd to disperse
 
This example describes the same situation as the previous example except that there is one key piece of information missing.  The first example describes how badly the woman was injured, but the second example doesn't describe the woman's injuries.  This is extremely important because you can't tell whether the woman has been seriously injured or not according to the information that you have available.  It isn't safe to assume that she hasn't been seriously injured by the man knocking her to ground, so your response in this particular example should be different from the previous example.  The correct response, therefore, in this particular example is option 'A': you should stop to offer assistance to the woman before you continue to pursue the suspect.
 
Responses for specific situations
If you are attempting to determine the appropriate response to a situation in which someone is seriously injured or in danger of being seriously injured, you should always choose to help the individual that is in danger before you do anything else.  A police officer's first responsibility is to the safety and well-being of the people in the community that he or she serves.  Some of the judgment questions on the exam, like the question in the example above, may present you with situations in which you have to choose between apprehending the criminal and aiding an injured individual.  In these cases, you should always choose to aid the injured individual or the endangered individual if that individual's life is in immediate danger or if you have reason to believe that the individual's life may be in immediate danger.
 
If you are attempting to determine the appropriate response to a situation in which no one is seriously injured or danger of being seriously injured, you should choose to maintain or restore order whenever possible.  If no one is in need of immediate assistance, you should take steps to stop any major disturbances (such as rioting or looting) and then move on to seeking out and apprehending criminals or suspects that may have been involved in the crime.  With this in mind, it is important to note the word 'seriously' in the first sentence as you may encounter a situation in which an individual is injured, but not seriously.  In these cases, you should choose to maintain order or restore order before doing anything else - if there is no one in immediate danger.  If there are individuals in immediate danger, you should only choose to maintain order or restore order after you have assisted anyone that is seriously injured or at risk of being seriously injured. 
 
If you are attempting to determine the appropriate response to a situation in which there are no major disturbances, there are no criminals that need to be apprehended, and no one is seriously injured, but there is someone in need of assistance, you should offer assistance whenever possible.  The two primary duties of any police officer are to protect and to serve.  In fact, these two primary duties are usually performed in that order, so you should carry out any duties related to protecting the community before you perform any duties related to serving the community.  This means that you should offer assistance to an individual that is not immediate danger if there is no one in need of immediate assistance and you are not required to perform any duties related to protecting the peace.
 
If you are attempting to determine the appropriate response to a situation in which your supervisor or the department has ordered you to perform a specific task, you should choose to follow your supervisor's orders and/or your department's orders in almost every case.  There are only two situations in which you should not follow the orders that you have received.  The first situation is one in which those orders would prevent you from aiding a seriously injured individual, or place someone in immediate danger of serious injury.  The second situation is one in which following those orders would prevent you from protecting property from harm.  However, it is extremely important to note that this second exception only applies if you are not currently involved in an emergency situation.  You should follow any orders you receive during an emergency situation unless obeying those orders would place someone's life at serious risk.
 
Eighth, remember that some of the judgment questions that appear on the exam may require you to choose a response that involves the use of force.  However, you must make every effort to minimize the use of force whenever possible in these situations.  If you are attempting to determine the appropriate response to a situation in which force may be necessary, you should make sure to use as little force as possible.  This is because you have a responsibility not only to protect the law-abiding citizens of the community, but to protect the law-breaking ones as well.  Ensure that you have exhausted every possible alternative in a situation before you choose to use force and, once you have decided that force is necessary, you must ensure that you do not use more force than is required by the situation.
 
Ninth, if you are attempting to determine the appropriate response to a situation in which someone is offering you something that might be considered a bribe, don't accept it under any circumstances.  This may seem like an obvious thing to avoid, but there may be situations in which it is not clear whether something is a bribe or not.  This is because almost any gift, favor, promise, or anything else that may cause you to act differently towards a particular individual or a particular group of individuals may also cause you to act unfairly.  Therefore, almost any gift or promise may be considered a bribe.  It is extremely important for you to avoid any response in which you accept something that may affect your ability to perform your duties fairly because these responses will almost always be incorrect.
 
Tenth, if you are attempting to determine the appropriate response to a situation in which you are off-duty, you should act rather than do nothing.  Police officers are required to serve and protect the community that they work in even when they are off-duty.  This means that the response that is appropriate for a particular situation when you on-duty will usually be appropriate for the same situation when you are off-duty.  In fact, the word 'off-duty' is usually included in a question in order to trick you into choosing an option other than what you would have done if the question stated you were on-duty.  As a result, in most situations, you should respond to each of these questions in the same way that you would respond if those questions stated you were on-duty.
 
However, you must also remember that an off-duty police officer may not have all of the powers that an on-duty police officer would typically have.  As a result, an off-duty police officer may be required to perform the same duties, but he or she may not have the authority (or in some cases, the necessary equipment) to carry out those duties.  This means that some of the questions on the exam may be related to the specific procedures or protocols that an individual in an off-duty situation is required to follow.  If this is the case, the question will provide you with any information related to the specific procedures and protocols that you need to know in order to answer these questions.
 
Example

An introductory passage before a set of questions reads: 'According to state law, any citizen of the state may conduct a citizen's arrest.  However, state citizens are not allowed to initiate a citizen's arrest unless the individual that the citizen is arresting is in the process of committing a criminal act at the time of the arrest.  A state citizen, for the purposes of this law, is considered to be any individual other than an on-duty law enforcement officer living within the state.'  
 
Question:
You are off-duty when you notice a young woman lying on the side walk.  As you approach, you notice that the young woman doesn't seem to be seriously injured, but she has obviously been attacked.  After asking her what happened, she informs you that a man knocked her down several minutes ago and stole her purse.  The first thing that you should do is: (A) Offer assistance to the woman and help her report the crime.(B) Call for backup.(C) Obtain a description of the attacker and begin a search in order to find and arrest the individual.(D) Tell her that you apologize for the inconvenience, but you're off-duty.
 
In this particular example, the correct response would be choice 'A' even though the woman is not seriously injured.  However, because you are off-duty, there is no immediate danger to her or another individual, and you don't have the authority to actually arrest the individual because the law states that you are ineligible to conduct an arrest in this particular situation. As a result, there is no immediate need for you to apprehend the criminal, and you do not have the legal authority to arrest the individual if you manage to apprehend him.  However, if this same example stated that you were on-duty when you noticed the woman, that the criminal posed an immediate threat to others, or that you saw the suspect fleeing from the scene, choice 'C' would actually be correct because a police officer is expected to seek out and apprehend criminals whenever possible.  In order to answer this type of question correctly, you need to apply the procedure or regulation to the question and determine if the procedure or regulation applies.
 
You may see some questions on the exam that require you to use police procedures, protocols or regulations that are not related to whether an officer is on-duty or not.  These questions will always provide you with any procedures, protocols, or regulations that you need to know in order to find the correct answer so you should be able to answer the question simply by applying the appropriate procedure or regulation to the situation.  Remember you should only apply the procedures and regulations that you encounter on the exam to the questions that are in the question set related to those procedures.  This is important because you may confuse yourself, or even choose the incorrect answer, if you try to apply a procedure or regulation to a question that isn't included in the set of questions related to that procedure or regulation.
 
Finally, you may encounter a scenario on the exam that seems to resemble a real-life scenario that you might have heard of at some point before, and you may be familiar with the action that the police officers took in that particular situation.  In fact, it is very likely because each judgment question is designed to simulate a real-life situation that a police officer might encounter.  If you encounter a question that is similar to something that you have seen or heard about before, you should try to focus on the situation that is presented on the exam and not on what you may know about a similar situation.  Each situation is different, and a single factor can greatly change the way that you should respond in a particular situation.  The exam will always present you with all of the information that you will need in order to make the correct decision so you should be able to answer each question by focusing your attention on the situation at hand and using your own common sense to make a decision instead of using what you know about what someone else did in the same situation.