NZ Police cognitive test: five sample questions worked through

A verbal reasoning example

You are given a passage and a statement, and asked whether the statement is supported by it. The trap is almost always the same: a statement that is true in the world but not established by the passage.

The method: answer only from the text. Underline the words that would have to be present for the statement to follow. If they are not there, the statement is not supported: however reasonable it sounds.

A numerical reasoning example

A table of figures and a question about a change, a rate or a proportion. The arithmetic is rarely difficult; the pressure is.

The method: work out what you actually need before touching any numbers. Most lost time comes from calculating a column that turns out to be irrelevant. Estimate first, then confirm, an estimate often eliminates three options immediately.

An abstract reasoning example

A sequence of shapes with one missing. The rule might be rotation, count, shading, position, or two of those combined.

The method: check one attribute at a time across the whole sequence rather than comparing whole images. Count first, then position, then rotation, then shading. Trying to see the pattern all at once is what makes these feel impossible.

A situational judgement example

A colleague asks you to overlook a small procedural shortcut that would save the team time on a busy shift. The options range from refusing outright to going along with it.

The method: rank the options against safety, integrity, escalation and communication, in that order. The strongest answers usually address the immediate issue *and* handle the relationship, rather than choosing between them. The weakest are the ones that defer a problem or that escalate before speaking to the person involved.

A written accuracy example

Identifying the error in a sentence, or choosing the clearest version of a passage. Police work generates a great deal of written record, and this section is a proxy for whether yours will hold up.

The method: read for meaning first and grammar second. The most common error in these items is ambiguity, a sentence that is technically correct but could describe two different events.

What do these questions have in common?

In every case, the difficulty is not the content, it is deciding quickly what the question is asking. That is a skill, it is trainable, and it is most of what practice buys you.

For where this stage sits in recruitment, see the complete guide. Situational judgement gets its own explainer.