The PELLET B is a test used by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to measure test takers’ writing and reading abilities and to determine the likelihood of an examinee’s success in law enforcement. The PELLET B is simply a measure of your communication skills and does not cover police procedure; that is covered in the academy.

If you want to become a police officer in California, it is the gateway for admittance into the basic academy, where you will learn about police procedure and the law.

The PELLET B is a pencil-and-paper test; it is not offered as a computer-administered test, nor is it available online. You must test at a location in the state of California.

The PELLET B is administered by POST-participating law enforcement agencies and academies, not by POST itself. To register for the exam, you must directly contact the participating agency or academy where you are applying.

The PELLET B consists of 105 questions. All the questions are multiple-choice except for those on the cloze subtest, which uses a fill-in-the-blank format. You will have two hours and thirty minutes to complete the exam.

On test day, arrive early. Check with the facility or participating agency to make sure you know what type of identification to bring (usually government-issued photo identification). Bring at least two sharpened No. 2 pencils. Personal belongings, cell phones, and other electronic, photographic, recording, or listening devices are not permitted in the testing center. Many testing centers offer lockers to secure your personal items, but you should check beforehand with the facility to be sure storage is available.

Currently, the PELLET B is only offered as a pencil and paper exam in person.

Your raw score (the number of questions you answer correctly) will be converted into your T-score. Simply put, the T-score reflects how well you did against everyone else who took the test. POST provides a distribution, or a bell-shaped curve, with a midpoint, or average, of 50 and a standard deviation of 10. A T-score of 50 reflects average performance compared to all the other applicants who took the test. A score of 40 or below would be below average. A T-score of 60 or above is above average. 

You will receive a score report that details the number of questions you answered correctly in each section and that also gives your percentile rank, which shows how you did in comparison with other test takers. Each agency has its own entrance requirements, so be sure to check the requirements of the institutions you want to attend so you can set appropriate goals for yourself.

You should receive your results from the agency in which you take your exam. You should allow up to 30 days after the exam to receive your scores; after that point, you can contact the agency directly to enquire about your results.

There is no “passing” score; agencies and academies require different scores, so check with yours to determine your target T-score.

You may test only once in a thirty-day period; you may retest on the thirty-first day or later. If you retest within thirty days with a different agency, your test results will be invalidated.