Anxiety / Psych exam.

I have always had the desire to be a law enforcement officer. I am currently in a criminal justice program at my community college. The local support for this program is great, this is the second year of the program. I have anxiety about the psych exam. I don't have anything to hide but what if I am confronted with a question that I am uncomfortable with or get nervouse about answering. What kind of questions are asked in the psych? If I stumble on an answer would they think I am being deceptive? If you guys could help ease my nerves about this. I have turned out fine and I am not affected by it now. What say you guys? Did any of you have anxiety when taking psych exams? If so how did you do or what did you do to get over it?

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Originally Posted by itsnitro

I have always had the desire to be a law enforcement officer. I am currently in a criminal justice program at my community college. The local support for this program is great, this is the second year of the program. I have anxiety about the psych exam. I don't have anything to hide but what if I am confronted with a question that I am uncomfortable with or get nervouse about answering. What kind of questions are asked in the psych? If I stumble on an answer would they think I am being deceptive? If you guys could help ease my nerves about this. I have turned out fine and I am not affected by it now. What say you guys? Did any of you have anxiety when taking psych exams? If so how did you do or what did you do to get over it?

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There is no preparation for your psychological exam. We can not tell you what questions they will ask, it would defeat the purpose of the test if you're trying to find the "right" answer. There is no reason to feel anxiety. Relax. Get a good nights rest the night before. Just be honest and you'll be fine.

The psych exam has numerous questions that ask the same thing in different ways. This is to gauge if your consistent and to see how you really feel. The best advice is to be honest, completely honest. You will have a chance after the exam to speak with the psychologist and if there is anything they need clarification on they will ask you.

As an example the last one I took asked several questions such as;

"I have a good relationship with my children"
I speak to my children on a regular basis"
My children come to me for advise or to just talk"

I answered false to everyone of them. When asked by the psychologist about this I stated that I don't have any kids, but if I answered true then I would be lying. So how did they expect me to answer, he liked that explanation and really like my honesty.

Don't answer with what you think they are looking for, answer how you really feel. If you try to deceive the test it will show and you will fail quick.

The people who fell are the people who try to "beat" the test. They just want you to be honest. It checks you for honesty more than anything else. And most agencies give it because it is required, but don't actually give it much merritt. Or atleast theres been alot of talk about them not caring about it.

Vengeance and Big Dawg are correct....just be yourself....unless of course, you have a photographic memory and understand how the test actually works. Most departments still use the MMPI as a diagnostic tool. That can be beaten (Contrary to popular belief) but you have to be able to spot all of the double and triple blind questions and recall what you answered...so as to tailor your continueing answers. You will also need to understand the underlying purpose to many of the questions (The ones about your Parents and Mother are very interesting).

I beat the test some years ago as a prank and I think I could do it again....but if I got caught at it in a real situation...they would flame me.


Car 4:D

this is something my wife and i were really curious about thanks guys

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Originally Posted by BigDawg

The psych exam has numerous questions that ask the same thing in different ways.

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... And I still have flashbacks of having to color in 10,000 little boxes with my #2 pencil that have reworded answers meaning the same thing but in different orders, with some absolute words randomly thrown in for good measure just to make me change my answer...

...then I'm tempted to find all the other answers like it to see what was different about them, but then I know I'd run out of time if I did it, so for the next two days I'm trying to remember what the difference was :bored:

There was one question on mine, "Do you wake up evil on some days?" Answer false on that one. Don't ask how I know.

Different departments use different psych exams. The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory is one; you can learn a lot about it through the web (or a basic psych textbook). It asks a ton of questions, repeating a lot of them in different ways. When it's scored, it highlights potential issues, and a psychiatrist then follows up and asks you about those. While it can be gamed, it's hard for most people to do so.

Others use a pure pencil & paper test; those are kind of pass/fail. They're often called integrity or honesty tests.

Some have a contract with a psychiatrist who uses their own methods to assess the candidate, drawing on the pile of psychological assessment tools. These might range from modified IQ tests to ink blots and "tell me a story about this picture..."

There's nothing you can do to study for a psych test, just like you can't study for a polygraph. Be honest, and you'll do fine. (Unless, of course, the honest answer is that you want to be cop so that you can beat people up, rob them, and shoot them while violating every constitutional right you can for everyone else... or at least that's what the voices are telling you to say!) Different agencies give different weight to the results, but you'd probably generally have to raise some pretty major concerns for the psych test to be the sole reason to reject you...

Just be honest and consistent with your answers, in my example we took a ton of written tests and then met with the psych at the end of the day and she basically went over some of the answers we gave to specific questions. We also had to draw 4 different pictures in addition to all this..bottom line is it's going to be a LONG day, get a good nights sleep the night before and eat a good breakfast.

I certain degree of nervousness and anxiety is natural I wouldn't worry about it too much because there is nothing you can really do at this point anyway....so why stress.

Vengeance and Big Dawg are correct....just be yourself....unless of course, you have a photographic memory and understand how the test actually works. Most departments still use the MMPI as a diagnostic tool. That can be beaten (Contrary to popular belief) but you have to be able to spot all of the double and triple blind questions and recall what you answered...so as to tailor your continueing answers. You will also need to understand the underlying purpose to many of the questions (The ones about your Parents and Mother are very interesting).