A 'Best-Odds' Scenario for Success on Your Next Fire Department Promotional Exam

By Mike Clements

Most of us choose civil service careers because we want to help others and make a meaningful difference in our communities. But to meet and exceed our career goals, we need to pass the written exams that allow us to advance. Exams are the gateway to most promotions, so it’s important to do well on them.

As a firefighter, I am no stranger to the challenge and pressures of exam taking. I have been extremely blessed in my career to have sat for four promotional tests and scored number one each time on the written exam. In 2021, I took the battalion chief’s promotional written exam. Over the years, I have learned many different tips and developed an effective strategy for test preparation and test taking.

Below is some information that can help increase your chances of promotion. But if you are looking for a silver bullet or a quick solution to testing success, I have bad news: Written test prep is not easy. There are no shortcuts. Test prep will take a lot of time, energy, and dedication to score on top. My hope is that the tips I am about to share will create a “best-odds” scenario for your success.

For this article, I am using a 90-day prep period. If your fire department gives you less time to prepare, you may need to adjust your study timeline.

Getting Started

Most departments will generate a posting for the promotional exam. Usually this comes from the fire department’s administration or human resources for the city or district. Once you know an exam is on the horizon, don’t delay. You can begin preparing right away.

First, order your books immediately. Every day you spend waiting for them to arrive is costing you time. In my experience, having my own books allows me to highlight passages or write notes in the margins. This helps me understand concepts and highlight areas I should pay extra attention to. Check your local bookstore or see if anyone in the department has the correct book. Be careful to check the posting or announcement for the ISBN and edition required. Don’t waste valuable study days waiting to reorder your books, or, worse, studying information that is incomplete. If the department uses policies as part of the exam, start by printing out the policies and studying these until the books come in the mail.

As you wait for your books, look for student workbooks, test banks, or testing software. A simple internet search for “firefighting testing software” will result in many options. Make sure to get software specific to your book(s) and the specific edition of your book(s). A word of caution: Products like these should be used to supplement, not replace, studying. They are great for focusing in on weak areas, but don’t expect them to fully prepare you. If you study only the test bank, you may pass, but you will not be at the top.

Further, student workbooks produced by the publisher can challenge you in different ways from a test bank. For example, workbooks may have matching exercises and fill-in-the-blank-style questions. If you can complete these types of questions, you should be well served when answering multiple choice questions on the actual exam.

Study Strategies

During exam prep, get through the reading material at least three times, if not more. You’ll likely need to revisit it multiple times to retain the information and feel confident on exam day. To do this, come up with a plan and stick to it. Remember that this is a marathon; it is easy to burn out. It is imperative that you peak at the right time. This will be easier for experienced members, but may be difficult for firefighters taking their first driver or operator exam.

Each time you read the material, have a strategy so you are intentional about your preparation. Part of your strategy must be breaking the material down into manageable pieces over time. When I read the material the first time through, I am sizing it up—no different from any other situation we are faced with on the job. Look to understand general concepts and the broad message of the book. Pay extra attention to areas you think will be difficult for you to comprehend.

Depending on the amount of literature, this first read can take up to 30 days. If you are given 90 days to prepare, this is one-third of your time. One tip I learned from a friend is to write down the date you start and finish a book on the inside cover. This gives you an idea of how long it takes you to read it. Again, the purpose of this first time through is just to obtain a general understanding of the concepts covered in the materials.

The second review of the material requires you to make a substantial investment in detail and time. This read-through will probably take the longest amount of time and will be the most important. The point of the second round is to drill down on details and make a tool for the rest of your study time. I have used both note cards and regular pen-and-paper notes in my routine, and I feel that both tools have paid dividends—figure out which approach works best for you. If you are going to take notes, buy a notebook twice the size you think you’ll need, or buy multiple notebooks for multiple books. If done correctly, these will become priceless as the testing date gets closer.

A side note: Many times after the first round of reading and about halfway through the second round, you may feel confused, or that all the material is running together. This is normal and happens to a lot of people, myself included. When this happens, do not freak out; just keep grinding. This feeling transitions into a feeling of mastery near the end of the third round. Do not give up.

During the second time through, be very careful with details; thoroughly read and make sure you comprehend every single paragraph. A test writer can ask questions in only a few different ways. Since we read for broad understanding the first time through, this time we are reading for test questions and specific details. As an example, look at the following paragraph:

Safety climate and firefighting: Focus group results¹

Firefighting is a hazardous occupation and there have been numerous calls for fundamental changes in how fire service organizations approach safety and balance safety with other operational priorities. These calls, however, have yielded little systematic research. As part of a larger project to develop and test a model of safety climate for the fire service, focus groups were used to identify potentially important dimensions of safety climate pertinent to firefighting. Analyses revealed nine overarching themes.

DeJoy, D. M., Smith, T. D., & Dyal, M. (2017). Safety climate and firefighting: Focus group results. Journal of safety research,62, 107.

When taking notes or making note cards for this paragraph, I would note the following:

Note Card Method

Front of Card: FF (shorthand for firefighting) is a ________ occupation. Back of Card: Hazardous
Front of Card: Have been calls to change? Back of Card: How FS (shorthand for fire service) orgs (shorthand for organizations) balance safety and operational priorities.

Note Method

Calls yielded little success
Part of bigger project = test model of safety climate for FS
Focus groups were used to ID (short for identify) dimensions of safety climate in FS
Analyses revealed 9 themes

The intent of this is to get only the facts or raw data from each paragraph. There is a lot of author-fluff in promotional books, and it is important to be able to understand what is important and what is not. When you create your study tools on the second round, you are making a deliverable that you will use when you go through the third time and for drilling (see below). Your diligence and attention to detail (details in the text) in this step will set you up for success.

Remember, your notes don’t have to be perfect; no one else is going to use these tools. Make them easy for you to use and understand. Use shorthand. You are going to be writing a lot. One of our battalion chief books was an IFSTA chief officer book. They used the word “identify” about 100 times. When using “ID” as shorthand for “identify,” you are saving a ton of time. Other examples include: FF (firefighters); FS (fire service); the numeral 9 versus the word nine; org (organization); CO (chief officer); COMP O (company officer); etc.

As you read, use your software and workbooks. Let’s say you just finished Chapter 4 and you are ready to move on to Chapter 5. Go to the software and do the questions for Chapter 5, then read Chapter 5, then do the workbooks or software again. This primes your brain for looking for facts, data, and potential questions. It also allows you to identify information you have not mastered and pay closer attention to that topic as you read. Mixing in testing software and workbooks also helps to break up the monotony.

Depending on the amount of time you have left and material, the third round of review can be variable. With the strategy I have used and have outlined, I have been through, or nearly through, the third round with one week remaining until the test. For now, let’s just say we are going to keep the final week before the test open for drilling.

During the third round, use your notes or note cards before and after reading each chapter. This is very important. When doing this, ensure you have covered every relevant piece of data or information in every paragraph.

During this round, be sure to pay close attention to two things: numbers and things you don’t absolutely know. Numbers are easy questions for test makers and easy points you can score. Number association will be dealt with later, but really numbers are just memorization. As for things you don’t know, spend extra time focusing on those areas until you become more familiar with the information.

During the third round, it has been my experience that concepts, data, and facts finally all start to come together, and if you keep going, you will get clarity. Pace yourself and make sure you still have fuel left in the tank. Keep telling yourself: I do not know the material, and I will regret going halfway when I get an 80 percent. Keep grinding.

firefighter promotional exam memorization strategies

Drilling

The strategy for the last week before the exam I term “drilling.” At this point, you don’t have time to read the entirety of the material. This is fine, because you have prepared a tool that you can use for this week of drilling. During this period, go through your notes or note cards as many times as you can. If you have been diligent with your self-assessment, then you already know the areas you need to work on. In your second round of review, you made a tool and verified the tool was accurate and true during your third round. Now is time to use this tool.

I define drilling as continually reviewing your notes and committing them to memory so the knowledge becomes second nature. Whereas it would take about a week to read a small book, it should take only about three hours to review all your notes or note cards for that same small book. Drilling also means going through all pretests or other testing materials you may have acquired over the last three months and hitting every question. When you get one wrong, go back and read the paragraph before and after the paragraph with the question in it.

While drilling, generally, I take off the entire week from all jobs and try to go somewhere that has minimal distractions. I would suggest you do the same, choosing somewhere with limited cell or Internet service. If you are going to be successful, you will need to fully commit to drilling. That means doubling down on your efforts and, of course, to keep grinding.

There should be very few “surprises” in the material when drilling. There may be a fact or two, or a concept here or there that you missed, but by this point you should be firing on all cylinders. Keep drilling and reviewing until about 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. the evening before your test. If you don’t know it by then, cramming will not pay off the way you need it to.

At this point, your preparation is nearly finished. Now you just need to rest and mentally prepare for the following day. Find a way to relieve your stress; for me, it is exercising on the stair machine and getting a massage. Prior to my battalion chief’s test, I stopped studying at 4:00 p.m. the day before the exam. I got a massage and picked up dinner for my family and me. I came home to a house with two kids and a wife who were just as happy that I was finally done as I was. I went to bed early and woke up early. I went to the gym and had a good breakfast, and then executed as planned and had a successful exam.

Taking the Test

You’ve done the training, and now it should all be muscle memory. When you arrive at the test room, relax and take a deep breath. Unless your department has a policy on what to wear, dress in comfortable clothing. You will get your life back in 90 minutes, but the next 90 minutes are crucial, indeed. Here are a few tips that might help.

Force yourself to slow down and read the entire question. Specifically look for the words: NOT, ALWAYS, MOST RIGHT, ALL OF THE FOLLOWING, EXCEPT, and WHICH IS NOT. Having these words in your questions can be problematic if you don’t read the entire question carefully. Answer the question the test is asking, not the question you think it is asking. Avoid reading half the question and jumping to the answer you think is right. Test makers make questions like this on purpose, and it is a natural tendency to want to jump ahead to the answer—especially if you are feeling anxious. You can prevent this by focusing on slowing down and training yourself when using testing software during the first several weeks of studying. Training for this skill is no different from training to catch a hydrant or pulling a line. Do it enough and, even if the whole block is on fire, you will still perform as trained.

Make educated guesses if you are forced to. There is almost no way to read the volume of material that is given and understand and recall 100 percent of it. If you have a question, generally, two answers can be easily eliminated. Review each word of the two remaining answers. Look for disqualifying words or facts. Reread the question and try to understand exactly what the test maker is looking for. If you must guess, go with your gut. When forced into an educated guess, focus on words you have seen.

Look at this question:

Firefighting is a hazardous occupation.

Firefighting is a ________ occupation.

Challenging
Rewarding
Hazardous
Fulfilling

In this example, the correct answer is C, hazardous. The other answers are correct as well, in my opinion, but having read the material several times, you can identify that challenging, rewarding, and fulfilling were, first, never discussed, thus you recognize hazardous; second, all other answers are in the affirmative. When guessing, if all the answers but one are in the affirmative, then the one that is not like the others is likely the right answer. Stick to words you have seen when studying. If you have never seen the word, it’s not the correct answer.

General Tips

Word and number associations can be particularly helpful when trying to retain a large volume of data. For instance, in Brannigan’s Building Construction for the Fire Service, we learn that residential floors need to hold 30-40 pounds per square inch, and oriented strand board has 3–4-inch strands; in IFSTA’s Chief Officer, we learn that credentialing needs to be done every 3 years. To memorize these facts, I stack all the similar numbers together in a group in my mind. This is a helpful way to recall all kinds of information.
Word association is another helpful technique, especially with definitions. When test makers are using definitions, there can be one specific word in the definition that can eliminate all other answers:

Cross-lot bracing: bracing extending from one side of an excavation to the opposite to retain the earth on both sides.

In this example, I associated cross-lot with earth.

Self-Affiliation: concern over establishing, maintaining, or restoring a positive affective relationship in the eye of another person or persons.

In this example, I associated self-affiliation with eye.

One word of caution: When using this type of word association, you must be careful to choose words that cannot be removed by the test maker and still be used as a definition.

Get a study partner. Find someone who is preparing or studying at or near the same level you are. If you don’t do that, you will carry them or they will carry you, and this will negatively affect one of you. Studying together is useful, because when you read, you see what’s important only to you. With a partner, you can verify what you think is important, and they can help you recognize things you don’t know you don’t know.
Find out as much as you can from members who have taken the test you are taking.
Use your network. Ask members of other fire departments if they have tests, materials, or study guides.
Find out who in your department generally scores well on written exams and pick their brains for tactics and strategies.
In the past, I’ve recorded myself reading each chapter. This is good because you know exactly how long it will take you to get through the chapter. Also, listening and reading at the same time can really help.

If you have read this far, it is likely you are preparing for an exam. I hope this advice helps you, and that you have a successful testing process and reap the rewards of your hard work. Remember, we never get where we are all by ourselves. It’s on us to pass down what we know to others who are also striving for excellence. As you advance your firefighting career, continue to share the wisdom you have gained along the way. You might be surprised by the impact you can make.

Mike Clements is the assistant chief of administration with the Cy-Fair Fire Department in Houston, Texas. Mike is a 19-year veteran of Cy-Fair. He also works as a battalion chief in the College Station (TX) Fire Department. He is a senior certified professional with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM-SCP) and specializes in human resources, relationship management, labor/management relations, and grant writing. Mike has a master’s degree in public administration from Stephen F. Austin State University and an undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University.

A ‘Best-Odds’ Scenario for Success on Your Next Promotional Exam