The prison officer process puts a role play in front of you, and it rewards your natural response over a script

The first HMPPS online test checks basic numerical skills alongside judgement, and HMPPS links practice maths questions for it. The number questions in our reasoning test cover the same ground: percentages, simple totals and reading a small table, which is the part of the first test that practice clearly helps.

Our questions are harder than the basic numeracy HMPPS describes, and our test has no judgement scenarios, no values-based assessment and nothing like the role play or written task at the online assessment centre. Use it to make the maths feel easy, then spend most of your time on the values and the role play.

The prison officer process on the Prison and Probation Jobs site describes two online tests in sequence. The first checks basic judgement and numerical skills and takes around 25 to 40 minutes. The second is a values-based assessment. You must pass the second to be invited to the online assessment centre.

Those two tests reward different preparation. The first has a right answer to every maths question and a best answer to every judgement question, so practice moves your score. The second asks about your values and how you like to work, so honesty and consistency matter more than technique.

HMPPS describes the numeracy element as testing how well you can handle basic numbers, and it links practice questions. Think of the arithmetic a wing needs: counting prisoners across landings, working out times on a regime, splitting a budget or a stock of items. None of it is advanced, but under a timer basic sums go wrong in predictable ways.

A 2019 HMPPS blog about the older in-person centre said the numerical test there was very similar to the online one and that a calculator was allowed. Do not assume a calculator online unless your instructions say so; practise mental methods for percentages and times as a fallback. Our numerical reasoning test page has short worked examples.

• Add times across midnight carefully: 22:45 plus 90 minutes is 00:15.
• Ten percent is a shift of the decimal point; build five and twenty percent from it.
• When a question gives a total and asks for a share, check your answer is smaller than the total.

The judgement part of the first test asks what you would do in situations a prison officer meets. The best answers tend to share three features: they keep everyone safe, they treat the prisoner with respect even when the prisoner is being difficult, and they follow procedure rather than improvising.

If an option sounds firm but humiliating, or friendly but rule-breaking, it is probably not the best. Our situational judgement guide explains how answers in tests like this are usually ranked.

HMPPS guidance on the role plays says assessors look for natural responses based on the information you are given before and during each one. That is a direct warning against arriving with a memorised script. Role-play actors are trained to respond to what you say, so a scripted answer quickly sounds wrong.

What you can rehearse is a structure. Introduce yourself, listen to the whole complaint before you respond, say back what you have heard, explain what you can and cannot do, and agree a next step. A prisoner who is angry about a missed visit, or a colleague who is cutting corners, can both be handled with those five moves.

The online assessment centre lasts about 2 hours 30 minutes and needs a laptop with a webcam. A phone or a borrowed tablet is not enough. Test your camera, microphone and connection the day before, and choose a room where nobody will walk in during the role play.

The written assessment comes in the same session, so keep a glass of water and a short break in mind. A tired candidate writes a weaker report in the last half hour than they would have written in the first.

These come from anonymous reviews, university careers pages and prep guides. They often disagree, and HM Prison and Probation Service has not confirmed them. Read them as leads, not rules.

• Older prep guides describe four role-play simulations of up to ten minutes each at the in-person centre, which differs from the two role plays HMPPS described in 2019.
• One prep site describes the first online test as numerical, situational judgement and gamified behavioural questions, while another calls it a scenario-based test.