Civil Service Judgement Test practice
Work through a scenario before starting a set.
The CSJT has two different tasks. Part one asks about your usual preferences and behaviour. Part two asks you to rate the effectiveness of actions in workplace situations. Rate each action on its own merits: several actions can receive the same rating. Our practice feedback is independent and does not reproduce an official scoring key.
Original practice scenario: a conflicting deadline
You coordinate a team report due at noon. At 10am, a colleague finds that one source contains inconsistent figures. Your manager is in a meeting but can be contacted about urgent issues. Another team needs the report to make a spending decision.
- A. Send the report unchanged so the deadline is met.
- Counterproductive in this practice scenario. You knowingly pass unreliable information to a decision-maker. Meeting the deadline does not remove the risk of a wrong spending decision.
- B. Tell the receiving team you are checking an inconsistency, confirm what can be delivered safely, and alert the manager to the risk and proposed next step.
- Effective in this practice scenario. You combine verification, timely communication and proportionate escalation. You have not assumed you can change the deadline alone.
- C. Wait until the manager's meeting ends without telling anyone.
- Ineffective in this practice scenario. Waiting avoids an unsupported decision, but leaves others unable to manage the deadline or help resolve the problem.
- D. Ask the colleague to check the disputed source while you verify the unaffected figures and explain the risk to the receiving team.
- Fairly effective in this practice scenario. This makes useful progress and shares the work. It is less complete than B because the manager has not been alerted to the decision risk.
These are editorial practice explanations, not validated official ratings or a predicted percentile. Changed facts could change a rating. Explain the consequence, evidence and authority behind each choice rather than memorising letters.
Read official CSJT familiarisation guidance, then try the independent practice set. Follow your invitation for accessibility support, deadlines and test conditions.
