Most free map questions ask which line on the page is shorter. The real module does not. It puts one-way arrows and a closed block on the grid and scores you on whether you noticed. Take the eight-item drill below on a full street map with named avenues, landmarks, three patrol units and two restrictions that change the answer.
CritiCall is modular. Your agency picks which sections you sit, so no two candidates get an identical exam.1 Map Reading is one of the sections most agencies include, and it is one of the two that does the most damage.
CritiCall is graded section by section. There is no averaging across the exam that rescues you: a strong total does not save a candidate whose one section is below the agency cutoff for that section. You can be quick, accurate and calm on eight sections and still be removed on the ninth.
That is why this drill exists on its own URL instead of as a paragraph on a general practice page. If Map Reading is the section costing you, no amount of extra work on cross referencing moves your result.
PrepTerminal's own skill check states it plainly: audio data entry and map reading knock out more 911 dispatcher applicants than every other section combined. Those two, plus the typing throughput they are scored against, are the sections this three-page series covers one at a time.
Street grids, one-way restrictions, closures, direction of travel, which unit is closest, and what a unit passes on the way. Eight timed items below.
This pageThe throughput number the entry sections are measured through. A real timed typing test reporting KPM, the metric CritiCall uses, not just WPM.
Take the typing test →Caller details into CAD fields, scored on exact match per field, with the multitasking variant where a dispatch alert interrupts you mid-entry.
Run the audio data-entry drill →Want it all in one sitting instead? The combined CritiCall skill check runs an audio data-entry drill and a map-reading drill together, and the main CritiCall page covers the exam as a whole. If you do not yet know whether CritiCall is even the test you were invited to, start at the 911 dispatcher test hub instead.
CritiCall publishes no candidate-facing map specification, so nobody can tell you the exact item count or the exact grid you will see.1 What the question types are is well established, and they are the five below. This drill covers all five.
A start, a destination and a grid with restrictions on it. The scored answer is the shortest route that can legally be driven, which is frequently not the shortest route on the page.
Compass bearings between two points, and the direction a unit is moving on a named street. North is up. Street numbering is not a compass and never has been.
Several units on the grid, one incident. Closest means closest to drive, not closest as the crow flies, and a closure can put the nearest-looking unit twice as far away.
Landmarks, cross streets, and the order you meet them. This is the item type that punishes a route answer you guessed rather than traced.
Which street runs along the north side of the park, which avenue is east of which, which block an address falls in. Boundary reading, not navigation.
Every one of these is trivial with unlimited time and a finger on the screen. The section gives you neither. Speed comes from method, and the method is the same five moves every time.
Four avenues, four streets, five landmarks, one station, one incident and three patrol units. Two restrictions on the grid decide most of the answers. Study it now: in the drill the clock is running.
PrepTerminal teaching map. CritiCall publishes no candidate-facing map specification, so this is our own grid built to the question types the module uses.1 It is not a reproduction of any exam material.
It is almost never a sense-of-direction problem. It is two habits, and both are trainable in an evening.
Under a clock, the eye finds the shortest line and the hand answers before the brain has looked at the arrows. That order is the whole failure. Reverse it: eliminate every route that cannot legally be driven, and only then compare what is left. On a four-option item that usually leaves one or two candidates and turns a 40-second question into a 10-second one. On the job it is the difference between a unit arriving and a unit sitting at a closed block with the caller still on the line.
Candidates decide that 1st Street must be the southern edge because 1 is the lowest number, or that avenues must run east-west because they do in their own town. Street numbering is a naming convention, not a compass, and it differs from city to city. Read direction off the compass rose and the marker positions, every time, even when you are sure. The two seconds this costs is the cheapest insurance on the section.
There is a third habit that costs less but costs it constantly: tracing a route without naming what you pass. If you cannot say which landmark is on your left at the second turn, you did not trace the route, you approved it. The "what do you pass" items exist precisely to catch that.
More practice grids do not help if you approach each one the same losing way. QuickPass™ gives you a fixed order of operations and then drills it until it is automatic under a clock.
The order that wins the section: restrictions, then direction, then distance. Cross off every illegal route before you compare a single block count. Applied to every map item in the course.
Bearings read off the rose and the markers, never off the street names. Includes the numbering trap, the "avenues run north-south here" trap, and reading direction of travel on the final leg.
Grids where the nearest unit on the page is not the nearest unit to drive. Closest means closest to arrive, and a closure or a one-way avenue is what makes those two different.
Route items scored on what you pass and in what order, so you stop approving routes you have not actually followed. The habit that fixes the previous three item types at once.
Map Reading sits beside Cross Referencing, Memory Recall, Prioritization, Sentence Clarity, Data Entry, Numerical Ability, Probability and Reading Comprehension. Your agency picks the set; the course covers all of it.
Scores broken down by item type the moment you finish, so your next hour goes to route legality or to bearings, whichever one is actually costing you.
Take the baseline, learn the order of operations, then prove it holds when the clock is the difficulty.
Eight minutes on the grid above. You finish with a score, a breakdown by item type, and a written explanation naming the trap in every item you missed. Free, no account.
Restrictions, then direction, then distance, on grids that get progressively meaner: two one-way avenues, a closure that moves, a destination reachable only from one side. Roughly 45 minutes to make it automatic.
Map items at test pace, then a full timed run across the sections your agency selected, because section-by-section grading means the weakest one is the one that decides the outcome.
Our Trustpilot profile, live and unedited.
One street grid, two restrictions, three patrol units and five landmarks. Fastest legal route, direction of travel, which unit is closest, what you pass en route, and the item where the shortest path on the page cannot legally be driven. Every answer comes with the trap named and the rule stated.
Free, no account, choose 4 or 8 items. Or see pricing
Map Reading is one section. Section-by-section grading means the course has to cover the rest of them too, and it does.
Grids with one-way avenues, closures, detours and destinations reachable from one side only. Route legality, bearings, closest unit and trace-and-name items, all scored separately so you can see which one is failing.
Cross Referencing, Map Reading, Memory Recall, Prioritization, Sentence Clarity, Data Entry, Numerical Ability, Probability and Reading Comprehension. Your agency picks the set, so the course covers all of it.
Real-pace callers with unclear addresses and background noise, and a form to complete while they are still speaking. Audio plays once on the real test, so the drills play once too.
Transcription drills rather than blank speed tests, reported in KPM as well as WPM, because KPM is the metric the entry sections are scored in.
Every item ends with the trap named and the transferable rule stated. Being told you are wrong is not instruction. Being told why the wrong answer was attractive is.
Full refund within seven days of purchase. One payment, no subscription, no renewal. Michael reads every refund email personally.
One price, one payment. No tiers to weigh up and no subscription to cancel.
Test in 48 hours? Map Reading is the cheapest section to fix. The legality-first rule takes an evening.
Map Reading is the section candidates apologise for. They tell me they have a bad sense of direction, as if the module measured that. It does not. It measures whether you check the restrictions before you compare the distances, and that is a habit, not a talent. Every grid in the course is built so the shortest route is illegal often enough that checking first becomes automatic. If you want to know what is actually on your version of the exam, ask your agency which sections they selected. It is a normal question and they answer it every week. I answer questions about the modules myself at [email protected].
If something is not covered here, email [email protected].
It is the section that puts a street grid in front of you and asks operational questions about it: which route gets a unit to an incident, in which direction a unit is travelling, which of several units is closest, and what the unit passes on the way. The grids carry restrictions: one-way streets, closed blocks, sometimes a river or a rail line. The restrictions are the difficulty. The module is not testing whether you can read a map. It is testing whether you check the constraints before you commit to an answer.
Nobody outside the publisher can tell you, and any site quoting an exact number is guessing. CritiCall is modular: the hiring agency selects which sections a candidate sits and how they are configured, so the item count varies between agencies and between hiring cycles.1 Ask the agency which sections are in your version. It is a normal question.
The hiring agency sets the cutoff, not the test publisher, and many agencies do not publish it.2 What matters more than the number is that CritiCall is graded section by section: a strong overall performance does not rescue a section that falls below the agency cutoff for that section. That is the whole argument for drilling your weakest section rather than adding volume to your strongest. This drill measures you against 80% as a working target, which is our own editorial benchmark for a comfortable clear, not a published passing score.
No, and this is the single most useful thing to know about the section. The scored answer is the shortest route that can legally be driven. A route that turns the wrong way onto a one-way street or runs through a closed block is not a slower answer, it is a wrong answer. Eliminate on legality first, then compare distance among what survives. On a four-option item that usually leaves one or two routes to actually measure.
No. The maps are self-contained: every street name, restriction and landmark you need is drawn on the grid in front of you. Local knowledge is not tested and cannot help. What is tested is whether you read the legend and the arrows before you answer, which is why our drill states the restrictions in plain language above the map and then asks eight questions where ignoring them changes the answer.
PrepTerminal's own skill check states that audio data entry and map reading knock out more 911 dispatcher applicants than every other section combined. The mechanism is the same in both: the format punishes a habit rather than a lack of ability. On audio data entry the habit is waiting for the caller to finish. On map reading it is measuring before checking. Both are trainable, and both are invisible to a candidate who has only practised on untimed maps without restrictions.
The skill overlaps, the format does not always. Other dispatcher screening exams and some state POST exams include map or directional items with their own layouts and their own rules.1 If your invitation does not name CritiCall, do not assume it is CritiCall. Start at our 911 dispatcher test hub, work out what you are sitting, and prepare for that. We would rather tell you than sell you the wrong course.
Yes, and you are doing it. The eight-item drill on this page is free, needs no account, and gives you a written explanation on every item. The paid course adds the other sections, the audio simulations and enough map grids to make the legality-first habit automatic rather than remembered. If Map Reading is your only weak section and you have two days, the free drill plus the skill check may be enough on their own.
7-day money-back guarantee: one email to support. The published pass rate across PrepTerminal courses is 92%, never 100%, because no honest prep can promise that.