TSA Written Skills Assessment

Ace the TSA Written Skills Assessment with Ease!

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The Written Skills Test (or English Test) is one of the two components of the TSA CBT test, alongside the X-ray Image Interpretation Test. It usually consists of 60 questions and is used to evaluate your skills in areas such as punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and similar. It is divided into three categories, which are Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, and Written Communication.

If you want the skills and know-how to pass your TSA test with ease, you’ll need Prepterminal’s TSA CBT Prep Course.

Our Course will help you:

Understand the concepts covered by the TSA test
Get practice with actual test questions
Learn the shortcuts to help you get the best results
Have the confidence to pass the assessment without stress

Our course is designed to tackle the TSA vocabulary test free from worry as our curriculum covers all your bases by including in-depth explanations to each question.

This will allow you to figure out what to do in case your answer or educated guess is wrong, preparing you for the actual exam with the knowledge and techniques needed to overcome rival candidates.

Furthermore, we have a massive question bank for the CBT X-Ray portion of the main test.

The TSA CBT X-Ray question banks are designed to familiarize our reviewers with scans of objects or items that are prohibited or restricted according to TSA rules/standards.

For now, let’s take a look at each section of the TSA CBT vocabulary test and what you can expect in each section.

Take the TSA CBT Practice Test

Our TSA CBT practice test is designed by psychometric and XRAY professionals and represents the questions you’ll see on the Transportation Security Officer Computer Based Test.

TSA CBT Vocabulary

Vocabulary is designed to evaluate your level of English, and although questions might appear simple at first, they can actually be quite complicated.

The reason behind this is because the hiring managers want to make sure that you can understand instructions well, especially when it comes to executing special protocols while on the job.

Another reason why this is implemented is because you need to write reports clearly and succinctly, both for the convenience of your coworkers and for legal reasons in case you need to document an incident or write a report.

After all, your supervisor might worry if you wrote “these person” in the report when you meant “this person”, causing them to think that another suspect or suspicious person, or persons, are on the loose in the airport because they only questioned one.

So, let’s check what to expect in the TSA vocabulary test!

Synonyms

A synonym is a word or phrase that has the same or very similar meaning to another word or phrase. Let’s take a look at the following sentence:

“We need to talk about this important issue immediately.”

Question: Which of the following answers would be the appropriate replacement for the word written in bold?

Options:

A:
Peripheral
B:
Trivial
C:
Critical
D:
Minor

Answer: C

Explanation:

The correct answer is Critical since Important and Critical are synonyms.

Antonyms

An antonym is a word of opposite meaning to another word. Take a look at the following sentence:

“The speaker was unable to pacify the crowd.”

Question: Which of the following answers is the opposite of the one written in bold?

Options:

A:
Excite
B:
Antagonize
C:
Threaten
D:
Challenge

Answer: A

Explanation:

The correct answer is Excite since Excite and Pacify are antonyms.

Tips and Tricks

To improve your vocabulary, it is essential to read a lot, which is also the best way to learn the meaning of different words. No matter if you read books or newspapers, you will learn many words that you don’t use on a daily basis.

Another great way to improve your vocabulary is to practice vocabulary exercises, which you can find in our new TSA CBT Exam Preparation Course. It will definitely sharpen your skills and help you achieve a much better score.

TSA CBT Reading Comprehension

This category includes a paragraph of varying length, followed by a question with four optional answers. The questions are used to evaluate your understanding of the text and your level of English, but not your logical reasoning skills.

Questions in this part of the TSA come with a time limit, usually 90 seconds per question.

However, some questions will give you an entire block of text with a lot of details like the one below:

This document is a policy regarding good practice security measures.

Do not leave laptops unattended in car boots overnight
Do not leave laptops unattended in insecure areas, for example, meeting rooms next to areas of public access, and hotel rooms where others may have access. Make use of room locks and lockable storage facilities where available
Be aware of the potential for opportunist or targeted theft of laptop bags in busy public places including airports, train stations, hotel lobbies, exhibition halls, etc., and on public transport e.g. buses, and trains
Do not use laptops with removable media in places where that media could easily be left behind or misplaced
When traveling, avoid placing laptops in locations where they could be easily forgotten or left behind e.g. overhead racks and taxi boots
Be aware that the use of laptops in public places will likely draw the attention of those in the vicinity. It is possible that information viewed on a laptop screen could lead to the unauthorized disclosure of that information being processed.

Question: The abovementioned policy aims to protect users from

Options:

A:
Laptop stealing
B:
Data hacking
C:
Sensitive info disclosur
D:
All of them
E:
None of the above

Answer: D

Explanation:

In this specific case, the policy is intended to protect users from all security issues such as laptop stealing, data hacking, sensitive info disclosure, etc.

Therefore, the answer is D.

Tips: A useful tip for passing this category more easily is to read the entire text before choosing the answer.

However, if the paragraph is short, it might help to read the questions first, since it will give you an insight into what the text is about.

TSA CBT Written Communication

This category of the test is very broad and may contain different kinds of questions. It is designed to evaluate your skills in areas such as English grammar, spelling, and punctuation. To score as good as possible in this category, it is essential to refresh your knowledge of grammar, syntax, usage, and organization of sentences and paragraphs.

Paragraph Organization

These exercises are designed to evaluate your ability to organize sentences into paragraphs. For example, take a look at these four sentences:

In ancient times, most people lived on farms or large estates.
This meant that there were not enough goods for the daily trade.
Fortunately, their own produce was enough to sustain them in the long run.
However, there were no shops since the small settlements were too far apart.

Question: What would be the most appropriate and effective ordering of the sentences above?

Options:

A:
a-b-c-d
B:
a-d-b-c
C:
b-d-a-c
D:
c-a-b-d

Answer: B

Explanation:

Although there are many ways to do this, the most effective one to order the sentences is to first figure out which of them sounds like an opening statement the most, which is then usually followed by a conjunction word or phrase such as furthermore, but, also, in addition, etc.

This is then ended with a sentence that provides a conclusion.

Based on these key points, the answer is a-d-b-c.

In ancient times, most people lived on farms or large estates.
However, there were no shops since the small settlements were too far apart.
This meant that there were not enough goods for the daily trade.
Fortunately, their own produce was enough to sustain them in the long run.

Sentence Completion

This part of the test evaluates your ability to complete a sentence that is missing one or more words, while the propositions include misspelling and grammatical errors.

The most ____ part of the field trip is when we ____ get to the zoo.”

Question: Complete above sentence

Options:

A:
exiting, finalist
B:
exciting, finally
C:
excreting, final
D:
existing, financial

Answer: B

Explanation:

When reading the words out loud, you’ll find that B is the best choice. Field trips are supposedly exciting, and what more when you finally get to your favorite place?

The most exciting part of the field trip is when we finally get to the zoo.

The correct answer is therefore B.

One of the best ways to prepare for this part is to complete similar exercises on a daily basis. That way, you will easily remember different tenses and spelling rules.

How to Prepare for the TSA Written Skills Assessment

The TSA can be a fulfilling and lucrative occupation with competitive pay, comprehensive health insurance, and significant retirement contribution programs. The only way to get those benefits is to prepare for your TSA CBT; you only get two chances to pass the test before permanent disqualification.

You deserve a career that makes you financially secure, and the TSA can provide that opportunity. Don’t risk losing that chance; enroll in our TSA test prep course today!

Created by: Michael Lerner

BSc, Psychometric Tutor, Prepterminal Test Expert

8876 students,
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Hey, welcome to our TSA CBT Test Prep Course. I’m Michael, I am here to assist you with any queries you may have about the TSA CBT Exam Preparation. Don’t hesitate to contact me at [email protected].