Civil Service Clerical Exam Lesson 2: 6 Planted Errors in Name and Number Checking

Civil service clerical exam, name and number checking. Most items hide a single wrong character, and your eye quietly fixes it before you notice. This lesson names the six kinds of copying error these items are built from, and walks you through a practice item for the ones that cost the most points. On the New York State Office Assistant test, for example, this section has 10 questions, and each has either one copying error or none (NYS Department of Civil Service test guide).

First, the method, because it beats speed. Never read a name or a number for meaning. Your brain reads Peterson and Peteson as the same word. Compare position by position: first character against first character, then the second, then the third. For a long code, check one block across every option before you move to the next block.

Error one, and the most common: the transposition. Same digits, different order. Nothing is missing and nothing is added, so the number still looks right at a glance. Try one. The source reads permit A, nine zero four two seven. The copy reads permit A, nine zero two four seven. Which two digits were swapped?

The four and the two, the third and fourth digits. Line them up: nine and zero agree, then four two against two four, then seven agrees. The digit set never changed, which is exactly why only a position by position check catches it.

Error two: a dropped or doubled character. Peterson loses its r and becomes Peteson. Otis gains a second t and becomes Ottis. Whole words do it too: a short word typed twice in a row disappears when you read for sense. The fast check is length. If one side is a letter shorter, or a word longer, stop and spell it out.

Error three: look-alike characters. The digit zero and the letter O. The digit one, a lowercase l, and a capital I. Five and S. Two and Z. Even r and n side by side, which look like an m, so Modern becomes Modem. The fix is to name each character's class as you go: letter or digit. Shape will fool you. Class will not.

Try one. Only one pair is exactly alike. A: RL0A9482 and RLOA9482. B: MK1P7365 and MKlP7365. C: TD5W2140 and TD5W2140. D: GZ2N8607 and G22N8607. Which one?

C. In A, the third character is the digit zero on one side and the letter O on the other. In B, it is the digit one against a lowercase l. In D, the second character is the letter Z on one side and the digit two on the other. C is the only pair where every character matches.

Errors four and five hide in characters people forget to count. Spaces and punctuation are characters. Case number R T, space, two two one four is not the same as R T two two one four with the space dropped, and in a filing system the two can point to different records. Case counts only when the directions say so. On the New York State test, List 1 is printed in capitals and List 2 in ordinary capitalization by design, so a change of case alone is never the error there.

Error six is the sneakiest: a real word swapped for its near twin. Stationery, spelled with an E, means paper and office supplies. Stationary, with an A, means not moving. Spoken aloud they sound the same, and both pass a spell check. Affect and effect, or principal and principle, work the same way. Only a letter by letter comparison catches them.

One more trap is not in the characters at all. It is in the question. Some items ask how many pairs are different, not alike. Some ask for a digit that appears exactly twice. Try it. Five account numbers. Four seven three zero one. Seven eight four seven two. Seven zero nine seven seven. Five seven two seven three. Nine zero seven six four. How many contain the digit seven exactly twice?

Two: the second and the fourth. The third number has three sevens, so it fails exactly twice. Anyone counting numbers with more than one seven says three, and loses the point by reading the question too fast.

Lock these in. Compare position by position, never for meaning. Watch for six errors: swapped digits, dropped or doubled characters, look-alikes, spaces and punctuation, case when the directions count it, and real-word twins. Name every character as a letter or a digit. Read the qualifier, different or exactly, before you count. In a multi-line block, check the last line again, because that is where attention drops. And when nothing is wrong, choose no error. Candidates talk themselves out of it.

More clerical accuracy practice, every answer with its reason, is free at Quibank in English, Chinese and Spanish. The link is in the description.