PELLETB in 2026: No CLOZE, Now Online
The PELLETB dropped CLOZE in January 2025 and moved online in 2026. What is on the test now, how the T-score works, and what score agencies want.
Search for PELLETB practice and much of what comes back teaches a CLOZE section, quotes two and a half hours of test time and describes a paper booklet with an answer sheet. All three are out of date. In little more than a year California POST removed a whole sub-test and began moving the rest onto a computer. Here is the test as it runs now.
Change one: CLOZE was removed on 1 January 2025
CLOZE was the odd one out. In POST's words it measured "applicants' ability to use contextual clues to complete a passage that contains missing words": a passage of about 350 words with every seventh word deleted, where you worked out each missing word and coded its first letter on the answer sheet. It had its own booklet and was scored as part of reading.
POST's removal FAQ gives the reason plainly: "Research has found that the CLOZE sub-test is redundant when compared to the other reading and writing sub-tests, offering little additional value." The research was a study by California State University, Sacramento. CLOZE is not part of any PELLETB sitting on or after 1 January 2025, and the whole session dropped from about three hours to about two and a quarter, of which 1 hour 45 minutes is test time.
Two things follow. Any guide that still teaches CLOZE is describing the old test, so you can skip that chapter. And the reading score is now reading comprehension on its own, which makes those 20 to 24 questions matter more than ever. POST has not published how it re-anchored the reading score when CLOZE went.
Change two: the test moved onto a computer in 2026
In spring 2026 POST published new agency and applicant FAQs for an online PELLETB on the Assess.ai platform, and a candidate tutorial video in April. Paper booklets are being phased out: an agency that moves online cannot go back, and agencies new to the PELLETB must use the online version.
"Online" does not mean at home. POST requires both formats to be administered in person by a POST-approved California agency. You sit it on a desktop or laptop the agency provides, inside the WebLock lockdown browser, after registering with your name, email and POST ID. A test code arrives by email beforehand and the proctor gives you a group code on the day.
The screen is worth knowing before you sit down. From POST's tutorial, one "Test time" countdown sits in the header and starts when you accept the first section's instructions. A list of the section's items runs down the left, showing which are answered, unanswered or flagged, and you can click any of them. Under each item are Previous, "Flag this item", Dashboard and Next; the Dashboard shows every section's items at once. Leaving a section with blanks brings up a warning, and Finish Test asks you to confirm before it submits. Passages are shown beside their questions, not above them.
What is on the test now
- Clarity (15 to 18 items). Two versions of a sentence; pick the one written more clearly. The faults are a short list: fragments and run-ons, pronouns that could point to two people, describing phrases in the wrong place, and unfinished comparisons.
- Vocabulary (15 to 18). A sentence with one word underlined; pick the closest meaning from four. The wrong options include the opposite, a word that fits the sentence but means something else, and near neighbours.
- Spelling (15 to 18). A sentence with a blank and four spellings of the missing word. POST says there is no word list; the wrong versions follow common error patterns such as doubled letters and letters the sound hides.
- Reading comprehension (20 to 24). Short paragraphs with one question and longer passages with several, some asking you to apply a definition or a code. Answer from the passage only, as POST advises.
All four are multiple choice, nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, and one clock covers the lot. POST's own applicant preparation guide has a sample of every item type and is the best free material there is.
How the T-score works, and what score agencies want
Your raw score is the number you get right. POST converts it into three T-scores, writing, reading and total, on a scale where the applicants it calibrated the test on averaged 50 and 10 points is one standard deviation. It does not publish the conversion, so no practice test can honestly tell you your T-score, and any that does is guessing.
POST recommends that agencies set a pass mark of 42 or above, but does not require one, and agencies differ. BART uses 42, and SFPD accepts an earlier score of 42 or higher. San Diego PD waives its own test for 42 in every area, reading and writing as well as the total, so a lopsided result can fail there. Sacramento PD asks for 45 and San Jose PD for 50. The California Highway Patrol tests every applicant itself and accepts no outside scores. Online, the T-score breakdown appears on your EDI profile the next day, with a letter from the agency within 30 days.
If it goes badly, you can retake after 30 calendar days, at any agency. A retake inside the 30 days is invalidated, and the online platform blocks the registration.
Practise the 2026 test
Our PELLETB practice tests give you each sub-test as a timed drill and the full 70-item test on one 1 hour 45 minute clock, with flags, an item list and a dashboard like the online platform, and feedback that sets your percent correct against the average applicant in POST's published figures. If you are applying to the California Highway Patrol or the San Francisco Police Department, their guides cover each agency's own rules.