USPS Postal Exam Practice

That is USPS's own line, from its VEA Candidate Guide. The same USPS exams page also says to "review the sample exam items beforehand so you know what to expect." Both are right. There is no syllabus to learn, but the VEA is built from formats most people have never seen: pick the response you are most likely and least likely to take, check a record against a screen in seconds, and choose between two statements that both sound reasonable. Meeting those for the first time in the real sitting costs attention you would rather spend on the questions.

Every VEA opens with a Realistic Job Preview, which has no questions and is the only part USPS does not score. It then runs the sections for your version. Every version has Work Situations, Tell Us Your Story and Describe Your Work Style. 474 adds What Motivates You, and 475 and 476 add Checking for Accuracy. USPS does not publish which sections each version contains or how many items each has; the split above is the one prep sources agree on, and our item counts are sized to USPS's 30 to 45 minutes rather than copied from anywhere.

You may also have seen Work Your Register (for 477) and Move the Mail (for 474 and 476) described elsewhere. Neither is among the exercise types in USPS's current guide, so they look like sections from older versions, and we do not build them.

The pass is 70. USPS's guide says you must score at least 70 to pass the VEA, and Exam 955 has the same 70, excluding veterans' preference points.

Passing makes you eligible, then you are ranked. USPS's hiring handbook, EL-312, says eligibles are ranked by final score and hiring lists run in descending order of rating. Every VEA posting we opened on 25 September 2026 also says USPS "will be using an assessment cut-off score to refer candidates for selection consideration". The cut-off is not published and can differ by vacancy, so a bare pass may not be enough to be referred.

Veterans' preference. Five or 10 points are added to a passing score, never to a failing one, so they change your place in the ranking but cannot turn a fail into a pass.

A fail locks that version for a year. You cannot retake that version, or be considered for other jobs in its group, for a year. A different version is a separate exam, so you can take it straight away. Your result is often shown as "eligible" or "ineligible" rather than a number, and it is kept on your Candidate Profile for later applications that use the same exam.

Sources: USPS VEA Candidate Guide; USPS postal exams page; Handbook EL-312, 434 (ranking); Handbook EL-312, 435 (veterans' preference); Exam 955 Assessment Information Package.

The VEA runs on the Virtual Job Tryout platform built by Shaker, which became part of Modern Hire in 2019 and of HireVue in 2023. If your browser tab says "Shaker - Virtual Job Tryout" or the page mentions Modern Hire, you are in the USPS VEA, not a video interview. Prep sites also use other names for the same sections: Work Scenarios for Work Situations, Check for Errors for Checking for Accuracy, Describe Your Approach for Describe Your Work Style, and What Drives You for What Motivates You.

Postal Exam 473 is retired. It was replaced by the four Virtual Entry Assessments in 2019 and is not on USPS's current exam list, though its old FAQ is still online. Address checking, forms completion, coding and memory drills prepare you for a test USPS no longer gives.

Exam 955 is for Maintenance Mechanic, Building Maintenance and Electronic Technician jobs. It is taken on a computer at a proctored test centre, by appointment, with photo ID and no personal items, and USPS puts the whole visit at about two hours. Each part is timed separately, you can review your answers if you finish a part early, and once a part ends you cannot go back to it. There is no penalty for guessing, so answer every question.

Multicraft is 60 mechanical and electrical questions in 60 minutes. The sample screen in USPS's own package carries the title Ramsay Corporation MultiCrafTest, so it is Ramsay's maintenance knowledge test, covering hydraulics and pneumatics, welding and rigging, mechanical maintenance, pumps and piping, motors and control circuits, electronics, and AC and DC electrical work.

Spatial Relations has two sections: which figure a set of flat pieces makes, and which block object has the top, front and right views shown. USPS's March 2026 package gives two different timings for it: its contents table says 68 items in 40 minutes, and the part's own paragraph says 65 items in 60 minutes. We build to 68 in 40, the harsher of the two, so the real clock can only feel roomier.

A phone run is not comparable. Our 955 practice works on a phone for revision, but the real exam is a desktop at a test centre, and a result on a small touch screen, especially on Spatial Relations, will not match what you would score there. Do at least one full run at a desk.