Police Officer Initial Hire PAT

The Physical Abilities Test consists of a series of events simulating a police officer's activites.

No person appointed to a permanent, temporary or intermittent, or reserve police or firefighter position after November first, nineteen hundred and ninety-six shall perform the duties of such position until he shall have undergone initial medical and physical fitness examinations and shall have met such initial standards. The appointing board or officer shall provide initial medical and physical fitness examinations. If such person fails to pass an initial medical or physical fitness examination, he shall be eligible to undergo a reexamination within 16 weeks of the date of the failure of the initial examination. If he fails to pass the reexamination, his appointment shall be rescinded. No such person shall commence service or receive his regular compensation until such person passes the health examination or reexamination.

Obstacle Course
This event simulates the actions necessary to pursue and "takedown" a suspect. The event begins with an obstacle course where the candidate will be faced with climbing under an obstacle, climbing up and down steps, going through an open window, climbing over a wall and negotiating a series of cones arranged in a zigzag pattern. At the end of the course, the candidate will be required to grab hold of a weighted bag attached to a pulley and touch it to the ground. The candidate will then immediately move around the Power Station to the handcuffing simulation where he/she will be required to pull on two hand levers until the cable hits the stop. This completes the event. The time limit is 130.4 seconds.
 

The Trigger Pull Event
This event consists of raising a handgun and squeezing the trigger six (6) times with each hand. The time limit is 7.1 seconds. 
The Separation Event
This event simulates tasks that require separating one party from an other and controlling individuals, such as in crowd control situations. The candidate will be required to pull a hanging bag backward touching it to the ground across a marked line. Candidates will have to perform two "pulls". The time limit is 14.2 seconds. 
The Dummy Drag
This event simulates dragging a victim or suspect. Candidates will be required to drag a dummy over a straight course. The time limit is 11 seconds.

Candidates appearing for a PAT who have not been scheduled in advance with HRD will not be allowed to test.

HRD's policy is to allow Initial Hire PATs only for those individuals whose hiring departments have scheduled a test with HRD in advance.

Candidates must pass medical exam and submit pages 1 and 6 in order to be eligible to schedule a PAT.  You may download these forms and obtain more information about the Medical examination here.

• Photo I. D. (for the preview and the test dates)
• A $150.00 bank check or money order made payable to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (for the test date only)

PAT candidates have the option of taking a PAT Preview. During the PAT Preview, candidates take a "practice" PAT that is not timed or scored. The Preview allows candidates to become familiarized with the events required during the actual PAT.

Currently, the PAT Previews are free of charge to candidates but may be subject to change.

 

To schedule an Initial Hire PAT the hiring department must submit a request for the next available Preview and/or PAT along with pages 1 and 6 of the candidate's completed medical examination forms to HRD.  Requests must be submitted no later than 48 hours before the requested date of the Preview and/or PAT; still, there is no guarantee that the time and date slot you are planning on will be availabe if you do not schedule the candidate as early as possible. Candidates are scheduled in the order in which they are input.  Once scheduled, the hiring department will receive confirmation of the candidate's test date(s) and test time(s) via Governmentjobs.com
 

Should a candidate need to cancel a PAT or PAT Preview, he or she must make the request to the sponsoring department at least 48 hours in advance of the test/preview date, and the sponsoring department notifies Mr. Phil Ierardi, HRD PAT Coordinator, at 617-878-9756, of the cancellation at least 24 hours in advance of the test/preview date.