Exam over, waiting on results

Well, it’s finally over. The police exam for shlav aleph (the first stage course) consisted of thirty-four multiple choice questions over eight pages. I understood about 80-90% of the Hebrew, some of the questions and answers were in paragraph form, requiring understanding everything in order to answer correctly. I think (hope) I passed, I will find out in the next couple of days. It took me just over an hour to get through it; I was the first to start and the last to leave. They screamed at us a bit first about being extremely careful in everything we do in a professional capacity. Now that we have uniforms it means there is more risk of being prosecuted for stupid things we do. It was really interesting. Unlike the culture I come from, in Israel people just keep talking throughout the test, with small breaks when the test administrator screams for everyone to shut up, which lasts about five seconds. It was really funny when people walked by and whispered answers to each other. I did everything on my own, and hopefully my grade will reflect that. The exam was extremely varied; there were questions about all aspects of the course. I especially liked the questions about the procedures for opening fire. It was something like this:

Before opening fire you:

1. Shoot first and ask questions later
2. Shout a warning, fire in the air, and then fire to injure but not kill
3. Fire in the air and shoot to kill

Questions like this seemed rather obvious (the second option). Other things about traffic and enforcement were a little more complicated. Over the two months of the course I enjoyed every class; it was always interesting and provides the basics. I think at this stage the biggest help is learning to wade through the endless paperwork and forms. Every class they talk about a different subject, giving the basics of court procedures, traffic, law enforcement, professional ethics, paperwork, first responders, weapons, communications, and a lot more.

The shlav bet (second stage) course is starting in December; I will be in the army, but I hope to take it when I am done. The next course is exclusively about traffic and tickets, it should be interesting, but not what I am looking for right now. After the course I just took, everyone has the option of joining a specialized unit. After considering my options, I asked to join the patrol unit; it’s very general and gets called out to all types of situations. Not that school security, traffic enforcement and the many other options are not interesting, but I like to as Ole says, mix it up and see what happens.