Office procedures
You read a procedure — how mail is handled, how a form is processed, who approves what — and apply it to a situation. Questions reward reading the whole rule, including its exceptions.
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Administrative Assistant Exam Study Guide
Office procedures, scheduling, correspondence, and organizational skills common on clerical and administrative civil service exams.
234 track practice questions in the bank · Free 25-question practice test included below.
Take Free Practice Test →Overview
Administrative Assistants keep a city office running: they schedule meetings, manage calendars, draft and proofread correspondence, maintain records, greet visitors, and coordinate work between staff and supervisors. The job rewards organization, clear writing, and steady judgment about what comes first.
The exam tests the skills the job uses every day — reading and understanding office procedures, scheduling, written expression, arithmetic, and handling realistic workplace situations. DCAS multiple-choice exams generally use a 70% pass mark.
Use this guide to study office procedures and scheduling rules, sharpen your proofreading and writing, and practice situational judgment questions. Work through the checklist below and mark off each skill only when you can do it quickly and without errors.
What the exam typically tests
Scheduling and calendars
You arrange meetings, resolve conflicts, and work out dates and times, sometimes across weeks. Watch for details such as holidays, deadlines, and who must attend.
Correspondence and written expression
You choose the clearest, most correct wording for a memo or letter, fix grammar and word-choice errors, and pick the best written response to a situation.
Filing and records
You file names and numbers in order, retrieve the right record, and spot errors in copied information — the same clerical accuracy tested on the Clerical Associate exam.
Arithmetic
You do the everyday math of an office: adding quantities, making change, working out percentages, and checking totals. The numbers are simple; the trap is rushing.
Situational judgment
You choose the best response to a workplace situation — an upset visitor, a conflicting request, a deadline problem. The best answer is usually calm, professional, and follows procedure.
Topic checklist
Work through this list honestly — drill the items you cannot do yet.
- ☐ Read an office procedure and apply it, including its exceptions
- ☐ Schedule a meeting around conflicts, deadlines, and required attendees
- ☐ Choose the clearest and most correct wording for a memo or letter
- ☐ Fix grammar, punctuation, and word-choice errors in a sentence
- ☐ File names and numbers in the correct order
- ☐ Spot an error in a copied name, number, or address
- ☐ Work out percentages, totals, and change correctly
- ☐ Prioritize competing tasks when everything seems urgent
- ☐ Choose the professional response to an upset visitor or a difficult coworker
- ☐ Decide what to do first when a supervisor's request conflicts with a deadline
How to prepare
1Procedure-reading drill
Daily, read one short office procedure or memo and write down its rule and its exceptions in your own words. Good looks like a summary that would let someone else apply the rule correctly.
2Scheduling drill
Three times a week, work out a scheduling puzzle: three people, two rooms, and a deadline, and find the time that works for everyone. Good looks like a correct schedule with the conflict explained.
3Proofreading drill
Daily, proofread one short business paragraph and correct every grammar, spelling, and punctuation error. Good looks like a clean paragraph after a single careful read.
4Situational judgment set
Daily, do 10 situational judgment questions. For each answer, say in one sentence why the calm, professional choice beats the forceful or dismissive one.
5Timed mixed set
Twice a week, do a 25-question timed mixed set from the Administrative Assistant question pool. Review every miss the same day and re-drill the topic it came from.
Common mistakes to avoid
- ✕ Skipping the exception in a procedure: the exception is often the point of the question — read the whole rule.
- ✕ Choosing the fanciest wording: on written-expression items, the simplest, most direct phrasing is usually correct.
- ✕ Answering a scheduling question from memory instead of writing the times down: a quick timeline on scratch paper prevents most errors.
- ✕ Picking the fastest response instead of the professional one: in judgment items, the calm answer that follows procedure beats the quick fix.
- ✕ Rushing the arithmetic: the math is easy, so most misses come from misreading the numbers, not from the calculation itself.
- ✕ Treating every task as equally urgent: prioritize by deadline and by who is waiting on the work.
Exam day strategy
- ✓ Read the question before the passage so you know what detail to look for.
- ✓ On scheduling items, sketch a quick timeline on scratch paper before choosing.
- ✓ On judgment items, ask: 'what is the calmest professional response that follows procedure?'
- ✓ Eliminate the answers that are clearly wrong before choosing between the close ones.
- ✓ Mark hard questions, move on, and return to them at the end.
- ✓ Save a few minutes to check that every question has an answer.
Sample questions
Try these 3 sample questions from the practice bank. The correct answer is marked — read the explanation even when you get one right.
Sample 1 · Mathematics
A clerk adds 48 files to a shelf in the morning and 37 more in the afternoon. How many files did the clerk add in total?
- A.75
- B.85 ✓ Correct answer
- C.95
- D.80
Add 48 + 37 = 85. The wrong answer 75 comes from forgetting to carry the 1 from 8 + 7 = 15.
Sample 2 · Clerical Skills
Which name comes first in alphabetical filing order? Adams, Baker, Carter, Davis
- A.Adams ✓ Correct answer
- B.Baker
- C.Carter
- D.Davis
Alphabetical order compares the first letter first. A comes before B, C, and D, so Adams is filed first.
Sample 3 · Logical Reasoning
Agency rule: All permit applications must include a photo ID. Lena submits an application without a photo ID. What must happen?
- A.Her photo ID is not needed
- B.Her application is automatically approved
- C.Her application is sent to another city
- D.Her application cannot be accepted as complete ✓ Correct answer
A photo ID is required for every application, so an application without one does not meet the requirement and cannot be accepted as complete.
Official sources
The exam announcement (Notice of Examination) is the final authority for the exam you are taking; check it for the exam number, eligibility, subjects tested, and instructions. DCAS multiple-choice exams generally use a 70% pass mark.
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Important disclaimer
All questions on NYCExamPrep.com are original practice questions written for study purposes. They are not official DCAS questions, and this site is not affiliated with the NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) or the City of New York.