Free resource
Twelve realistic board questions below, two behavioural and two forward facing at each rank, covering every CVF competency and value between them. The full bank of 130+ questions across every CVF area is a free download, and there is a Met future-focused section further down.
Download the full bank free →Sergeant board
Describe a situation where you stayed calm and composed to reassure a colleague under pressure.
Points to consider: Why you decided to act · How you managed your own emotions · What impact this had on the colleague
Tell me about a time you challenged a colleague's unprofessional language or behaviour.
Points to consider: Why you decided to act · How you approached the conversation · What changed as a result
You delegate a task to a constable and the outcome falls short. How would you respond?
Points to consider: How you would review what went wrong · Whether you would own the shortfall yourself · How you would support the officer's development
Force priorities regularly shift with little notice at sergeant level. How would you help your team understand and buy into new direction?
Points to consider: How you would explain the rationale · How you would handle scepticism or resistance · How you would check understanding has landed
A taste of the 45 Sergeant questions in the bank. Download the rest free, or see how to prepare for the sergeant promotion board.
Inspector board
Tell me about a time you helped a team understand how their daily work linked to wider force objectives.
Points to consider: Why the link needed explaining · How you made goals relevant · What changed in engagement afterwards
Describe a situation where you made sure a quieter team member's views were properly heard.
Points to consider: Why you noticed the imbalance · What you did to create space · What changed in the outcome
One of your teams keeps missing the same performance target. How would you find the root cause?
Points to consider: How you would gather and test evidence · Who you would involve in the analysis · How you would distinguish symptoms from root cause
How would you identify good practice outside policing and apply it across your teams?
Points to consider: Where you would look for ideas · How you would test suitability before rollout · How you would embed adoption across teams
A taste of the 45 Inspector questions in the bank. Download the rest free, or see how to prepare for the inspector promotion board.
Chief Inspector board
Give me an example of a time when you built a strategic partnership with another force or regional unit.
Points to consider: Why this partnership mattered strategically · How you understood their priorities · What tangible benefit resulted
Tell me about a time you sought critical feedback from communities your command was failing to serve well.
Points to consider: Why you sought this feedback · How you avoided being defensive · What changed as a result
How would you ensure policing keeps pace with innovation happening outside the service?
Points to consider: How you would identify relevant external practice · How you would test and adapt ideas at scale · How you would embed this beyond your own command
How would you build a culture across your teams where managers own mistakes rather than hide them?
Points to consider: How you would model this behaviour yourself · What systems would surface problems early · How you would respond when a manager gets it wrong
A taste of the 45 Chief Inspector questions in the bank. Download the rest free, or see how to prepare for the chief inspector promotion board.
Metropolitan Police
The Met no longer runs a CVF-scored interview. Its promotion interview is future-focused and marked 1 to 4 on your potential to perform at the next rank, against the Met’s own Success Profile areas. That means the questions ask how you would lead, not what you once did.
Your team's stop and search figures look strong, but a colleague hints that some grounds are being written to fit. As a new sergeant, what do you do first?
Confidence in your neighbourhood teams is falling fastest among residents who never contact police at all. As an Inspector, how would you reach the people you never hear from?
Future focused interview questions ask what you would do, not what you once did. There is no past example to lean on: the panel sets a situation in the rank you are applying for and listens for how you would think it through, so the marks come from your reasoning, your judgement and the way you weigh competing pressures. A polished war story scores poorly here because it shows history, not potential. The samples above are built exactly this way, and the full pattern is broken down in the future-focused interview guide.
State6 has a full Met mode: a question generator built on the Met’s model, answers marked 1 to 4 on potential, and a voiced Met mock board. Start with the Met promotion guide.
Pick your rank and write your answer to one question. State6 marks it, it doesn't write it for you.
A real answer, marked by State6
Give me an example of when you shared research or professional guidance across your teams to improve how stalking risk was assessed and safeguarded.
We Analyse Critically · Chief Inspector
A well chosen and genuinely credible example. Your strongest moment is the decision to have supervisors return substandard assessments with feedback rather than correcting them centrally, because that single choice tells a panel more about how you build analytical capability in others than any amount of description could.
From a real saved answer, shown with the writer’s permission. The answer itself is not reproduced.
It's free and takes a few minutes. No account needed, just an email for the result.
“It’s like having an experienced coach.” L.M., who went on to pass their Sergeant board.
The full bank
The twelve above are the taster. The full bank covers all six competencies and all three values at Sergeant, Inspector and Chief Inspector, behavioural and forward facing, as a free PDF.
Free Download
Every question on this page as a clean printable workbook, with the STARR and PEEL structures alongside so you can plan your answers offline.
Printable PDF. Free. No login required.
No spam. One email with your download link. Unsubscribe any time.
How to use the questions
These ask for a real past example (“tell me about a time…”). Answer them with STARR: situation, task, action, result, reflection.
These ask how you would handle a situation. Answer them with PEEL: position, evidence, explore the tension, lead.
Reading questions is the easy part. The hard part is delivering a strong answer out loud, under pressure. When you are ready, sit the voiced AI mock board or get a written answer scored against the framework your board uses.
How boards score
In the standard national process, every promotion board question maps to one or more areas of the Competency and Values Framework, and the panel scores your answer against the behaviours expected at the rank you are going for, not the rank you hold. That is why an excellent constable answer fails a sergeant board and an excellent sergeant answer fails an inspector board. Assessors listen for the positive indicators and watch for the negative ones, marking to an agreed scale so that candidates can be compared fairly.
Three things move a score more than anything else. The panel needs to hear your individual actions rather than the team’s, so collective language costs marks. The evidence needs to sit at the right rank, which assessors call rank calibration. And the outcome needs to be specific: what changed and what you learned from it. A confident story that never lands a measurable result scores lower than candidates expect.
The Met is the exception. Its promotion interview is future focused and marked 1 to 4 on potential against the Met’s own model, which is why the Met section of this page looks different. The Met promotion guide covers that process in full. For the full picture of the process at every rank, see the complete guide to police promotion board preparation.
Reading is not practising
A bank tells you what you will be asked. It cannot tell you whether your answer lands. That is what State6 does.
A chair asks questions at your rank out loud, probes your answer and marks it against the framework your board uses, with a full written debrief.
Build a STARR or PEEL answer and have it marked at your rank, against the CVF 2024 or the Met's own model, so you see exactly where the marks are won and lost. It even tells you when you have reached for the wrong story or angle for the question, with a verdict of strong, workable or wrong.
Targeted AI coaching that takes an answer from competent to compelling, the difference between a pass and a near miss.
Try it free first. Build your first answer with no card, then upgrade if it helps.
Five mock boards and every tool on the platform. Pay once for 90 days, no subscription. Or see the mock board first.
FAQ
Boards mix two types. Behavioural questions ask for a real example from your own service, and forward facing questions ask how you would handle a situation. Both are scored against the CVF at the rank you are going for. The samples on this page show you two of each at every rank, and the free download covers every CVF area in depth.
Yes. The twelve samples on this page are free to read, and the full bank of 130+ questions arrives as a PDF when you leave your email. The bank itself is a sample of the library inside State6, which generates up to 450 practice questions on Gold, pitched at your rank and your force.
Yes. The bank is split into Sergeant, Inspector and Chief Inspector, and each question is pitched at the level that board expects. A sergeant question centres on leading a team, while an inspector or chief inspector question moves up to managing across teams and carrying organisational risk.
Future focused interview questions ask how you would handle a situation in the rank you are applying for, rather than asking for a past example. The Metropolitan Police built its 2026 promotion interview entirely around them, scored 1 to 4 on potential. The Met section on this page shows real samples of the format.
Yes. The Met assesses promotion differently: a future-focused interview scored 1 to 4 on potential rather than past examples scored against the CVF. The Met section on this page shows what those questions look like, and State6 has a full Met mode that generates them for your rank.
Use STARR for behavioural questions and PEEL for forward facing ones. STARR runs through situation, task, action, result and reflection. PEEL sets a position, backs it with evidence, explores the tension and lands on a clear lead. The how to use section above links to a full guide for each.
No. Nobody can give you the exact questions your panel will ask. These are realistic practice questions built around the same CVF areas your board draws from, so the practice still transfers even though the wording on the day will differ.
Stop reading, start answering
Sit a voiced AI mock board, or build an answer and have it scored at your rank, against the framework your board uses. That is the part the questions can not teach you.
Get started with State6 →