National Firefighter Selection Inventory Practice Test & Study Guide

The National Firefighter Selection Inventory, also sometimes called the EMPCO test for its distributor EMPCO, is a battery of challenging tasks designed to evaluate candidates and judge whether they have the cognitive skills required for the job.

A sneak peek into our NFSI Prep Course

The National Firefighter Selection Inventory is an assessment by test providers I/O solutions, which measures the cognitive and behavioral abilities of potential future firefighters. The NFSI test is 2.5 hours long and is divided into two sections that include 105 cognitive and 50 behavioral questions. 

The cognitive skills section of the NFSI test is comprised of 105 questions spread out over 8 different areas:

• Verbal comprehension– This competency measures your ability to read a scenario and understand what took place. You will find a moderately long, job-related passage followed by questions and alternative responses. The questions can be answered entirely by the material provided in the passage. Each item presented involves information, analysis or conclusions derived from the scenario.
• Verbal expression – Assessing your skill in conveying ideas and facts through written language, the NFSI highlights capitalization, vocabulary, punctuation, grammar, spelling and English usage. A short statement with missing words is provided. Select the alternative that correctly completes the sentence and various words in a statement are underlined. Select the alternative containing the word that is spelled incorrectly.
• Problem Sensitivity – The ability to recognize a problem or the most serious problem is tested through questions requiring you to identify the difficulty in a given scenario. 
• Deductive Reasoning – Questions assessing this skill require the application of a rule or procedure to a set of circumstances.
• Inductive Reasoning – A set of events or objects are presented. The task involves a determination of the rule or connection that exists between the individual elements of the set. You will be asked to draw conclusions, find the connecting link or summarize data concerning the series of items.
• Information Ordering – Rules or procedures are provided. Apply the rules/procedures to statements for the purpose of correctly sequencing the sentences. Items that measure this competency include Questions requiring the selection of the procedure to attend to first/last and sequencing all statements, selecting the alternative containing the correct sentence sequence.
• Mathematical Reasoning – Expect to encounter charts, tables, diagrams, pictures, and math word problems. Carry out basic mathematical functions to answer the questions using the information contained in the charts.
• Number Facility – Calculate answers to math word problems using fundamental math functions such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, percentages, ratios, decimals, averaging and square measures.

This NFSI fire test section contains 50 multiple-choice, five-point rating scale, questions. The rating is from “Strongly Agree” to Strongly Disagree.” Same as on other pre-employment personality tests your selections reflect your thoughts, actions, and preferences in regard to work-based characteristics. The main characteristics assessed include:

• Stress Tolerance – Your ability to handle the extreme work pressures of a firefighter is measured through NFSI stress tolerance questions.
• Team Orientation – Teamwork is the essential characteristic being assessed.
• Motivation – Initiative and conscientiousness are the two main traits that establish the outstanding nature of every firefighter.

The National Firefighter Selection Inventory practice test questions in this section represent some of the main elements of the test, taken from our NFSI prep pack. 

For more sample questions, check out our free Firefighter Test Question page.