The BSQ, Explained Honestly
The Behavioural Styles Questionnaire isn't a test you revise for — it's worth understanding what it actually measures before you sit it.
What The BSQ Actually Is
The BSQ shows you a series of short statements about behaviour and preferences at work, such as "I enjoy having to solve complex problems", which is the College of Policing's own example. For each one you rate how far you agree on a seven-point scale: completely disagree, strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, neither agree nor disagree, somewhat agree, strongly agree, completely agree. The national recruitment site describes 80 statements in total.
Depending on your responses, you may also be asked to rank statements. In the official example you see three statements, pick the one most like you, then pick which of the remaining two is most like you. It's untimed but expected to take about 20 minutes, and no policing knowledge is needed. Unlike the SJT, where you're judging what would be an effective action in a scenario, the BSQ is about how you typically behave, so it builds a broader profile of you across many small statements.
Official advice, in short
- Read and think about each statement carefully before responding.
- Be as honest as possible about how far each statement reflects your typical behaviours and attitudes at work.
- Complete it in one sitting, in a quiet place, if you can.
Source: College of Policing national sift candidate guidance (updated 1 June 2026), checked 1 October 2026; statement count from joiningthepolice.co.uk.
Why We Haven't Built A "Practice BSQ"
We built a genuine practice tool for the SJT because it has a real, reasoned right-and-wrong logic to practise — you can get better at spotting the option that addresses the whole problem, not just the obvious part. The BSQ doesn't work that way. It's not assessing a skill you can train; it's building a profile of who you already are. A tool that told you which answers to pick would be actively counterproductive advice — the entire point is to answer as yourself, consistently, not as whichever persona you think policing wants.
The one genuinely useful piece of preparation is practical, not tactical: read the College's example statements in advance so the format (including the ranking screen) doesn't surprise you, answer at a natural pace rather than overthinking each one, and follow the College's own advice to be as honest as possible. Trying to spot a pattern across statements is unlikely to help and, as this kind of questionnaire commonly repeats similar ideas in different words, is more likely to make your answers inconsistent.
What You Can Actually Practise
The SJT half of the National Sift does have real judgement to sharpen: 32 original scenarios in the official five-point rating format, fully reasoned, with a score breakdown. Free.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Behavioural Styles Questionnaire (BSQ)?
The BSQ is the second exercise in the National Sift, alongside the Situational Judgement Test (SJT). The College of Policing says it measures your typical behaviour and preferences at work, to assess whether you have the right behaviours and attitudes to be effective in the role. You rate statements on a seven-point scale from completely disagree to completely agree. The national recruitment site describes 80 statements.
How long does the BSQ take?
It's untimed. The College of Policing's sift guidance says it's expected to take about 20 minutes, although the College's reasonable adjustments guide (updated 25 August 2026) gives about 30 minutes, so allow for the longer figure. The College also recommends completing each exercise in one sitting where possible, somewhere quiet and free from distractions.
What is the ranking part of the BSQ?
Depending on your responses, you may also be asked to rank statements. The College's example shows three statements on screen: you pick the one that is most like you, then, on the next screen, pick which of the remaining two is most like you. Not every candidate is necessarily asked to do this.
Is there a right answer to the BSQ?
Not in the way there is for the SJT. The College's advice is to read each statement carefully and be as honest as possible about how far it reflects your typical behaviour and attitudes at work. There isn't a public answer key, and the scoring isn't published.
Can you fake or game the BSQ?
The College asks for honest answers and doesn't publish how the BSQ is scored, so nobody outside it can tell you what an 'ideal' profile looks like. Questionnaires of this kind commonly use similarly worded items, which makes inconsistent, persona-driven answering hard to sustain, but that's general practice rather than something the College has confirmed. Honest answers are also the only ones you can repeat consistently.
How does the BSQ combine with the SJT?
The College says the scores from the two exercises are combined into an overall score, which is compared with a group of applicants to policing roles and shown as a percentile. The weighting between the two isn't published.