CritiCall map reading and position locating

Reading a route off a deliberately plain map, and placing a caller from what they say.

There are no practice questions on this page.

Map questions need maps. Drawing a set of fictional street grids and calling it CritiCall practice would teach the layout of our invented town, which is nobody’s test — and the publisher has already said what its maps look like, which is more useful than a fake one.

Two modules, not one

Map Reading / Geographic Directions asks for the most direct route to a destination, and Biddle adds one condition that decides most items: the route has to comply with the regulatory signs on the map. The shortest line and the correct answer are frequently not the same, and the difference is a one-way street.

Position Locating is the other direction — you are given verbal or written clues from a caller and have to work out where on the map they are. Biddle describes it as comprehending disparate pieces of data and drawing a conclusion from them, which is exactly what a caller who does not know their own street gives you.

What is on the maps, in the publisher’s own words

This is worth knowing before the day, because people arrive braced for something harder than it is. The FAQ states that the maps “contain only very basic elements, such as streets, intersections, bridges, rivers, and railroad tracks”, and that they do not contain “more complete features such as contour lines (showing elevation)”.

So there is no terrain, no scale reading, no compass work beyond the legend. What is being tested is whether you can turn a picture into left and right instructions quickly and without getting your own orientation confused.

How to practise it

Biddle’s own advice is the practical answer and costs nothing: take a simple map, pick two points, and describe the quickest route from one to the other out loud using left and right and the four compass directions. It suggests making up more maps in any online map tool.

Two things make that harder in the useful way. Do it against a clock, because the real difficulty is time rather than geometry. And do it while somebody makes you say the street names back, because on the real test the map items are not the only thing happening.

The parts that do have questions.

Biddle Consulting Group assembles its test from a library of modules and each agency picks its own, so most candidates sit several of these alongside the part described above.

Dispatch decisionsReading comprehensionSpelling and sentence clarityData checking Full timed run

The other parts without a quiz

Data entry and typing

Typing what you hear into the right field, in capitals, while something else is happening.

Listening, memory and multitasking

The parts that arrive through a headset — call summarisation, short-term recall, and doing two of them at once.

Frequently asked

Are the CritiCall maps real places?
No, and it would not help if they were. The maps are plain diagrams of streets and intersections — the publisher lists what is on them and it is a short list. Local knowledge is worth nothing here; the module is testing how you read a diagram under time.
Do I need map reading training?
The publisher says not. Its booklet states that no prior map-reading training or experience is required, only that a candidate can follow simple directions such as left and right. That is a lower bar than most candidates expect, and the pressure comes from the clock.
Why are there no map questions on this site?
Because they would be our maps rather than the test’s. Practising a route across a street grid we invented teaches our grid. The honest version of this page is the one that tells you what the real maps contain and hands you a real map to practise on.

Sources

Every figure on this page comes from one of the documents below, with the date it was read. Requirements change; if a source has moved on since that date, the source is right and this page is out of date.

Hiring Test Practice is independent practice material and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or authorized by Criteria Corp, Wonderlic, Inc., National Testing Network, the electrical training ALLIANCE, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, NECA or Biddle Consulting Group, Inc. CCAT® is a registered trademark of Criteria Corp; Wonderlic® is a registered trademark of Wonderlic, Inc.; CritiCall is a trademark of Biddle Consulting Group, Inc. Test names are used only to describe what this material prepares you for. Every question here is original and none is taken from any actual assessment.