​I hope you are all doing well and continuing to get your study time in. The department has been slow in announcing the sergeant's test for an unknown reason, but that just means extra study time for everyone. By now, you should be steadily working at a pace of one full reading of the General Orders per month. You should be on your way to three full readings before they announce the books and the sprint starts. 

As you know, the department put out four new General Orders or revisions recently. These are important General Orders - Use of Force (now Response to Resistance), Conducted Energy Devices, and Emergency Management. I haven't updated the question bank with those General Orders because we won't know what the cutoff date is going to be. We will discover the cutoff date when they announce the books. For the commander's test, the cutoff date was more than 6 weeks prior to the date of announcement of the sources. Will they follow that same pattern? It's unclear. For now, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the new version (as required as part of the job) and studying the old version. There's a lot of overlap between the two versions, but read them both carefully to make sure you understand the differences. If the department decides to put the cutoff date after the new General Orders, I'll get them updated immediately after the source announcement.

Keep on working hard. This is the period that will distinguish those who promote and those who don't. Keep it up! As always, let me know if there's any way I can help you out.

I've updated 200-41 and 200-16 (renumbered from 600-15), which were revised earlier today. The changes weren't huge, but they were substantial enough to require an update of the question database. I also updated a few more typos that were found. Please continue to point anything out that you think needs my attention.

We'll be going live with the geolocation security feature later this evening. Once it's deployed, you'll be asked something along the lines of "bluelineadvances.com wants to know your location" - click "Yes". If you don't, you won't be able to log in or take tests until I walk you through fixing it. 

For those taking the sergeant's test, you should be at least halfway done with your first full reading by now. If you're not, there's still time to catch up - but a little less of it every day! Hopefully you're starting to see your test scores go up as you become more familiar with the questions and read more of the material. 

i hope all of you are doing well and keeping to your study schedule. I have just completed writing a new set of questions, adding 366 new questions to the question bank. They are now live and can be found in all newly-started tests. I've tried to make it a mix of styles and difficulties, with even more of a focus on scenario-based questions. The question bank is now 2,708 questions with no change in the price. I sincerely hope you enjoy the new questions and find them useful.

I've been diligently updating the questions as the department issues and revises General Orders. Fortunately, none of the recent changes have been substantial - just some minor wording changes. I will continue to update questions for the sergeant and lieutenant tests until early June. They will set a "freeze" date when they announce the books so that they have enough time to print the official copies. Going by previous years, I expect that the "freeze" date will be somewhere around June 8th (assuming they make the announcement for mid-September as expected). Thus, I won't be updating questions past that date until we receive the official test source announcement, which will have the "freeze" date on it. Likewise, I will freeze the commander test around May 25th. Once we receive the test source announcements, I will immediately update any question that needs to be updated.

Some of you have sent me typos and bugs that have popped up. I really appreciate it. I have been able to fix all of them. My question bank is about 180,000 words (roughly the size of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, as a comparison), so there are bound to be some more typos hidden in there. Please continue to send me anything that you see. 

In a few weeks, I am going to add a new security feature. In order to sign in or take a test, you will have to supply your device's location to the browser. Any information will be kept confidential and used solely for security purposes. Please let me know if this is a dealbreaker for you and we can discuss a refund. I'll send out more info once it's ready for deployment. This will require a change to the terms of service.

As always, I am open to suggestions for improvement or any type of feedback. I am available anytime outside my normal work hours if you want to discuss questions or the promotional process. Please let me know if there's any way I can help you.

Welcome to the 2020 test cycle!

As we continue forward, I like to send out periodic updates. For instance, I've just finished updating the question bank for the new versions of 300-07 and 800-02, which were issued earlier today. My web developer has pushed out the latest version of the test app, which fixes the bugs we found during the initial quality control. One of the bugs we found was that the answer choices were too close together, making it difficult to read. If you run into bugs, please let me know so that I can get him to push out a bug fix ASAP. You may have to clear your browser's cache if you still have problems with fixed bugs. 

If you haven't done so already, I really recommend reading the FAQ on my website. I tried to put out a lot of valuable information - especially about my study methods. If you're serious about promoting, you need to set out a firm commitment to read the General Orders at least six (6) times. Fortunately, we're early enough that you can do it if you develop a firm, steady reading plan and start slow. You can do a full reading in April, a full reading in May, a full reading in June, and a full reading in July - and you'll be done with four readings by the time the books are announced! Alternately, you can take April and May together for your first reading. I really recommend getting a daily calendar and writing out your reading plan ahead of time so that you can hold yourself accountable. If you have a friend that you are studying with, make sure to hold one another accountable for completing your reading appropriately. You are the only one who can put in the work necessary to promote. You've now spent money on this process, so don't put anything less than 100% of your effort. Assume that everyone else is doing so, because many of them are.

Once you sign up and are approved, you should be able to register and log in at test.bluelineadvances.com. You may need to clear your browser cache if it doesn't work at first. If it continues not to work, let me know and we'll get it figured out. If you get the error message that "Sarge hasn't added you to the rolls" when you try to register after your approval email, let me know. The website works best on a desktop with a modern browser like Chrome, but it should work fairly well on tablet or mobile. If you have trouble with an older device, let me know and I'll see what I can do. 

If you start a test, you don't have to finish it immediately. You can go back via "Test List" and check both your completed and in-progress tests. If you click on an in-progress test, it will place you on your first unanswered question. It saves automatically each time you answer a question, so you can just close the window if you want to pause. 

When you take your first few tests, do not get discouraged. At this stage in the game, a 50% is a normal score. I designed them to be difficult and full of petty, bullshit minutiae. Part of my goal here is to train your brain to recognize petty, bullshit minutiae so that you're prepared when the vendor drops that type of question into your lap. Every single word in the General Orders is fair game for questions. A lot of their questions will hinge on a single word. You need to train your mind to slow down and read each word to make sure you don't skip important information. I've tried to include a lot of different styles of test question that I've seen over the years, so that you get a wide exposure. However, the only thing I'm certain of in this process is that they'll find ways to be unpredictable. Last year, the sergeant's test was filled with scenario questions, but the commander's test had very few. Take this website as a way to gauge your progress and to train your mind, but don't let it become your only source of learning. 

I'm excited for all of you to start this process. I hope that I can help you do the best that you can. While you go through this process, please think of the best supervisors that you've had and make a commitment to be like them when you promote. A wise friend shared this with me a couple of years ago and it has stuck with me: Some supervisors care about the mission. Some supervisors care about their people. Some supervisors care about neither. The best supervisors commit to caring about both without compromise to either. Take this opportunity to do the best that you can, both in terms of taking the test and eventually becoming a good supervisor. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you with either goal.

I have added the 2020 General Orders tests to the store. You can pre-order access now, but I will not open access until Wednesday, April 1st, 2020. My web developer is putting some final touches on the testing app while I make a few final corrections to the questions.

I have just finished updating about 400 pages worth of General Orders. I am very hopeful that I will be able to launch by the beginning of April 1st, 2020. While I wasn't able to add all of the features I wanted to add, the 2020 cycle will have detailed, granular statistics to help the user discover the areas in which they need to improve. I will post here when I am open for orders for the 2020 cycle.

I hope all of you are doing well. I plan on launching Blue Line Advances for the 2020 cycle on April 1, 2020. I'm putting together a list of new features that I hope to add, including statistics for each user, explanations for selected questions, customized tests, and the ability to track when you change an answer. I look forward to opening up for business next year!

I am now accepting orders for the 2018 test cycle. I've spent a lot of time over the last two years making this the best product that it can be. I'm very excited to share it with all of you. Please let me know how I can help you promote.

I am putting the finishing touches on the 2018 tests as we speak. Barring unforeseen circumstances, I will be opening up for orders at noon tomorrow (04/01/2018).

I hope that 2017 was a good year for all of you! Many of my 2016 customers promoted this year - including myself! After promoting to lieutenant, I remained at the Vehicular Crimes Division, where I spearheaded our execution of a division restructuring. It was highly successful, and now VCD is on the path back to greatness. I continued part-time law school, where I managed two semesters of straight As. Like all of you, I weathered Hurricane Harvey and all of the challenges that the city faced.

As far as Blue Line Advances, I'm hard at work writing questions. As of this update, I have 1,927 questions written. I have increased my goal to 2,360 questions. Once I get to my target number, I am confident that I will have captured the vast majority of potential questions in my question bank. If I am able to finish this goal in December, I plan on doing a final quality check in January 2018. Uploading will occur through February and March of 2018. If all goes to plan, I should be able to open up for 2018 orders by April. It may be sooner or later, depending on how many of my targets I am able to hit. 

Please let me know if there's anything that I can do for you. I haven't been checking my [email protected] email address regularly, but I get back into the habit. It's also out of date as far as titles go, so I might change it. 

No one should be studying hard at this point. It's okay to slowly go through the G.O.s, but trying to study hard now will burn you out long before the test arrives. We still have many months left for the active lists. I'll get detailed prediction dates up on the website in the coming months.