The Charlotte-Mecklenburg NC Police Department uses the Nelson Denny test for their entry-level exam. The Nelson-Denny reading test (NDRT) is a standardized reading test that measures the reading ability of high school and college students. The NDRT is used by many government and non-government agencies to measure an applicant's basic reading skills.

The test includes two parts: Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension.

Part 1 presents 80 multiple-choice questions with 5 answer choices each. The time allowed for Part 1 of the exam is 15 minutes.

Part 2 is Reading Comprehension and requires students to read 5-8 passages and to respond to 38 multiple-choice questions based on the content of those passages. These also have 5 answer choices per question. Reading speed is important on this section as the time allowed for this part of the exam is only 20 minutes.

Allow 45 minutes total for taking the exam.

Since most applicants are rusty on their reading comprehension skills and reading speed, good preparation is required in order to pass the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Written Exam.