The NAPOLCOM exam passing score is 70%. Here is what that means in items, and why most people miss it.

NAPOLCOM's examination page states the passing score as 70% for both the entrance and the promotional examinations. It is a single general rating on the whole paper. There is no per-area cutoff of the kind some licensure examinations use, and no requirement to score above a floor in general information or any other area.

That has a practical consequence most examinees miss. Because every item carries the same weight wherever it sits, the area where you score lowest is the area where an hour of review buys the most marks. Someone at 90% in verbal reasoning and 45% in quantitative reasoning should not spend the last month polishing verbal.

Results are posted on NAPOLCOM's website about two months after the sitting. Passers receive a Certificate of Eligibility by mail, which is the document presented to the PNP when applying for appointment as Patrolman or Patrolwoman. Examinees who did not pass receive a Report of Rating, which shows the score obtained.

The report of rating matters more than people treat it. It tells you how far from 70% you landed, which is the single most useful number for planning the next attempt. A rating of 65% is a different problem from a rating of 45%, and the review that closes each gap is different.

For examination rating verification NAPOLCOM's Examining Division of the Personnel and Administrative Service can be reached at the central office, and NAPOLCOM publishes a verification form and email for the purpose alongside each result.

NAPOLCOM publishes the number of examinees and passers with each result, entrance and promotional combined. In the October 2025 sittings 17,403 of 47,537 examinees passed, 36.61%. In the April 2026 sittings 12,372 of 41,592 passed, 29.75%.

Those numbers are low for a paper whose content is secondary-school English, arithmetic and logic plus a fixed body of general information. The gap between the difficulty of the items and the difficulty of the pass rate is the exam's real lesson: it is three hours, four areas, no calculator, and most examinees have never sat a timed paper before the one that counts. Pacing and stamina lose more marks than any single topic.

Set your target above the line, not on it. A review that aims for 70% lands at 65% on a bad morning. Aim for 80% in every area on timed mocks, which leaves a margin for the two or three items you will misread under pressure and for the area that turns out harder than the practice suggested.

Then measure by area, not by total. A total tells you whether you would have passed today; a per-area breakdown tells you what to do tomorrow. The free diagnostic on this site gives a pass/fail verdict against the 70% mark and names your weakest area; the paid plans add the exact score and the full breakdown after every attempt.

And answer everything. NAPOLCOM's published rules describe no deduction for a wrong answer, so a blank is strictly worse than a guess. On the items you cannot solve, eliminate what you can and choose.