EPSO reasoning tests: verbal, numerical and abstract

Three multiple-choice tests that EPSO uses as the first filter in almost all its open competitions: CAST Permanent for contract staff, the AD5 graduate competition, and the specialist competitions at AD7, AST3 and AD8. Each test is timed separately and submitted on its own, and all three are in your language 1, which can be any of the 24 official EU languages.

They are sat remotely, on EPSO's test platform: see the guide to TAO for the screen, the tools and the rules on your desk.

A short text, around a hundred words in EPSO's published samples, followed by the same question every time: which of the following statements is correct? There are four options, and the right one follows from the text alone.

• The texts are not about the EU. EPSO's samples cover science, history, nature or economics. Outside knowledge does not help, and can mislead.
• The correct option is rewritten. It rarely repeats a sentence from the text: it rephrases one, or combines two facts.
• The wrong options are traps of a known kind: they stretch a statement beyond what the text says, reverse a relationship, bring in something the text does not mention, or change the degree of something it does.

You have about 1 minute 45 seconds per question.

A table of data, sometimes with several units at once (percentages, millions of euros, per-inhabitant figures), and a question that makes you calculate with it. Several consecutive questions often share the same table. There are five options, and one of them is often "None of the above", which punishes estimating instead of calculating.

The hard part is usually not the arithmetic but finding the right figures: columns that are not next to each other, or a quantity that is not in the table and has to be derived from two others. You work with the on-screen calculator; a physical calculator and paper are not allowed. You have 2 minutes per question.

A series of frames with simple shapes, such as arrows, circles, triangles or squares, that change from one frame to the next. You choose which of five diagrams comes next.

What changes can be position, rotation, fill or the type of shape, and more than one rule can work at the same time: one shape rotates while another moves around it. It is the fastest test of the three: 1 minute per question.

You need 10/20 in verbal reasoning and 10/20 in numerical and abstract reasoning together. The second pass mark is combined: 4 in numerical and 6 in abstract is a pass, so a strong abstract test can make up for a weak numerical one, and the other way round.

What happens beyond the pass marks depends on the competition:

The details, competition by competition, are in how EPSO scores its tests.

1. Start with EPSO's own samples to see the formats. EPSO publishes them to familiarise candidates, and says they are not training material.
2. Practise with an on-screen calculator only. No paper and no physical calculator: it is how you will work on the day.
3. Train the pace of each test, not just the reasoning: 1 minute 45 in verbal, 2 minutes in numerical, 1 minute in abstract.
4. In verbal, answer from the text alone. If an option sounds right because you know the subject, check that the text actually says it.
5. In numerical, read the units and the headings before calculating, and do not dismiss "None of the above".
6. In abstract, look for two rules at once when one does not explain the whole series.
7. Sit the three tests in a row, with their real clocks, at least a few times before the exam.