The written test
What it measures
There is nothing to tick: there is a file and a brief, and you hand in a text. What is judged is whether you did what was asked, for the reader and at the length that were asked, not whether you write beautifully.
Official format
- Free-Text Essay on EU Matters
- 1 questions · 40 min
- Pass mark · Free-Text Essay on EU Matters
- 5/10
Format taken from eur-lex.europa.eu · verified on September 19, 2026
What the questions look like
A file and a brief
You are given documentation on a Union matter and an instruction: draft a note, a summary or a reply, for a specific reader and a specific purpose.
Half the mark is in reading the brief properly. Who reads it, what they need it for and how long it may be change completely what has to be written — and all of that is stated in the question.
Where people lose it
- Writing well instead of answering. An elegant text that does not do what the brief asked does not pass.
- Starting to write straight away. Without a three-line outline the text loses its shape halfway through, and by then there is no time to fix it.
- Leaving no minutes to re-read. The last pass is the one that removes the sentences that are surplus and the ones that do not parse.
- Ignoring the reader. You do not write the same way for a superior as for another institution, and the question says which it is.
How you practise here
Here you write against the official minutes and the test screen, on a brief of the same kind. When you finish you get a mark broken down by criteria, not a bare score.
Read on
Illustration generated with AI · Google Gemini (Nano Banana 2), cuenta del propietario · 2026-09-22