How to prepare for European competitions

This page distinguishes three things that are often mixed up: what EPSO officially publishes, what research on learning has established, and what nobody can honestly assert. The third category is the most useful.

What EPSO provides, and what EPSO refuses to provide

EPSO is explicit about its position: it offers no preparation course and does not endorse any outside publication or training service. The sample tests it publishes are provided for information and are not, in its own words, training material.

That position has a practical consequence: the only official material available concerns the format of the tests, almost never their content. The one known exception concerns the EU knowledge test, for which EPSO undertakes to publish the sources used about two months before the date of the test.

• Sample tests by profile are published on the EPSO website. Language coverage varies from one test to another, and some are available only in English.
• Accessible versions of the sample tests are available for candidates with disabilities.
• Video tutorials and written instructions explain how test day works technically.
• Taking part in EPSO selection procedures is free of charge.
• EPSO states that the reasoning tests have the best predictive value for future professional performance. It cites no source in support: we report this position without presenting it as an established fact.

Test-day logistics are part of the preparation

The tests are now taken online, with remote proctoring. The consequence is stark: your equipment, your connection and your room become part of the exam conditions. A candidate who has fully mastered the content can still lose the competition because a camera fails to start.

EPSO publishes the technical requirements and the clear-desk rules. Reading them a week before the test, and doing a full trial run on the computer you will use on the day, takes an hour and prevents irreparable mistakes.

• Desktop or laptop computer required: no phone, no tablet.
• Browser, operating system, memory, camera and microphone must meet the minimum requirements published by the testing platform.
• No virtual private network; administrator rights on the computer are required.
• Clear desk: no phone, no headphones, no notes, no books, no writing materials, and nobody else in the room.
• One screen only. Dual-screen set-ups, common when working from home, must be disconnected before the test.

What research has established about how to revise

The leading review on the subject assessed ten revision techniques and ranked them by utility. Only two are rated as high utility: testing yourself and spreading revision over time. Rereading your notes and highlighting, the two most common habits, are rated as low utility.

The testing effect is the most counter-intuitive result: five minutes after working on a text, rereading gives better results than testing yourself. Two days and a week later, the relationship clearly reverses. Worse still for candidates’ intuition, rereading gives the most reassuring subjective feeling. The method that feels most reassuring is therefore the one that prepares you least.

The optimal spacing depends on the deadline: the more distant the date of the test, the further apart reviews of the same material have to be. A review covering more than 300 experiments establishes this, and a later study measured the optimal gaps for horizons of 7, 35, 70 and 350 days. For a deadline several months away, the right spacing is measured in weeks, not days.

• Testing yourself is more effective than rereading, and the gap widens as time passes.
• Spaced revision beats massed revision, and the optimal gap grows the further away the test is.
• Alternating exercise types helps with mathematical tasks and pattern recognition, but the measured effect is nil for expository texts and negative for vocabulary learning. Do not apply interleaving to everything.
• Rereading and highlighting are ranked as low utility by the leading review.
• All these conclusions concern student populations, not candidates in an administrative competition. We report them for what they are: robust, and transferable with caution.

Exam nerves, mock exams, and what nobody knows

Test anxiety impairs performance: a meta-analysis covering more than 500 studies establishes this, and shows above all that reducing that anxiety is consistently accompanied by better results. A more recent review confirms the negative link, including for standardised tests and entrance examinations, the situations closest to a competition.

A survey of more than 1,400 pupils reports that regular retrieval practice makes them less nervous about tests, which they attribute to becoming familiar with the test situation. These are self-reported data, collected from secondary school pupils, and should be treated with caution.

We have to be honest on one point: we found no peer-reviewed study isolating the effect of test conditions, including timing and proctoring, compared with identical practice without those constraints. Claiming that research proves the value of mock exams under real conditions would be an unsourced assertion. The link is plausible; it has not been demonstrated.

Languages: an irreversible and underestimated choice

Recent notices require a first language at a minimum of C1 level, chosen from the 24 official languages, and a second language, different from the first, at a minimum of B2 level. The level is self-declared: EPSO requires neither a certificate nor a diploma.

What candidates often underestimate is how far-reaching that choice is. The split of the tests between the two languages is set by the notice: in recent competitions, the reasoning tests are taken in the first language, while the knowledge test, the digital skills test and the written test are taken in the second. The choice made on the application form therefore determines the language of several tests, including the written test.

Certain profiles, translators in particular, follow different language rules. As always, the notice for your competition is the authoritative text.