EPSO EU knowledge test: format, pass score and revision
The European Union knowledge test is a multiple-choice questionnaire covering the European Union, its institutions, procedures and main policies: 30 questions in 40 minutes.
Applications closed
- Application deadline
- Last verified
Notice EPSO/AD/427/26
Official test parameters
It is the one test in the competition where revising pays off directly. The reasoning tests measure an aptitude; this one measures what you have learnt, and the gap between a candidate who has prepared and one coming to the subject for the first time shows immediately.
- Questions
- 30
- Duration
- 40min
- Pass score
- 15/30
- Weight
- 25%
- Scoring
- 1 pt/question
- Eliminatory
- Yes
- Ranked
- Yes
- Notice
- EPSO/AD/427/26
The test is eliminatory: below 15/30, the application goes no further. Its score then counts for 25% of the ranking mark.
Verbal reasoning
Numerical reasoning
Abstract reasoning
EU knowledge
Digital skills
EUFTE (written test)
Content based on the notice EPSO/AD/427/26 (C/2026/711). Official parameters last verified: .
The competitions that include this test
EU knowledge appears in the generalist competitions, where the job is not defined by a technical speciality. A future generalist administrator has to know the organisation they are joining.
Specialist competitions work differently: they replace this test with a field-related one, in audit, IT, taxation or data. The table below sets out, competition by competition, what the Official Journal publishes.
Worth remembering: when a competition includes this test, it is almost always both eliminatory and part of the ranking. A weak score here cannot be offset elsewhere, and a point gained here counts as much as a point gained in reasoning.
Administrateurs généralistes (AD 5)EPSO/AD/427/26
The competition families
What it actually measures, and what it does not
What the test measures
- Knowledge of the institutions: who does what, who appoints whom, who can block whom. Confusion over competences is the main source of questions.
- Command of the procedures: the ordinary legislative procedure, the budget, accession, treaty revision. These are sequences of steps, and one step out of place is enough to make an answer wrong.
- Familiarity with the main policies: internal market, cohesion, agriculture, environment, competition, external relations.
- Accuracy under time pressure: with 30 questions in 40 minutes, there is no time to hesitate between two neighbouring institutions.
What it does not measure
- Your opinion of the Union. No question asks what you think of it; every question asks how it works.
- This week’s news. The test covers stable rules and institutions, not the latest European Council meeting.
- Law in depth. This is not a lawyer’s test: fine points of case law belong to the specialist competitions.
- Your ability to write. No answer is drafted; that is what the written test is for.
The format in detail: the four official fields
EPSO describes this test in a single sentence, and that sentence marks out exactly four fields. It publishes no syllabus, no list of topics and no weighting between them: what follows keeps to the official sentence and goes no further.
That silence is not an oversight, and it has a counterpart few candidates make use of: EPSO says it will publish, roughly two months before the test, references to the sources used to develop it. That is the only revision syllabus in existence, and it comes with a date.
The European Union
What it is: its founding treaties, its values and objectives, its competences and the way they are shared with the member states, its successive enlargements.
Its institutions
Parliament, European Council, Council, Commission, Court of Justice, Central Bank, Court of Auditors, and the bodies orbiting them. Composition, method of appointment, and the role proper to each.
Its procedures
How a rule comes into being, how a budget is adopted, how a treaty is revised, how a state accedes. These are ordered sequences, and the order counts as much as the actors.
Its main policies
Internal market, cohesion, agriculture, environment and climate, competition, the area of freedom and security, external action. Their legal basis, their instruments, their flagship programmes.
The four fields above are the ones set out in EPSO’s own description of the test, “a multiple-choice questionnaire covering the European Union, its institutions, procedures, and main policies” (news item of 16 March 2026). Breaking them down into sub-topics is our reading, not an official syllabus: EPSO publishes none. The only official figures on this page are those in the table and the banner, taken from the Official Journal.
Try questions from the test
The questions below come from our practice bank, in the format of the test: one stem, four options, only one correct, with the full worked answer and an analysis of every distractor.
Answer key : B
Article 290 TFEU empowers the Commission, when empowered by a legislative act, to adopt non-legislative acts of general application supplementing or amending non-essential elements. Article 291 TFEU confers on the Commission (exceptionally on the Council) the power to adopt implementing acts where uniform conditions are needed, under Member State control (comitology).
A. Both delegated and implementing acts are, as a rule, adopted by the Commission; the Council only intervenes exceptionally for implementing acts under Article 291(2) TFEU.
B. Article 290 TFEU empowers the Commission, when empowered by a legislative act, to adopt non-legislative acts of general application supplementing or amending non-essential elements. Article 291 TFEU confers on the Commission (exceptionally on the Council) the power to adopt implementing acts where uniform conditions are needed, under Member State control (comitology).
C. No formal consent of Parliament is required for a delegated act; under Article 290(2) TFEU, Parliament may only object to it or revoke the delegation.
D. Articles 290 and 291 TFEU provide for no such split by policy field between the internal market and the CFSP.
Answer key : C
Article 5 TEU sets out three principles. The principle of conferral governs the limits of Union competences: the Union acts only within the competences conferred upon it by the Member States in the Treaties. The principles of subsidiarity and proportionality govern the use of those competences: the Union acts only where the objectives cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, and its action does not exceed what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the Treaties.
A. Article 4 TEU concerns relations with Member States, not these principles.
B. Article 7 TEU concerns sanctions.
C. Correct: Article 5 TEU.
D. Article 13 TEU establishes the institutional framework.
Answer key : B
Article 101(1) TFEU prohibits "all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the internal market". Article 101(3) provides for exemptions, subject to conditions, for agreements that contribute to improving the production or distribution of goods.
A. Abuse of a dominant position is prohibited by Article 102 TFEU, not 101.
B. Article 101(1) TFEU prohibits "all agreements between undertakings, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices which may affect trade between Member States and which have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the internal market". Article 101(3) provides for exemptions, subject to conditions, for agreements that contribute to improving the production or distribution of goods.
C. Concentrations are governed by Regulation (EC) No 139/2004, not directly by Article 101.
D. State aid is prohibited by Article 107 TFEU.
Answer key : B
The EAFRD funds Pillar 2 of the CAP. It finances rural development: farm competitiveness, sustainable management of natural resources and climate action, and balanced territorial development. Pillar 1 (direct payments and market measures) is financed by the EAGF. Since 2023, both funds have been implemented through national CAP Strategic Plans under Regulation (EU) 2021/2115.
A. Pillar 1 (direct payments and market measures) is financed by the EAGF, not the EAFRD.
B. The EAFRD funds Pillar 2 of the CAP. It finances rural development: farm competitiveness, sustainable management of natural resources and climate action, and balanced territorial development. Pillar 1 (direct payments and market measures) is financed by the EAGF. Since 2023, both funds have been implemented through national CAP Strategic Plans under Regulation (EU) 2021/2115.
C. Horizon Europe is the Union's research and innovation framework programme, unrelated to the EAFRD.
D. The LIFE programme funds environmental and climate action, separate from the EAFRD's rural development role.
Answer key : B
The EU sanctions regime rests on a dual basis: Article 29 TEU enables the Council to adopt CFSP decisions setting out the Union's position (asset freezes, travel bans, arms embargoes, etc.); Article 215 TFEU then enables the Council, on a joint proposal of the High Representative and the Commission, to adopt a regulation directly applicable in the Member States.
A. Article 21 TEU sets out the general principles of external action but is not the specific legal basis for sanctions.
B. The EU sanctions regime rests on a dual basis: Article 29 TEU enables the Council to adopt CFSP decisions setting out the Union's position (asset freezes, travel bans, arms embargoes, etc.); Article 215 TFEU then enables the Council, on a joint proposal of the High Representative and the Commission, to adopt a regulation directly applicable in the Member States.
C. Article 50 TEU concerns the withdrawal of a Member State; Article 218 TFEU concerns international agreements.
D. Article 17 TEU deals with the role of the Commission; Article 294 TFEU is the ordinary legislative procedure.
Answer key : B
Under Article 15(5) TEU, the President of the European Council is elected by the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, for a term of two and a half years, renewable once. The total maximum mandate is therefore five years.
A. Five years is the term of the European Commission, not of the President of the European Council under Article 15(5) TEU.
B. Correct: two and a half years, renewable once.
C. One year does not correspond to the term set by Article 15(5) TEU for the European Council Presidency.
D. Six months is the length of the rotating Council of the EU Presidency, not the European Council Presidency.
Questions written by Erudiam from official EU sources; EPSO does not publish past papers.
Common mistakes and method
The most common mistake is revising without EPSO’s material. References to the sources are published roughly two months before the test: starting before that is useful, but ignoring the document when it appears amounts to revising the wrong syllabus.
The second is confusing neighbouring institutions. European Council and Council of the Union, Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights, Commission and High Representative: these pairs supply formidable distractors precisely because they are almost right.
The third is learning lists without the procedures. Being able to name the seven institutions says nothing about who proposes, who amends, who blocks. Questions almost always turn on how the pieces fit together, rarely on the list itself.
The method that works
start from the procedures, because they bring the institutions into play in a set order, and remembering the order makes you remember the roles. Everything else then falls into place around it.
How Erudiam trains this test
- Every question is worked through option by option, with its reference: you see not only the correct answer, but which article or which treaty grounds it, and by which mechanism each of the three distractors fails.
- Spaced repetition (the FSRS algorithm) reschedules the points you get wrong. On a knowledge test that is the main lever: forgetting is the adversary, not difficulty.
- The readiness index (ERI) aggregates coverage, regularity and success rate to show whether you are ready, on this test as on the others in the competition.
- Real-conditions tests reproduce the time pressure of the real thing, which changes everything: something you can recite in three minutes is worth nothing when you have 80 seconds left.
Frequently asked questions about the European Union knowledge test
30 multiple-choice questions in 40 minutes in the competition for generalist administrators, according to the official notice (reference at the foot of the page). The parameters differ between competitions: the table on this page compares them.
15 points out of 30 for this competition. The test is eliminatory and its score counts for 25% of the final mark used for the ranking.
EPSO describes it as a multiple-choice questionnaire covering the European Union, its institutions, procedures and main policies. That is the whole of the official description: no detailed syllabus is published, and we do not invent one.
On 16 March 2026 EPSO announced that it would make available on its website references to the sources used to develop the test, roughly two months before the date of the test. That is the revision document closest to an official syllabus: watch for it to appear on the EPSO website for your competition.
The official parameters we recorded set a language regime for this test, shown in the table on this page. Your individual invitation and the notice of the competition concerned remain the only reference.
No. Specialist competitions replace EU knowledge with a field-related test: audit, IT, taxation, data management. The table on this page shows which competitions include which test.
