EPSO numerical reasoning
10 questions in 20 minutes. The math is simple. Reading the right cell is the hard part.
A small table or chart, one calculation over it. Five numbers follow, and one of them is right.
The arithmetic never goes past percentages, ratios, averages and growth. The hard part is time: 2 minutes per question to read the table, work out what is asked, and compute it. No partial credit for setting it up right.
What comes up
- Totals. A row across periods, a column across categories, or a named subset added up.
- Differences and ratios. How much a figure moved, or how one category compares to another.
- Share of a total. What part one category is, and how that share moved between periods.
- Percentage change. Including change in a total, and change in percentage points over a table of rates.
- Projection. Apply a growth rate forward, or work backwards from a share to the total behind it.
Charts are the same question
The same figures can arrive as a table or as bars. Nothing else changes: same rows, same math, same answer. Practice here serves both, because the exam uses both.
Chart values always sit exactly on a gridline. If you are estimating a value, you are reading the axis wrong.
How to work faster
- Read the question first, then fetch the two or three cells it needs. Reading the whole grid wastes time on figures you will not use.
- Check the unit in the heading before you compute, not after. Cheapest error to prevent, most expensive to make.
- Estimate first. Knowing the answer is "a bit over 20%" kills three options before any exact arithmetic.
- Move on. One hard item cannot be allowed to eat two others. Practice untimed until the formats feel automatic, then sit the full mock exam.
On-screen calculator
Practice includes a calculator on every numerical question, same as the real test. It keeps your working if you close it to look back at the table.
What costs candidates marks here
Wrong row or wrong column
The most common lost mark. Your number is real, it is in the table, it is just not the one asked for. And it is almost always one of the options.
Reversed base
Percentage change divides by the earlier figure, not the later one. Dividing the wrong way gives a neat number that is also, reliably, one of the options.
Percentage points versus per cent
A rate moving from 8% to 10% rose by 2 percentage points and by 25%. Both will be options. Read which one the question asked for.
Scale errors
Read the unit in the table heading first. Thousands, millions and per cent all appear, and the wrong unit gives a number out by a factor of a thousand.