EPSO verbal reasoning
20 questions in 35 minutes. You need 10 of them to pass, and nothing else can cover for it.
One short passage, roughly a hundred words, usually written like an EU document. One question about it. Four options, and only one is backed by the text.
This is not a speed-reading test or a knowledge test. It checks one thing: can you tell what the text actually says apart from what sounds reasonable?
Format and timing
20 questions in 35 minutes, about 1 min 45 per question including reading. Enough to read once carefully and check one answer. Not enough to read three times. If you run out of time, re-reading is usually why.
Verbal is its own pass mark: at least 10 out of 20 here and at least 10 out of 20 across numerical and abstract together. One cannot save the other. See how the pass marks work.
How to work a question
- Read the question before the passage. Then you read looking for something, instead of trying to remember all of it.
- Find the sentence that decides it. Almost every question turns on one span of text. If you cannot point at it, you have not answered yet.
- Check each option against that sentence, not against your impression. The question is always "does the text support this", never "is this likely".
- Watch the small words. Some, all, most, may, must, should: that is where wrong options are usually made.
How to practice
Reading more will not move your score much. Answering questions and reading every explanation will, especially on the ones you got right by luck. Each question here explains its answer right away and points at the sentence that settles it.
What costs candidates marks here
Quantifier strengthening
The text says "some countries reported delays". The option says "countries reported delays". "Some" quietly became "all", so the claim is stronger than the text and wrong.
Correlation read as cause
The text says two things happened together. The option says one caused the other. The text never says that, however plausible it sounds.
Necessary treated as sufficient
"Applications must include a certificate" says what an application needs, not that a certificate gets it approved. An option that flips the two is testing exactly this.
Outside knowledge
An option can be true in real life and still wrong here. The only question is whether this passage supports it.