EPSO AD5 2026
Competition Guide

The EPSO AD5 2026 competition is not decided equally across the five tests, and that is the first thing to absorb before building a study plan. In the competition notice, verbal reasoning carries 40% of the preliminary ranking and 35% of the final ranking. Numerical and abstract reasoning are eliminatory — you need 10/20 combined — but they contribute nothing to the ranking. They are gates to pass, not subjects where you gain ground.

The practical consequence is blunt: once the combined numerical + abstract threshold is safe, every extra hour spent on shape sequences returns less than an hour spent on verbal. Many candidates do exactly the opposite, because abstract feels more unfamiliar and gives the sensation of progressing quickly.

EPSO verbal reasoning is not a general knowledge exercise. Each question gives a short text followed by a statement to judge True, False or “Cannot say”. It is the third option that eliminates: it does not mean “probably true”, it means the text does not settle the matter. Candidates who fill the gap with what they already know about the topic lose points on questions they thought were easy. In Language 1, with 35 minutes for 20 questions, the margin is roughly 1 minute 45 seconds per question.

Stage 1 runs in October–November 2026, remotely, on the TAO platform. The interface has rules of its own — timer, question flagging, on-screen calculator, navigation — and discovering them on exam day costs minutes nobody can spare. Practising in an identical environment is part of the preparation, as much as the content is.

EU Knowledge and Digital Skills are only played in 2027, at Stage 2, together with the EUFTE essay — and only if you clear Stage 1. Studying them now is the surest way to have forgotten them when it matters: they are factual memory tests, and they belong in the last weeks before the relevant paper. Until then the priority is simple: secure the thresholds, then push verbal as high as it will go.