A member emailed us two weeks ago and said something we couldn't ignore: "Your verbal reasoning tests contain 10 questions. The EPSO tests contain 20. And honestly, yours are too easy — I can eliminate answers just by checking a date or a number, without really reasoning through the passage."
They were right. So we rebuilt it.
What actually changed
Verbal Reasoning is now 20 questions, timed at 35 minutes — matching EPSO's real AD5 Part 1 format exactly, not our old 10-question version. That's not a cosmetic fix. It's twice the reading stamina, twice the passages, and twice the chances for your concentration to slip in exactly the way it will on exam day.
Every new passage was built around one rule: the correct answer has to come from combining at least two separate sentences, not from spotting one line that matches an option almost word-for-word. That's the actual skill EPSO is testing — can you hold two facts in your head at once and reason to a conclusion neither sentence states outright? Our old questions mostly tested reading comprehension. The new ones test reasoning, which is a different, harder muscle.
Numerical Reasoning kept its 10 questions and 20-minute clock (that part was already right), but we went through every wrong answer and asked: could someone eliminate this without doing the math? Where the answer was yes, we replaced it with a distractor built from a realistic calculation slip — the number you'd get from using the wrong row, skipping a step, or rounding carelessly. You now have to actually calculate, not skim for the option that looks roughly plausible.
Abstract Reasoning got the biggest conceptual rework. The real EPSO test almost never runs one transformation rule at a time — a shape rotates and its fill changes, or a marker moves along one cycle while an arrow rotates along another. Our old grid questions tested one rule in isolation, which meant you could often guess right without truly isolating the pattern. Every one of the 10 questions now layers two independent rules on the same grid, and we explain both rules separately in the answer breakdown so you can see exactly which one you missed.
Why this matters more than it sounds like it should
The pass bar is unforgiving: Verbal Reasoning has its own threshold, and Numerical + Abstract combined need at least 10/20. Practicing on questions that are secretly easier than the real thing doesn't just waste study hours — it gives you false confidence walking into a remote, proctored test with a clock you can't pause and a passage you can't reread twice without losing time.
We'd rather you get frustrated here, in practice, at 9pm on a Tuesday — than three sentences into a passage on test day, realizing the questions are harder than anything you trained on.
Train on the harder version
The full rebuilt question bank — all 20 Verbal Reasoning passages, the tightened Numerical Reasoning sets, and the new two-rule Abstract Reasoning grids — is live now in Practice Tests, in English, German and French. If you're on the free tier, you can see exactly how the format works before deciding whether to unlock the full set with Pro.
Train on the updated Practice Tests
20 Verbal Reasoning passages, tightened Numerical Reasoning, and two-rule Abstract Reasoning grids — free to start.
Start Free →Found a question that's still too easy, or spotted an error? Reply to any of our emails — we read every message, and this is exactly how the last rebuild happened.