Exam day

Exam day: what to have on the desk, and what actually moves the score

Last updated 27 September 2026 · with reports from candidates who sat on 21 September

One of our team sat the interactive assessment for a senior role after more than ten years without an exam, and it was harder than expected. The questions were manageable; the clock was the hard part. Everything below is what we wish we had known the week before, combined with what candidates from this year's Commission sittings have reported. It is candidate experience rather than official guidance.

Have these on the desk before you start

• A calculator, separate from the screen you are testing on. Candidates report a phone used as a calculator and a physical calculator are both allowed. One with real buttons is quicker under pressure than tapping a screen.
• Scrap paper and a pen. You will be writing constantly. Have more paper than you think you need.
• Three or four highlighter colours. The calendar and schedule items become far easier when each person or constraint has its own colour. This was the single most useful thing on our desk.
• Pre-drawn grids. For the schedule, bar-chart and calendar items we kept drawing the same grids over and over. Draw them once in advance, print several copies, and fill them in. It saves a surprising amount of the 90 seconds a question gives you. Print the grids we used.
• A mouse rather than a touchpad. Reported by candidates and matches our experience: dragging a point to an exact value on a touchpad costs time you do not have.
• Two browsers, both with cache and cookies cleared. Browser trouble is the most common technical report. In June several candidates had problems with Edge. In September others were told to restart in a different browser, some of them on Commission laptops, and one got in after clearing cache and cookies. Do it the day before, and log in early.
• Nothing else open. Switching tabs or apps is reported as not allowed, as are screenshots and any outside help. One candidate reported that the camera checks your face throughout.

Two things September's candidates wished they had known

• Some information is hidden until you click. In the real assessment you click a person or a tab to see their conditions, and they hide again when you click the next. The practice test in the invitation shows everything at once, and so do ours. Write each set of conditions on paper the first time you reveal it, then work from the paper.
• Take the practice offered on the day. Candidates report a practice option beside the exam itself that uses the real interface, including the hidden information and the arrows for moving a bar precisely. Several met that interface for the first time minutes before their exam.

What the clock actually does to you

Twenty-four questions in thirty-six minutes is about ninety seconds each, on one overall timer with no per-section clock. Once you know how each item type works, almost nobody finds the questions themselves the problem. The time limit is what kills. What follows from that:

• Do not get stuck. If a question feels off after a minute, commit to your best answer and move on. The test is reported as adaptive, so the hard question in front of you is partly a consequence of doing well on the ones before it. Treat it as a good sign.
• Use the practice items. Candidates report a few practice questions before scoring begins. Use them to settle your hands, your calculator and your grids. Your maths does not need warming up.
• Support does not stop the clock. One candidate opened support twice over a frozen chart and lost about four minutes. If something breaks, note the question number and the time, move on, and report it afterwards.
• Drag, then nudge. Several candidates found bars hard to drag to an exact value. Get close with the drag and use the arrows for the last step.

The week before: the only preparation that moves the score

Two phases, in this order, and the second matters far more than the first.

1. Learn each item type, once. Watch worked examples until dragging a line to a value, resizing bars, placing people in rooms and completing a pattern each feel mechanical. This takes an evening. A word of warning: some widely shared example videos use questions far harder than the real thing. Do not let them scare you.
2. Then only practise against the clock. Full length, timed, forward-only, on an interface that behaves like the real one. Untimed practice on multiple-choice questions trains a reflex the assessment never asks for. This is what this site is for, and the first full test is free.

Guides

• SHL interactive practice for Commission internal competitions: what to use after EU Training's correction
• Internal competitions in 2027: what is planned, and when to start practising the cognitive assessment
• The question types in the internal competition cognitive assessment, as candidates and the staff union describe them
• After the cognitive assessment: what the 60th percentile means, and what comes next
• COM/AST/109/2026: the AST3 internal competition's cognitive test, and the threshold to know about
• COM/AD/108/2026: the AD5 internal competition's cognitive assessment, stage by stage
• The SHL G+ exam in Commission internal competitions: what it is and how to practise for it

What candidates report about the format

Unofficial, and written from candidate experience. Your invitation and the instructions on the day take precedence over anything here. Concours Coach SHL is not affiliated with the European Commission, the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO), any other EU institution, body or agency, or SHL Group.