AD vs AST: 30 or 40 minutes for the same 30 questions

The timing, competition by competition

The Commission's notices are published only on its intranet, so the internal timings come from vendors who relay them. Each AST timing has two independent sources. The forward-only rule comes from the Commission's guidance to candidates: questions are answered in order, cannot be revisited, and need an answer before you can move on.

Is the AST paper easier?

Not in any way that is public. The notices, as relayed, give the same content areas and the same 15/30 pass mark at every grade. Whether AST candidates see different or easier questions is not stated anywhere. What differs, as reported, is the rest of the competition:

So the extra ten minutes buy time to read, not an easier paper. Prepare the same content whichever grade you sit, and see the scoring guide for why the rank matters more than the pass mark.

A pacing plan for 30 minutes (AD)

Sixty seconds a question is enough for a fact you know and too little for one you are trying to reconstruct. A plan that works with a forward-only screen:

• Checkpoints: question 10 done by 10:00 elapsed, question 20 by 20:00. If you are behind, speed up on the next easy questions rather than on the hard one in front of you.
• Decide by 45 seconds. If you have not found the answer by then, eliminate what you can and choose. There is no coming back, so a question left "for later" is a question lost.
• Read every option before choosing. In "which is NOT" questions the trap is often the first plausible option. The true or false method is quicker than it sounds.

A pacing plan for 40 minutes (AST)

• Checkpoints: question 10 by about 13:20, question 20 by about 26:40.
• Decide by about 60 seconds. The extra time is best spent reading each stem twice: a changed number, institution or majority is easier to catch on a second read.
• Do not bank time. Finishing early earns nothing, and you cannot use spare minutes to revisit an answer.

A pacing plan for EPSO Part 2 (40 minutes, flag and return)

EPSO's testing instructions say you can move freely between questions within a test part and bookmark any question for review. That changes the tactics:

• First pass: answer everything you know, aiming for about a minute each, and bookmark anything you are unsure of. Choose a provisional answer before you bookmark it.
• Second pass: use the remaining time on the bookmarked questions only.
• If you sit both tests, practise each in its own rules. A candidate used to bookmarks will look for a way back in the Commission's test and lose time.

Every point also counts more at EPSO: the knowledge test weighs 30% of the preliminary ranking and 25% of the final (EPSO/AD/427/26 notice, Table 6).

Practise with the right timer

Timing is a skill you build by practising at the real pace. Our free 30-question test lets you choose Commission rules with the AD timer (30 minutes) or the AST timer (40 minutes), both forward-only, or open-competition rules with 40 minutes and flag and return. It runs in English, French or German. The forward-only tactics guide covers what to do when the clock and a hard question collide.