EPSO Translator case studies
EPSO Translator · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The EPSO Translator competition is the European Personnel Selection Office route into the translator function of the EU institutions. This page is an independent study resource for candidates preparing that competition; it is not affiliated with EPSO or any EU institution. The source page for the competition returned a 'Page not found' error when retrieved, so no verified figures for question counts, duration, pass marks, fees, retake rules, validity periods or domain weights are published here - those fields are deliberately left blank rather than guessed. What can be said with confidence is the shape of the preparation: translation into your target language, comprehension of your source languages, verbal reasoning, and numerical and abstract reasoning. The EPSO Translator case studies are 5 cases and about 2,746 words.
1Press release term choice under deadline
You are translating a 620-word press release from English into French for a fictional EU environment agency. The deadline is 90 minutes.
621 words, about 3 min2Nested conditions in a Council-style note
You are preparing an English-language Council-style note for translation into German. Where a delegation has not commented within five working days of circulation, its silence shall be construed as agreement to the items listed, except items marked ‘reserve’.
538 words, about 3 min3Interpreting a translation-cost memo
An internal memo on translation performance states: “Outsourcing rose because in-house productivity fell.” The figures are: 2023 total output 12.4 million words, of which 8.1 million external and 4.3 million in-house. 2024 total output 13.6 million words, of which 9.9 million external and 3.7 million in-house.
548 words, about 3 min4Deadline capacity and cost for a 60,000-word corpus
A 60,000-word legal corpus must be delivered in three working days. You have four in-house translators, each able to translate 1,500 words per day on this text type.
557 words, about 3 min5Completing a letter-number-symbol matrix
The following 3×3 matrix is built on consistent row and column rules. Each cell contains a letter, a number, and one of three symbols: ▲, ●, ■.
482 words, about 2 min