ESPA Concours cheat sheet

Institutional anchors to know: the UN (1945, New York), its 15-member Security Council with 5 permanent members holding veto power, and the 193-member General Assembly where each state has one vote.

The European Union: 27 member states since Brexit (31 January 2020); the euro is legal tender in 20 of them; the European Commission proposes legislation, the Parliament and Council adopt it.

French institutions: the Fifth Republic (1958) created a semi-presidential system; the President is elected for 5 years by direct universal suffrage, the National Assembly has 577 deputies.

Economic indicators: GDP measures output, inflation is the change in a price index over 12 months, unemployment counts jobseekers actively seeking work; a recession is commonly two consecutive quarters of falling GDP.

Climate facts: the Paris Agreement (2015) aims to hold warming well below 2 degrees C and pursue 1.5 degrees C; CO2 concentration is now above 420 ppm.

Current-affairs method: date every fact you memorise, and prefer named sources (official statistics institutes, court rulings, treaty texts) over headlines, because exam questions age quickly.

Supranational bodies: the IMF (1944, Washington) handles balance-of-payments support, the World Bank finances development, the WTO (1995, Geneva) settles trade disputes.

Demography: a country's population changes through births, deaths and net migration; the dependency ratio compares non-working age groups to the working-age population.

Passage strategy: read the question stem first, then locate the single sentence that decides the answer; correct options paraphrase the text, wrong ones add unstated causes or absolutes.

Distinguish entailment from suggestion: an answer is valid only if the passage states or strictly implies it; plausible real-world knowledge that the text omits makes an option wrong.

Scope words decide truth value: all, always, only, never, must versus some, often, may, can; an option that strengthens a qualifier usually survives, one that removes it usually fails.

Watch quantifier traps: 'most' does not mean 'all', 'few' does not mean 'none', and 'not all' is compatible with 'some'.

Inference questions ask what must follow; assumption questions ask what the argument needs to be true; strengthen/weaken questions target the link between evidence and conclusion.

Analogy and odd-one-out items: state the relationship precisely (part-to-whole, cause-to-effect, degree, function) before comparing options, and reject any pair with a second plausible relation.

Vocabulary in context: substitute each option into the sentence and check grammatical fit and register, not just dictionary meaning.

Time discipline: allocate roughly one minute per verbal item, flag long passages, and never leave a blank because there is no negative marking in most formats.

Percentages: increase by p% means multiply by (1 + p/100); successive changes multiply, so +10% then -10% gives 0.99, a net loss of 1%.

Percentage points versus percent: a rate moving from 20% to 25% rises 5 percentage points but 25% in relative terms.

Averages: total = mean x count; if one value changes by d, the mean changes by d/n; combined mean = (n1m1 + n2m2)/(n1 + n2).

Ratios: a:b:c with total T gives shares T x a/(a+b+c); to split an amount in a ratio, add the parts first.

Speed, distance, time: d = v x t; average speed for equal distances = 2v1v2/(v1 + v2), not the arithmetic mean.

Work rates add: if A finishes in a days and B in b days, together they take ab/(a+b) days.

Simple and compound interest: SI = P x r x t; CI = P(1 + r)^t - P; compound growth doubles roughly every 72/r periods (rule of 72).

Data interpretation: check units and axis scales, compute the required quantity before reading options, and use estimation (round to 2 significant figures) to save time.

Syllogisms: 'All A are B' and 'All B are C' entail 'All A are C'; 'All A are B' plus 'Some B are C' entails nothing about A and C.

Contrapositive is always valid: 'All A are B' is equivalent to 'All non-B are non-C' only when the original is 'All non-B are non-A'.

Necessary versus sufficient: A is sufficient for B when A implies B; A is necessary for B when not-A implies not-B; confusing the two is the classic flaw.

Common fallacies: affirming the consequent (B therefore A), denying the antecedent (not-A therefore not-B), ad hominem, circular reasoning, false dilemma.

Series rules to test in order: constant difference, constant ratio, alternating two-step operations, squares/cubes plus offset, and digit or letter position shifts.

Letter series: convert letters to positions 1-26; a shift of +1, +2, +3 between consecutive terms signals an accelerating pattern.

Abstract matrices: scan rows then columns for rotation (45 or 90 degrees), reflection, shading inversion, element count and position swap; the rule must hold on every complete line.

Seating and ordering puzzles: draw a diagram, encode fixed constraints first, and test the most restrictive clue before branching.

French agreement: the past participle with avoir agrees with a preceding direct object ('les lettres que j'ai ecrites'), never with the subject.

Subjunctive triggers: il faut que, bien que, avant que, pour que, je doute que; indicative after parce que, pendant que, apres que.

Connectors carry logic: cependant and toutefois contrast, donc and par consequent conclude, en outre adds, or introduces an objection.

Register: administrative writing avoids contractions, first-person familiarity and vague quantifiers; one idea per paragraph, topic sentence first.

Concordance des temps: after a past main clause, a future event becomes conditional ('il a dit qu'il viendrait').

Common confusions: 'davantage' (more) versus 'd'avantage' (of advantage); 'quoique' (although) versus 'quoi que' (whatever); 'censé' (supposed to) versus 'sensé' (sensible).

Error-hunting order: verb endings and tense, then noun-adjective and subject-verb agreement, then pronoun reference, then punctuation and doubled words.

Summary exercise: keep the source's proportions, drop examples, retain figures and causal links, and stay within 20% of the imposed word count.

Rank responses by the public-service criterion: legality and public interest first, then service quality, then team cohesion, then personal preference.

Escalation rule: a safety risk, a suspected offence or a conflict of interest must be reported to the hierarchy in writing; discretion is not an option.

Confidentiality: personal data is shared only on a need-to-know basis; a request from a colleague is not a legal basis for disclosure.

Deadline conflict: signal the risk early to the manager with a proposed reprioritisation; silently missing a deadline is always the worst-rated response.

Colleague error: address it directly and privately first, then involve the hierarchy if it recurs or affects users; public blame is a failing answer.

Motivation answers must be specific to the employer's missions and to the job description, with one concrete personal example per claim.

Ethics test: if a proposed shortcut would be unacceptable if published, it is unacceptable; 'everyone does it' and 'no one will notice' are disqualifying justifications.

Hostile user: listen, acknowledge, state the rule, offer the legal alternative, and log the exchange; matching aggression is never a correct option.

Standard structure for a motivation answer: present the role, then the employer's mission, then the fit between the two, in that order.

STAR format: Situation, Task, Action, Result; the Action must be first-person and specific, and the Result should be quantified where possible.

Self-presentation: a 90-second pitch covering training, one relevant experience, one competence and the reason for applying; do not recite the CV line by line.

Weakness answers require a real weakness, its concrete consequence, and the corrective measure already in place; 'perfectionist' without evidence reads as evasive.

Handling an unknown question: restate it, state the method you would use, and give a reasoned hypothesis rather than silence.

Panel dynamics: answer the person who asked, keep eye contact with the whole panel when concluding, and keep answers to 60-90 seconds.

Oral French: avoid 'du coup' and 'en fait' as fillers, prefer 'par consequent' and 'en effet'; articulate numbers and acronyms clearly.

Closing: prepare two questions about the service's actual work, not about salary or leave, which belong to a later stage.