Answer elimination on TAO: how to cross out options in the EPSO test

Many candidates look for a way to cross out wrong options on EPSO’s platform and decide there is none. There is one, but it starts switched off and sits behind the settings icon, so it is easy to miss. This guide shows where to find it, what it does, how it differs from answer masking and how to make use of it with the clock running.

Where to switch it on

1. Click the gear icon in the row of tools at the top right of the screen. On EPSO’s public sample it is the second icon from the right, just before the accessibility icon.
2. Find “MY SETTINGS” in the panel that opens (“Test Configuration” on the public sample).
3. Switch on “Answer elimination”. It is off when the test starts.
4. Close the panel and go back to the question.

The platform’s buttons and labels are in English unless you change them, whatever the language of your questions, so look for these English words.

How crossing out works

On EPSO’s public sample, once the setting is on, every option has a small box at its right end marked with a struck-through “Aa”. Click it and the option’s text is struck through in grey, and its radio button and letter disappear. Click the box again and the option comes back. The setting stays on as you move from question to question, and switching it off brings back every option you crossed out.

Answer masking: the second switch

EPSO’s instructions for this competition picture a second switch in the same panel, “Answer masking”. Instead of striking an option through, it hides the option behind a bar; a second click shows it again. Like elimination, it is off until you switch it on. The public sample shows only elimination, so you may not find masking in your own test. Elimination is the more useful of the two, because you can still read what you ruled out.

Switch it on again on test day

EPSO’s instructions say that tool settings chosen in the prerequisite test do not carry over to the real one. So in Part 1 the switch starts off again. Make turning it on the first thing you do, and look at the gear again at the start of each of the three tests: if the switch is off, two clicks turn it back on.

How to use it with the clock running

This is a method of our own, which you can adapt to each test in Part 1:

• Verbal: check each statement against the passage and cross out the ones the text contradicts or does not support. When you come back to the question, you read only what is left.
• Numerical: estimate the answer roughly first and cross out the options that are far from it. Then work out only the ones that are close.
• Abstract: find one rule in the series, then cross out every option that breaks it. If more than one is left, look for a second rule.
• Down to two and out of time? Choose one, bookmark the question and move on. Wrong answers cost nothing, according to the notice of competition, and our guide to bookmarks and the overview explains how to come back to it.
• Cross out only what you have ruled out. On our practice screen, crossing out the option you chose also clears the answer, and EPSO has not published what its platform does in that case.

Where to practise it

Our test screen has both switches under the gear, off to begin with, as on EPSO’s platform. Try them in the demo on our home page, with one question from each test, on a computer. Our free test (the button is at the top and the bottom of this guide) is a full Part 1 on the same screen, with the three real clocks and a worked answer for every question. Our guide to the TAO platform covers the other tools.