Failing the TEF IRN or the civic exam: when and how to sit it again

How many times can you sit the exam? As many as you need

Let us start with the good news, because it is not said often enough: neither the TEF IRN nor the civic exam limits the number of attempts. The Ministry of the Interior even states it explicitly for the civic exam in its general information on the exam: “it is possible to take the civic exam at any time and as many times as necessary”.

A failure does no harm. It does not appear on any application, it does not penalise a later attempt, and no text sets a limit. What does exist, however, is a waiting period and it is not the same for the two exams.

The two waiting periods: 20 days, and 48 hours

These are the waiting periods we apply between two attempts by the same candidate, and they are very different, which makes sense, since the two exams do not assess the same thing.

How we count, exactly

The 20 days for the TEF IRN are calendar days, weekends and public holidays included. Counting them in working days would give twenty-eight real days, and we would refuse perfectly valid dates.

For the civic exam, we use 3 working days and not two (Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays do not count). The reason is practical: you give us a date for your previous attempt, not a time. Yet 48 working hours from an unknown moment in the day only end, at worst, at the end of the day after next, and our civic sessions are in the late afternoon. So we take the assumption that protects you: one day of margin. You lose a day, you do not lose a result.

Before booking a new date: really read your certificate

This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is the one that decides everything. Booking a new date without reading your score report means replaying the same exam hoping for a different result.

The TEF IRN certificate gives a score per paper, from 0 to 499 points. The certifier’s official scale puts A2 from 200 points, B1 from 300 and B2 from 400, with a tolerance on the weakest paper (167, 267 and 367 respectively). In other words: you may have failed because of a single paper.

The three cases, and what they require

1. 1Only one paper below, by a small margin. This is the most common case, and the easiest to fix: it is not the level that is missing, it is the method for that particular paper. Three targeted hours are often enough.
2. 2Two papers below, including one expression paper. You need to work on production (written or spoken), and this is the only area where an outside view is irreplaceable: you cannot see your own recurring mistakes.
3. 3A gap of more than fifty points on most of the papers. Here, it is the level, not the method. Sitting it again in 20 days without changing anything will not produce a different result: you need a full course, not a session.

Our page “TEF IRN results” page explains how to read the score report line by line. And if your doubt concerns how the session itself was run, the certifying body provides a means of appeal: according to its results page, a complaint is possible within the 30 days following the communication of results in the event of an irregularity during the papers.

Civic exam: eight mistakes of margin, and what to revise

The threshold is 32 correct answers out of 40, i.e. 80%. That leaves eight mistakes. When people fail, it is almost always on the same points, and they can all be revised:

• Figures and durations : number of members of parliament, length of terms of office, dates. These are pure knowledge questions, and the ministry publishes the exact list for the CSP and CR categories.
• Neighbouring institutions : National Assembly and Senate, prefecture and town hall, executive power and judicial power.
• The 12 situational questions, which are not published and account for 30% of the mark. They cannot be learnt by heart: they are worked out by reasoning, see our article dedicated to them.

Good news, however, on the duration: the ministry states that “the certificate of success in the exam has no period of validity”. Once obtained in the right category, it is yours for good: you will never sit this exam again.

Choose the right amount of preparation, not the largest

After a failure, the temptation is to take “the maximum”. It is rarely the right calculation: what counts is themeasured gap between your scores and the target threshold. We sell four durations, 3, 6, 9 or 12 hours, and they do not do the same thing.

Beyond that, it is no longer a short module but a full course, and it can be funded through the personal training account: the page on CPF funding gives the conditions. We set out the full reasoning in “How long does it take to prepare for the TEF IRN?”.

Booking a new date, without making the same mistake

Three precautions, and all three are worth money:

1. 1Count your waiting period from the exact date of your previous attempt: 20 days for the TEF IRN, 48 working hours for the civic exam. Our registration form checks this and rules out dates that are too close, but it is better to know before you choose.
2. 2Book at least 7 working days in advance. The TEF IRN exam on its own is 185 € at the public rate; below that deadline, the urgent rate applies. On a second attempt, that is money you can avoid spending.
3. 3Do not register without having changed anything. An exam taken again in the same way gives an almost identical result. Twenty days is exactly the time for three mornings of method.

And if you had to cancel your first session rather than failing it, the registration and exam-sitting conditions of the certifying body apply: an unjustified absence gives no right to any refund, and only one postponement is accepted per candidate on validated supporting evidence within one month.