Cocorico, Le Test Civique, the ministry PDF: which prep tool to pick in 2026?

I printed the ministry's PDF one Tuesday evening. 245 questions across 38 pages, with no answer options at all — that's deliberate, the ministry refuses cramming. The next morning I downloaded three competing apps and bought two textbooks from Vuibert and Foucher. After eight days I had my answer: not one tool covered the 12 scenario questions that count for 30 % of the score, because they aren't published. That's where Cocorico started.

This article is the report of what I found — and what I found missing. I'll tell you where Cocorico holds up, and where other options are honestly better for your profile.

What actually decides whether you pass

Three things get you across the 80 % bar, and the rest is secondary.

Coverage of the 12 scenario questions. The ministry publishes the 245 knowledge questions, not the scenarios. But 12 questions out of 40 on test day will be concrete cases — a neighbour saying women shouldn't vote, a public servant asking you to remove a religious sign. If your tool doesn't make you think through those situations, you lose 30 % of the score on reasoning, not on rote memory.

The regularity the tool makes possible. 30 minutes a day for 6 weeks beats 8 hours the night before. What brings you back on Tuesday evening after work isn't completeness or price: it's the trigger. Audio on the metro, croissants won or lost, a score that climbs. Measure tools on this criterion before anything else.

Access to the language you actually think in. If your B2 is still consolidating, mentally translating each question costs you 30 seconds per item — that's 20 minutes out of 45 on test day. EN/ZH subtitles aren't a comfort feature — they free up usable time.

The rest — price, audio, adaptive engine, tracking — weighs less than those three.

At a glance

Tool	Coverage	Languages	Price	Adaptive	Audio	Mobile
Ministry PDF	245 questions, no options	FR	Free	No	No	PDF
Le Test Civique and similar sites	245 multiple-choice questions	FR	Free / freemium	Partial	Variable	Responsive web
Paper books (Vuibert, Foucher…)	200–400 questions	FR	€15–25	No	No	None
Online courses (NGOs, MOOCs)	Variable, guided path	FR (sometimes bilingual)	€0–300	Tutor-led	Sometimes	Variable
Cocorico	245 official + 40 scenarios	FR + EN/ZH subtitles	Freemium then Pass €14.90–39.90	Yes (Leitner)	Yes (natural FR voice)	Web + PWA mobile

The Ministry of the Interior PDF

This is the official source. The arrêté du 10 octobre 2025 (the 10 October 2025 ministerial decree) set the syllabus, and the ministry publishes on interieur.gouv.fr the list of 245 knowledge questions you may face on test day. Free, authoritative, indispensable as the ultimate reference whenever you doubt an answer you saw elsewhere.

The ministry has nonetheless made three choices that make it insufficient on its own. First, no answer options are provided: this is deliberate, to discourage cramming, and it forces you to find the correct answers elsewhere (service-public.fr, school textbooks). Second, no scenario questions are published — even though 12 out of 40 on test day will be concrete situations the PDF doesn't cover at all. Third, it's a PDF: no audio, no app, no progress tracking. You read, you highlight, you make paper flashcards.

When it works: you're a comfortable French speaker, autonomous, and you want to verify the exact wording of a question seen in another tool.

Le Test Civique (letestcivique.fr and direct competitors)

Several websites and apps have positioned themselves on the "free MCQs on the 245 questions" vertical. It's useful and it's legitimate — the demand existed before me and will exist after. You click, you answer, you see your score, sometimes you watch an ad. Since the question list is public, knowledge coverage is generally fine.

Where these tools fall short is everything that isn't in the ministry PDF. Scenario questions, which are worth 12 points out of 40, are rare or non-existent — that's the main score leak among serious candidates. The interface is almost always French only: if your B2 is still consolidating, you mentally translate each question and lose focus. The adaptive algorithm often boils down to a random draw — no Leitner or SM-2 spaced repetition that brings missed questions back at the right moment. And audio is rare, so your ear gets no training.

When it works: you're a comfortable French speaker and you want a free MCQ supplement to self-test alongside the official PDF.

Paper prep books

Vuibert and Foucher (among others) released textbooks as soon as the new format was announced, around €15–25. The format is unbeatable for people who learn best by highlighting: chapter-by-chapter progression, offline, and some publishers include summary sheets, timelines and institutional diagrams that you re-read with pleasure on a Sunday evening.

The downside is well known. The price climbs fast if you cross-reference two books to compare wordings. No audio, no adaptive engine: you highlight, you re-do questions by feel, with no system telling you that you've missed the same question on laïcité (French secularism) three times. And above all, the ministry rotates roughly 10 % of the corpus every year — a 2025 book will be 90 % accurate in 2026, but that grey zone can cost you 4 points on test day.

When it works: you learn better on paper, you want something to annotate, and you have 4 to 6 months to digest the format in depth.

Online courses (NGOs, MOOCs)

Several associations offer guided sessions: Cavilam, Alliance française, some prefectures, local NGOs supporting foreign nationals. You also find MOOCs on platforms such as France Education International. It's the option that adds what no digital tool can do: a human tutor who answers in real time, a guided path where the schedule is set for you, and a group dynamic that motivates more than a notification about lost croissants.

The cost lives elsewhere. Hours are fixed — incompatible with a full-time job if your days already run long. Prices range from free (NGOs subsidised by city or region) to several hundred euros for a private MOOC, and seats in big cities sell out by September. Between two sessions, there's no adaptive engine: you depend on your own discipline to keep revising.

When it works: you need a human framework to stay serious, and your schedule is flexible enough to fit one session a week.

Cocorico, what it does and what it doesn't

What I built, after the eight-day audit that opens this article: a tool that tries to answer the three criteria above, without claiming to cover the rest.

Concretely, in the app: the 245 official questions are imported verbatim from the ministry PDF, and we added 40 scenario questions written by our pedagogical team — 8 per theme, because the ministry doesn't publish its own. Every question, every option and every explanation comes with natural-voice FR audio: you can prep while doing the dishes or on the metro. EN and ZH subtitles can be toggled on demand for questions whose wording blocks you — the civic content stays in French because that's what the test checks, but you don't have to stall on "ressortissant" or "souveraineté" for three minutes.

The learning engine is a classic Leitner spaced repetition (intervals 1, 2, 4, 7, 14, 30 days): a missed question comes back the next day, then three days later, and drops out of the schedule once it's solid. On top, a 0–100 readiness score updates every evening and tells you, to the decimal, whether you'd pass the 80 % bar that morning, and which theme you're stumbling on. You can run mock exams in real conditions (28 + 12 questions, 45 minutes on the clock) as many times as you want to calibrate.

The limits, no sugar-coating.

Cocorico launched in January 2026, alongside the reform itself. Our scenario corpus grows every month but is still younger than the official one — that's the assumed trade-off of a tool clinging to a test that's only just been born. The free version gives access to 5 lessons per category, which is enough to judge whether the approach speaks to you; beyond that, you need a Pass: €14.90 for one month, €24.90 for three, €39.90 for six. One-off payment, no subscription, and 14 days to change your mind (article L221-18 of the French Consumer Code, we honour it). And above all, there's no human tutor in Cocorico. If you want a teacher to correct you out loud, take an NGO class in parallel — we were designed to combine with one, not replace it.

More on coverage at /en/examens-couverts. On the Pass options at /en/pricing.

Which option for which profile?

Here's the small decision tree I'd use if someone asked me for advice in the street:

• "I want everything free, I'm a comfortable French speaker, I have 6 months ahead" → official PDF + self-organisation + a free MCQ site to self-test. You can pull it off, but it takes discipline.
• "I want to take it in 4 weeks, French-speaking, mobile in hand" → Sprint Pass on Cocorico (€14.90) + official PDF as backup. That's the scenario we optimised for. See also our 1-month plan.
• "I'm a non-native speaker (English, Chinese), I have 6 months" → Réussite Pass on Cocorico (€39.90) for the EN/ZH subtitles and the FR drill audio. Combine with an NGO class if you want human tutoring.
• "I prefer paper, I like to annotate, I have 4 months" → a Vuibert or Foucher book + the official PDF. Cocorico optional for mock exams in mobile mode.
• "I want human tutoring and a framework" → a class with a local NGO (ask at the city hall or the préfecture) + a self-test tool (PDF, free site, or Cocorico) for evenings.

Combine rather than choose

The real answer — the one I give friends and family — is that you combine two or three resources, you don't pick just one. For most candidates, the combination that works comes in three bricks. The official PDF serves as the source of truth, to whip out whenever a wording feels off. Cocorico (or an equivalent) plays the daily-tool role: 20 to 30 minutes a day, the adaptive engine handles prioritisation. A paper book rounds it out as offline backup for travel, or for those who need to annotate by hand to memorise.

What I recommend against is doing everything in parallel from day one. You scatter. Pick one main tool — the one you'll reopen every day without thinking — and use the others occasionally.

What should really decide

Regularity beats the tool. 30 minutes a day for 6 weeks crushes 8 hours the night before, full stop. The right tool isn't the most complete on paper — it's the one you'll reopen on a Tuesday evening after a rough day.

If the gamified app brings you back at 10 PM in your bed, that's the one that wins, even if the PDF is more exhaustive. If the paper book keeps you focused where your phone distracts you, that's the one. Know yourself before comparing features.

For the science behind regularity, read our piece on memorising with spaced repetition. To self-test in real conditions, take our free mock exam.

FAQ

What's the cheapest?

The official ministry PDF is free, followed by free MCQ sites like letestcivique.fr and similar. Cocorico is freemium (5 lessons per category free), then a Pass starting at €14.90. Paper books cost €15–25. Online courses range from €0 (NGOs subsidised by local government) to several hundred euros.

Which is the most complete option?

No single option covers everything. Cocorico covers the 245 questions + 40 scenarios + audio + EN/ZH + adaptive engine, but doesn't replace a human tutor. An NGO class brings you tutoring but little adaptive logic. The most complete combination: official PDF + Cocorico (or equivalent) + possibly an NGO class.

Is Cocorico really more effective than the free PDF?

For most profiles, yes — because the PDF gives you neither answer options, scenarios, nor spaced repetition. But if you're highly self-disciplined, a comfortable French speaker, and you have 6 months, the PDF + a free MCQ site + a cycle 4 school textbook can be enough. See our detailed apps vs PDF comparison.

Do I need a mobile app or does a website do?

Technically, a responsive site works. But the app (an installable PWA in Cocorico's case) makes short on-the-go sessions easy — 5 minutes on the metro, 10 minutes on lunch break. That's what creates regularity, and therefore results.

Are there any independent comparisons?

As of April 2026, I haven't seen a truly independent comparison published — the exam is recent and the ecosystem still young. The authoritative sources remain interieur.gouv.fr, service-public.fr and Légifrance (for the arrêté du 10 octobre 2025). For historical context, France Education International is still the reference on the TCF-IRN, which is the other brick of naturalisation.

Conclusion: pick fast, then stop switching

The worst strategy is to hop between tools every two weeks looking for the perfect one. The perfect one doesn't exist. The right one is the one you actually use every day for six weeks.

If you want to take a look at Cocorico, the first five lessons per category are free, no credit card required — create your account here. You'll know within thirty minutes whether the approach speaks to you. If yes, you grab a Pass. If not, you move on, no hard feelings. The goal is for you to pass the 80 %. The tool is just a means.

— Leandre