Official civic exam PDF: download, extract, print

The French Ministry of the Interior publishes a single PDF that contains the knowledge questions of the civic exam. It is the official, free reference, and every candidate for naturalization, long-term residence card, or multi-year residence permit (CSP) should know it. This guide shows how to download it, extract one topic for focused revision, prepare it for phone or tablet reading or for a 2-up booklet print, and most importantly how to combine this document with active practice without wasting time.

The actual exam holds 40 questions in 45 minutes, with the pass mark at 32 correct answers out of 40. The ministry's PDF only covers the 28 knowledge questions — the 12 scenario questions are deliberately not published. If the format is new to you, start from the complete 2026 civic exam guide, then come back here for the tooling part.

What this PDF is, who publishes it, where to find it

Since the 1 January 2026 reform took effect, the civic exam is operated by France Education International (FEI), the official body designated by the decree of 10 October 2025. That same decree mandates the publication of a public reference document with the knowledge questions, refreshed at every wave of the decree. The current version is dated 12 December 2025 and titled "Civic Exam for Naturalization — Knowledge Questions".

The PDF is hosted on the ministry's site and on FEI's site, free download, no signup. It is a few hundred kilobytes, watermark-free, unprotected. You can share it, print it, annotate it — exactly what revision needs.

Why a PDF and not an interactive site

Fair question. Why doesn't the ministry publish a clickable web page or an official app? Short answer: a PDF is universal, archivable, and legally stable. The format was designed to reproduce a document identically, regardless of the reader's software and machine. For an exam reference, that matters. The detailed trade-offs between formats are well laid out in this comparison of PDF, Word and HTML, which sums up the typical decisions an administration makes: portability, signature, integrity.

Practical consequence: the PDF is frozen. It does not track your answers, does not grade, does not time you. You use it for passive memorization (read, understand, remember) and pair it with an interactive tool for active memorization (timing, scenarios, instant feedback).

Downloading the official knowledge questions PDF

Three sources give you the same file:

• The FEI portal, under "Civic Exam for Naturalization". Most up-to-date source if a new wave of decree is published mid-year.
• The official service-public.fr site, which points to the ministry page and holds the official calendar.
• The interieur.gouv.fr portal, for the archive of past decrees.

Avoid versions found on forums or third-party sites: they may date from a wave older than your exam date. The publication date is always shown on page 1, top right. Verify that it is the most recent before working from it.

For a top-level view of the reference, the PDF is split into 5 main parts mapping to the 5 official exam topics: values and principles, history and geography, political institutions, rights and duties, daily life. Inside each topic, questions are numbered, with a brief context cue but no answer choices — the ministry deliberately withholds them to discourage rote memorization.

Extracting one topic for focused revision

Classic mistake: open the PDF at the start, read for 20 minutes, reach the middle of topic 1, give up. On 130 to 180 pages depending on the wave, linear reading is a bad idea. The right strategy is to extract one topic per session and focus on it. The operation is simple: locate the page range of the topic (e.g. pages 24-49 for topic 2), then extract exactly those pages into a new PDF. You get a 25-page file instead of 180, much more digestible, that you can name civic-exam-topic-2.pdf and store separately.

This extraction has three concrete benefits:

• You open the right file without hesitation, so revision starts faster.
• Your reader's progress bar reflects real progress, which helps motivation.
• You can transfer the sub-PDF to another device (mail to self, cloud, USB) without sending the whole bulk.

If you are following a 1-month preparation plan, a good practice is to extract one topic per week, in the order you tackle them.

Putting the PDF on tablet or phone

The official PDF often weighs 5-12 MB, which fits any device's memory. The real question is not weight, it is readability. On a phone, reading A4-formatted paragraphs forces zoom-in / zoom-out cycles. Two complementary solutions.

Solution 1 — Recompress for screen. Screen compression drops image resolution to 150 DPI instead of 300, halving or tripling the weight without visible loss. The technical detail is in this guide to compressing a PDF without losing quality, which cites a real case of a file dropping from 32 MB to 4 MB through smart compression. For a revision PDF, the same method gets you a file that opens instantly even on weak 4G.

Solution 2 — Convert dense tables into images. The hardest pages to memorize (institutions, hierarchy of norms, historical timelines) gain from being exported as PNG and used as wallpaper or in a dedicated photo album. This is passive-exposure memorization: you see the table ten times a day, it sticks without conscious effort.

Printing a 2-up revision booklet

If you prefer paper, printing the raw PDF on 180 A4 sheets is both expensive and impractical. Two tricks change the experience.

First trick — 2-up booklet printing, meaning two A4 pages reduced side by side onto one landscape page. Every modern print driver can do it ("2 pages per sheet" option). You get an A5 format that fits in a bag, with comfortable reading on dense pages.

Second trick — renumber the PDF before printing, especially if you extracted topics separately or want to assemble a personal memo. The original PDF pagination follows the full document numbering — pages 142-175 for one topic, for example. For a personal booklet, it reads better to renumber from 1 to N before export. You can also add section labels ("Topic 2 — page 5") to spot blocks instantly.

Once printed, staple it or have it spiral-bound at any printer (around €5 for an A5 spiral). The result is a personal, up-to-date memo, free for content, €5 for finishing.

Combining the PDF and active practice

The PDF has a structural limit you have to accept: it shows you the content but does not test your retention. On an 80%-pass exam, what matters is not what you have read but what you can recall in 67 seconds. That is exactly the point of timed active practice with instant feedback and spaced repetition on missed questions.

The most effective sequence for most candidates:

• 30 minutes on the official PDF to absorb a sub-topic.
• 20 minutes of timed practice on the same sub-topic, with 4 options per question, just like the real exam.
• 10 minutes reviewing missed questions, ideally with audio for pronunciation of key civic terms.

Cocorico delivers exactly that sequence: 1,000+ questions mapped to the official program, native FR audio on every question, instant feedback, automatic spaced repetition. The ministry PDF is your canonical source; the app is your training gym.

Quick-reference matrix: what to do with the PDF

To decide in 30 seconds the right treatment for the PDF, here is the condensed matrix:

Goal	Action	Tool	Expected output
Read on tablet or phone	Recompress to 150 DPI screen	PDF compression	Light file ~2-3 MB, opens in 1 s
Revise one topic only	Extract topic pages	Page extraction	Sub-PDF ~25 pages focused
Memorize a table	Convert page to PNG	Image export	Wallpaper-ready image
Print A5 booklet	Renumber + 2-up	Page renumbering	Bound paper booklet
Cite a question in a card	Extract single page	Single-page extraction	One-page PDF to paste

The general rule: the official PDF is not revised as-is. It gets cut, recompressed, converted depending on what you want from it. The source draft stays on your hard drive, but you actually consult the transformed version.

FAQ

Is the official PDF enough to pass the exam?

For the knowledge half, in theory yes: it contains the 28 questions of the official program. In practice, many candidates fail because they master the content but not the format. The exam asks for an answer in roughly 67 seconds per question, under pressure, among 4 trapped options. The PDF does not train that format. You need at least one timed practice exam to calibrate the rhythm.

Does the PDF cover the 12 scenario questions?

No, and that is a deliberate ministry choice. Scenario questions are not public to discourage rote memorization. You find the outline of expected scenarios in training materials (apps, books) that build on FEI doctrine, but not the exact wording. This is one of the differences between CSP, CR and naturalization tests that flies under the radar: all rest on the same 28 + 12 structure.

How often is the PDF updated?

A major update every 12 to 18 months following the waves of decree. A minor update may happen if a precise data point changes (census, name of a president, dates). Check the date on page 1 before each intensive revision session. If you find a version older than 12 months on a third-party site, go back to the official source.

Can I request a paper version from the ministry?

No, the official paper version does not exist. The PDF is the only version distributed. You can print it yourself, but you will not have a stamped "République française" booklet. This has zero impact on the exam.

Is the question audio bundled with the PDF?

No. The PDF is text only. If you are not a native French speaker, complement the reading with a tool that pronounces each question — that is the focus of our civic exam pronunciation guide. Pronouncing institutional terms (laïcité, sénat, département) is a recurring oral pitfall.

Next step

Download the official PDF, extract the topic that scares you most, and confront it immediately to a practice exam. The PDF is your reference; active practice is what turns reading into reflex.

Start today:

• Free instant trial — 5 lessons per topic to measure your starting score, no credit card
• 1-month preparation plan if your prefecture interview is approaching
• Pass €14.90 / €24.90 / €39.90 depending on your timeline, one-shot payment
• Free practice exam in real conditions at the official 40-question / 45-minute format

Over 80% of Cocorico users pass on first attempt. Your naturalization should not fail on a quiz.

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Official sources

• service-public.fr — Naturalization by decree
• Ministry of the Interior — interieur.gouv.fr (knowledge questions PDF)
• France Education International (FEI) — official exam operator
• Légifrance — Decree of 10 October 2025 setting the program

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