120+ Free Bulgarian Language Exam for Medical Specialists Practice Questions

It is the statutory state examination held under Наредба № 15 от 13.12.2005 г. за установяване на владеенето на български език и професионалната терминология на български език от чужденците за упражняване на медицинска професия в Република България, issued by the Minister of Education and Science and the Minister of Health on the basis of Art. 186(3)(1) of the Health Act. It verifies that a foreign-trained healthcare practitioner can read specialised literature and normative acts, communicate with patients and colleagues, give understandable advice, and keep medical documentation correctly in Bulgarian.

The ordinance text still names the Centre for Assessment in Pre-School and School Education (ЦОПУО), because it has not been amended since 2018. In practice the exam is now organised and conducted by the Institute of Education (Институт по образование), the Ministry of Education and Science servicing unit that replaced ЦОПУО when its Rules of Organisation were promulgated in SG No. 107 of 20 December 2024. Applications and certificates are handled at the Institute in Sofia, бул. „Цариградско шосе“ № 125, бл. 5.

Foreign nationals holding medical, dental, pharmaceutical, nursing, midwifery or other 'Здравни грижи' qualifications, including foreign nationals who obtained their qualification in Bulgaria (Art. 1(1)). Under Art. 1(2) the ordinance also applies to citizens of EU/EEA member states and Switzerland when their Bulgarian is checked under Art. 89 of the Professional Qualifications Recognition Act. EU citizens who obtained a regulated medical qualification in Bulgaria fall outside the ordinance and are not admitted to the exam — the higher school registering them as специализанти establishes their language proficiency under its own rules.

The examination has two stages (Art. 7(1)). The written part is scored out of 150 points across 11 tasks — Part I (60 points) and Part II (90 points) — and the official programme sets the pass mark at a minimum of 98 points, i.e. 65% correct answers. Only candidates who pass the written part are admitted to the oral събеседване, held before a commission of specialists that must include a medical specialist practising the candidate's own profession (Art. 6(2)). No duration is published for either stage.

There is no examination fee. Ordinance No. 15/2005 contains no fee provision, the Institute of Education's exam page lists no payment document among the required documents, and the Bulgarian government's official information portal states that the Bulgarian language exam is free. A candidate who is refused a certificate may re-sit no earlier than four months after the previous sitting (Art. 7(3)).

Partly. Under Art. 5(1) documents may be filed through a Bulgarian diplomatic or consular mission, and under Art. 8(1) the written part may be sat at that mission; the papers are then returned for marking. The oral stage cannot be taken abroad — candidates must appear in person before the commission in Sofia.

No. The official examination is conducted entirely in Bulgarian, and most of its written part requires the candidate to produce forms rather than choose from options — you must actually write participles, verbal nouns, collocations and a doctor–patient dialogue. This 120-question bank is an English-language MCQ study adaptation that builds the underlying grammar, lexis and terminology with English explanations. It is not an official translation, not a format simulation, and it cannot prepare the productive writing or the oral събеседване on its own. Work through the official ПРОГРАМА–УПЪТВАНЕ and the sample papers with answer keys published by the Institute of Education alongside it.