How I passed the ITPEC FE exam in Mongolia

Why I took the FE exam

For eligible IT roles under the Engineer / Specialist in Humanities / International Services status, a recognised FE certificate can satisfy the professional qualification requirement that would otherwise normally be demonstrated with a relevant degree or work experience. It does not guarantee a visa: the job and the rest of the application still have to meet the immigration requirements.

A relevant recognised IT qualification can also add 5 points under the Highly Skilled Professional system. ITPEC describes the FE and AP examinations as eligible for Japan's preferential immigration treatment.

Registration in Mongolia

In Mongolia the exam is run by ITPARK in Ulaanbaatar. Registration for my session opened on 2 March and closed roughly two to three weeks before the exam. The fee was 180,000 MNT, about $50 at the time.

Payment was normally made by transfer to a Mongolian bank. I could not make that transfer, so I contacted the organisers and arranged to pay cash on the day. This was a personal arrangement, so ask the local examination body before relying on it.

ITPEC normally holds spring and autumn sessions, usually in late April and late October. Dates, registration windows, fees and available languages vary by country, so check the current local announcement.

What the exam looks like

Both subjects are taken on paper on the same day. You need a score of at least 60 out of 100 in each one; a strong result in one subject does not compensate for a failed result in the other.

Subject A often revisits ideas from older papers, sometimes with only small changes. Subject B is less repetitive: the useful skill is recognising solution patterns and tracing unfamiliar pseudocode accurately. The FE format changed significantly in April 2024, so I used the newer Subject B papers as the closest practice.

How I prepared

I am a frontend engineer, and I studied for about two months: one to two hours almost every day, sometimes longer on weekends. That came to roughly 90 hours. Someone without an IT background will probably need more time, especially for data structures, algorithms and pseudocode.

Most of my preparation was solving past papers. While preparing, I built ITPEC Practice to make those papers easier to work through, then used it as my main study tool. I worked through the FE past papers to learn the full format and then drilled weak areas by topic. For Subject B, I practised following every variable and branch on paper instead of trying to keep the whole program in my head.

I also worked through every question with AI. For each one, I asked it to identify the underlying topic, explain the reasoning behind the correct answer and show why the other options were wrong. I checked the final conclusion against the official answer key. This helped me learn the concepts behind the questions instead of only memorising answers.

Calculators are not allowed. Practise binary conversion, probability and the other short calculations by hand from the beginning.

How much English you need

You do need to understand the questions, but the vocabulary becomes familiar while working through past papers. I would not treat modest English as a reason to avoid the exam. Starting early matters more: repeated exposure teaches you both the terminology and the question patterns.

The exam day

I arrived in Ulaanbaatar two days early and stayed within walking distance of ITPARK. On 26 April 2026 the schedule was:

I brought my passport and the registration fee I had arranged to pay in cash. After registration I received my candidate, room and seat numbers. The organisers provided scratch paper, a pencil, water and, for foreign candidates, an English sheet explaining the procedure.

At this test centre, bags were placed on a windowsill. Phones had to be switched off and left face-down on the desk. Instructions from the organisers were in Mongolian, so the English procedure sheet was useful.

How it felt

Subject A was comfortable: I had enough time to answer and review my work. Subject B was much harder. A single scenario could span several pages of the A4 booklet, and keeping that context while tracing pseudocode for 100 minutes was tiring. I had to speed up near the end.

The answer sheets were sealed in envelopes in front of us and sent to Japan for checking. The organisers suggested about three weeks for results, but mine arrived on 28 May, roughly five weeks after the exam.

Was it worth it?

For me, yes. I spent about $50 on the exam and about 90 hours preparing for a recognised qualification with practical value for eligible IT work in Japan. The trip itself cost much more because two of us flew from Korea and stayed for five nights, but that is separate from the cost of taking the exam.

If the qualification fits your own immigration or career plan, start by trying a recent paper. You will quickly see which parts you already know and how much preparation you need.