“I would have liked to have had one more week to revise! »… They talk about their specialty tests

This Wednesday evening, they will party or collapse on their sofa, exhausted by their start to the week. Because the 536,000 candidates for the bac * have passed their two specialty tests. These are the two major subjects chosen by each senior high school student as part of the new baccalaureate. Due to the Covid-19 crisis, this is the first time that these events have taken place in March; they had been postponed until May last year. A schedule that has been denounced by unions and teacher associations, believing that it was difficult to prepare students properly in six months.

At the end of the tests, some students also feel that they were not sufficiently ready to face these tests. Such Yohann, in the STD2A technology course (Science and technology of design and applied arts): “I felt insufficiently prepared to take the CCDMA test (Creation and culture in design and arts and crafts). In class, we couldn’t finish the program, which handicapped me on certain points,” he explains, responding to our call for witnesses. Same impression for Shirelle: “I would have liked to have had one or two more weeks to revise! ” Jean, who passed the test of HGGSP (History-geography, geopolitics and political science), also finds that the tests were too rushed: “We finished the programs only a week before. Our teachers still managed to offer us one or two review sessions, but the deadline was tight”. Laurence, she came close to a dead end: “The subject I came across during a test was related to a chapter covered only via a handout distributed in class, because of the delay in the program in this subject. I tried to remember this sheet. Huge stress,” she sighs.

Certain subjects considered difficult by the candidates

Is it because they were pressed for time that some students could not practice enough on the different types of subjects likely to fall? Hard to say, but the fact is that some found them difficult. Like Lena, a student in the final year of STMG, who took a Management, management and digital science test: “It was really more difficult than anything we did in the year. The subject was more difficult than that of the final year last year, when we were the first to take the tests in March”. Yéliz was completely baffled by SVT’s test on “climate and fossil fuels”. “The second exercise on genetics did not concern the chapters seen in terminale, but in 1re. It was a real disaster and I think I completely missed this first test. ” Ilan had the same feeling while doing the SVT: “The two exercises were almost out of the program. The convoluted form of the summary topic and the hidden instructions made me waste a lot of time. »

A feeling of inequity

For organizational reasons, all the candidates of the same specialty could not compose on the same day on the same subject. Two different subjects have therefore been planned in the eight most requested specialties. This aroused a feeling of inequity among some candidates, finding themselves less well off than their comrades, like Yéliz: “On Tuesday, we expected to have a more complicated mathematics subject than Monday. And indeed, I could notice a real inequality. The last exercise focused on a chapter that we had quickly seen and quite complicated, ”she laments. Gauthier is of the same opinion on the same subject: “This raises the question of fairness,” he underlines.

This 2023 session of the specialty tests will also have been marked by a major incident: the leak of the subject of the eco-law specialty in the STMG sector on Tuesday, which forced the Ministry of Education to use the emergency subject. A misadventure told by Antonin: “My test was stopped around 3:10 p.m. until 3:45 p.m., when I had written the first two questions on the copy. For thirty minutes we had no information, then we were asked to work on another subject until 7:30 p.m. It was much more complicated than the first. Romain was also upset: “I find it absurd that we had to start the race again after an hour’s work. I hope that the correctors will take this into account in the marking. »

The stress of Parcoursup, more than ever

This year is also the first time that the marks in the specialty tests will be taken into account in Parcoursup. They will count together for a third of the results of the baccalaureate. Additional pressure for Yohann: “It played a lot on my stress. I hope that my notes will not serve my file”, he crosses his fingers.

But for Ilan, this taking into account of the grades in Parcoursup was an additional source of motivation: “Being a good student, I know that I will have my baccalaureate in my pocket, but the stress of obtaining my dream studies has been a real booster to work without counting the hours”. He will have to wait until April 12 to know his grades and find out if he was right to be optimistic.

* This year, there are 390,000 candidates on the general track and 145,000 on the technological track.

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