After the continuous control, the final tests. Some 860,000 college students take the written exams for the national patent diploma (DNB) on Monday and Tuesday, with French and math first, then history-geography and science.
867,182 candidates are registered in mainland France and in the overseas departments and regions (DROM) to take the patent. On the one hand, the general series with 777,214 candidates and on the other the professional series with 89,968 candidates, specifies a press release from the ministry.
The written tests of French and mathematics will take place on Monday, and those of history-geography and sciences (physics-chemistry, life and Earth sciences, technology) on Tuesday. The certificate is scored out of a total of 800 points: 400 continuous assessment points and 400 final test points (French, mathematics, history-geography, science and oral). You have to get at least 400 points to get it. French and mathematics are assessed on 100 points, and history-geography and science on 50 points.
Topic leaks last year
The oral test, spread over a period from mid-April to the end of the written tests, is assessed on 100 points. Its main objective is to assess the quality of the oral expression of the candidates, who choose their subject. This can relate to the history of the arts (presentation of a pictorial work), an educational course (oral internship in particular) or interdisciplinary practical teaching (project combining several subjects).
Teenagers who pass the patent, whose ancestor (the BEPC) was created in 1947, are mostly 14 or 15 years old. It is therefore shortly before the end of compulsory education (16 years in France). Its success does not condition the passage in Second. It had been removed in the early 1980s before being reinstalled. Some 727,100 college students were admitted to the patent last year, a success rate of 87.5%, down 0.6 points from the previous year.
Last year, the patent had been marked by leaks of subjects, which had led the Ministry of National Education to use relief subjects for college students subjected to history-geography and science tests.