The Baccalaureate Test

The Baccalaureate Test

In France all students have to take the Baccalaureate test in order to attend any kind of secondary education institute. The test is in all French and has Math, Literature, Writing, History, and Science. (I guess it could be compared to our SAT and ACT). The main difference is if students do not pass this test they cannot retake it. They either have to repeat their WHOLE twelfth grade year or decided to go in to labor type jobs. There are no credit recovery classes or the idea of a 12^th grader taking 11^th and 12^th grade History. It is either you pass your whole year of classes or none at all.

France truly teaches to the test. All of their high school and middle school classes are taught straight towards helping students pass this test. This idea was introduced by Napoleon in 1808 and has been around since then, without this test and passage of the test you cannot go to a technical, community college, or university.

There are 3 genres of the tests and each test has science, economy and literature sections.

General

Technological

Professional

The general and technological test are the main ones for students wishing to go to a University, and the Professional test is made for students wanting to go into trade jobs such as electricity or plumbing. Students have to score at least a 10/20 on this test to pass; because of this the highest grade that you can get on an assignment in France is a 20.

In 8^th Grade there is a smaller exam that isn’t that hard to pass that shows if students will go on to high school or repeat a year of middle school.

In 10^th grade there is a Practice test for the French Exam

In 11^th there is a practice test for the other exams such as Math, History, or the test in another language (English for my students).

12^th grade year is the real baccalaureate test.

The school that I am attending has a 100% pass rate on its Baccalaureate exams.

I was very fascinated by this concept and it is so important to my students to actually pass and they will actually complain if a teacher misses too much because they are so worried about passing the exam. France does exactly what we are trying to get away from which is teaching to the test. But this test is for the students and their future so they try a lot harder than on the tests such as WESTTEST.