Maturity, the night before the exams: “Only oral yes, but not simpler”

It’s always the night before exams, even if it’s not the same night for everyone. The 2021 maturity tests start from Wednesday 16 June. 540 thousand young people are involved. As last year there is only the oral and not the two writings that for years characterized the exam which is a watershed for many. There is therefore no collective wait that characterized the night before the Italian test that has always inaugurated the high school end-of-course exam.

Each year, like last year, has its own exam day and therefore a night preceding it.

I fears however they are common.

According to a survey by SchoolZoo 51% of high school graduates are afraid of not knowing how to make connections between subjects, 37% are afraid of making a silent scene and 9% fear the commission deployed after so many months of distance learning. Almost everyone spends the night before exams studying or relaxing at home. Only 25% of the brave will go out with friends.

The key word is stress, as it always has been, but also DAD. The investigation of Skuola.net e Di.Te Association. reports that for 7 out of 10 graduates, failure to attend school ruined the preparation for the exam. Add to this the fact that adults don’t seem to understand this. Two out of three students perceive a general underestimation of the value of Maturity at the time of the pandemic.

For the Minister of Education, Patrizio Bianchi, “It is an exam where there is a written test that is that of a paper, it is not a traditional written test, we have chosen the path of advanced teaching activities, that is, I agree a theme with my teachers, a theme that allows us to explore also all that you have learned and acquired in your scholastic path ». The examination boards are made up of 6 internal teachers plus an external president.

«Last year as adults we didn’t value this state exam that the boys had to do in this way, through no fault of their own, and also being told that it was easy. An exam is an exam. Maturity is also a very important rite of passage. It is up to us adults to make them live it for what it is, ”he explains Emanuela Confalonieri, development and education psychologist, lecturer at the Catholic University of Milan.

This year is part of the experience already made. “It will be more of a real exam. In the symbolic sense of the term. Not in the sense that more people will be rejected. The oral exam may not necessarily be easier. For science subjects it can be more complicated for example. Both as teachers and as students in this school year the exam can really be a rite of passage that leads to a new piece of life », concludes the professor.

The soundtrack? It’s still the night before Venditti’s exams, but Måneskin, Sangiovanni and Coldplay among the contemporaries, Queen and Pink Floyd among the classics stand out in the playlists of the graduates. Music is the companion to a maturing in two.