Controversy because the C2 Catalan exam could be reviewed after a break

BarcelonaLast Saturday, 13,068 people took the written test to obtain the higher-level Catalan certificate (C2), the official accreditation that teachers, various grades of civil servants, and language professionals need to practice their work. The surprise, for some examinees, was that after taking a break they were able to review the first part of the exam, which assesses reading comprehension and written expression, accounts for 57% of the grade, and has been eliminatory for a few editions. Vilaweb has collected complaints from some users because they consider it an irregularity that lowers the exam's requirements and gives an advantage to the examinees.

Vilaweb has collected complaints from some users because they consider it an irregularity that lowers the exam's requirements and gives an advantage to the examinees.

L'ARA has confirmed that at the different locations where the exam took place (which was held in fourteen towns) this option was given, because the answer booklet with the two initial written compositions and the second part, which assesses vocabulary and grammar in a test format, were together. The third part is reading comprehension and oral expression. For Anna, who took the exam in Girona, it did not mean any substantial change: "It didn't even occur to me. I needed time to do the second part. But it's true that if you finished quickly, reviewing everything was a gift." "I didn't even look at the previous part, because they are compositions, it's not something you can copy or look up anywhere –agrees Berta, who took the exam in Vilanova–. This is like saying that in the oral part you have an advantage if you know what topic you have to talk about because you take the test ten minutes later."

Plataforma per la Llengua considers that this novelty in the exam "compromises the validity and credibility of the test" and "distorts the evaluation and devalues Catalan". It is even considering filing a complaint. From the Ministry of Linguistic Policy, they downplay the matter and defend the "long and solid tradition" of the Catalan evaluation system. They consider that the first part of the test "assesses the ability to produce complex texts through skills such as data interpretation, synthesis, argumentative skills, or information structuring", which "would not be altered" by any specific modification that might be included later. And they conclude: "The overall assessment of competencies is valid and can be verified with the results".

"We are the government that is most extending the tests and examining the most people because we believe in the importance of having well-trained and accredited professionals in the Catalan language," they say from the department of Francesc Xavier Vila. In a decade, the number of people examined for the C2 level has gone from 1,745 in 2016 to 13,000 in this edition. In fact, in 2022, the number of examinees saw a leap that tripled the participants in the exam (it went from 2,363 to 6,913), mainly due to the intention of requiring the C2 for teachers. Since then, they have grown exponentially.