"They'll end up evicted from their homes": the housing crisis is the focus of the Catalan exam for the University Entrance Exams (PAU).

BarcelonaGentrification, lobbying, and the inability to afford rent. The housing crisis was undoubtedly the focus of the first Catalan language exam without required reading for the university entrance exam. The test, which some students admitted was "affordable," like most of this year's entrance exams, began with a reading comprehension exercise based on an excerpt from the article. Green gentrification, the ignored danger, by Josep Maria Boronat i Pujals –and not Joan Maria, as it appeared by mistake in the exam–.

A text that includes statements such as "[residents of large cities] will end up evicted from their homes, either because they will be unable to cope with the increase in rents that will be imposed on them due to the revaluation of the area or because of the disappearance of the local commercial fabric that will give way to activities aimed at another type of public." lobbies Those who most oppose pacification are those who end up taking advantage of it the most to profit from it, buying buildings to provide housing for elites who want to be close to green spaces."

Prospective university students have also been asked to reflect on the housing problems resulting from gentrification. In fact, the exam's writing activity consisted of writing a formal essay describing "the consequences of the massive influx of tourists to a city." This led several students to celebrate the theme of this year's Catalan exam on social media with messages such as "Tourist go home, the Catalan text is incredible" or "I had a good time" scratching of the foreigners in the editorial office."

The Auca, the Roussillon and the desolation

Beyond the problem of gentrification, the poem has also appeared in the last of the mandatory tests of these PAU Desolation by Joan Alcover and the students have had to answer several questions about the text, including the dreaded literary figures. Specifically, this year they were asked to identify where in the poem polysyndeton was used – when many connections between sentences are used to give a lively rhythm to the text or to repeat important elements – and where there was hyperbaton – when the usual word order in a sentence is altered.

Furthermore, the students were also asked to explain in fifty words the differences between an auca and a corranda, or if the terms Renaissance and Renaissance are synonyms. Furthermore, in one of the exam exercises, the student had to identify which of the dialect varieties (Roussillon, Central, Northwestern, Valencian, Balearic, and Alghero) a text belonged to and underline three different characteristics that demonstrated this.

Social Mathematics, the difficult part of these PAU exams

It wasn't until this Friday at noon that the first criticisms of a university entrance exam arose due to its difficulty. It was due to the mathematics test applied to social sciences, an exam that some have claimed was more difficult than its sister exam in science (usually the other way around). "The mathematics test was embarrassing, everyone came out crying," one student stated on social media, while another noted that the test "was criminal." Among the various exercises, students were asked to perform calculations on the price of a stay for 10 people in a hotel based on the capacity of the rooms booked or the profits and losses that can be achieved by investing money in a "very volatile" investment fund.

The 2025 university entrance exams have concluded with the optional subjects of biology, technology and engineering, business operations and business model design, and Catalan literature. The latter was one of the subjects in which spelling mistakes will be most penalized, according to the controversial correction criteria which have marked the first edition of the new selectivity in Catalonia.