Three euros per exam: How are they chosen and what do the university entrance exam examiners take into account?

BarcelonaThe 44,200 students who, starting Wednesday, will be playing a part of their future in the university entrance exams have been preparing for this moment for months, in one way or another. At the same time, the wheels have also been turning for weeks to make the university entrance exams run like clockwork—or at least try to. This network includes everyone from the university entrance exam coordinator and the head of the University Admissions Office in Catalonia to 221 examining boards that organize 35 tests and, of course, the more than 2,400 teachers involved in the university entrance exams.

But there are also other, lesser-known players, such as the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan Mossos d'Esquadra), who are responsible for overseeing the university entrance exams to prevent leaks and ensure that they all reach the dozens of locations across the country. One of those in charge of taking the Mossos d'Esquadra testimonies is Rosa Cerarols, the president of one of the university panels for the University Entrance Exams (PAU) that organizes the exams at one of Barcelona's universities. "As the president of the panel, you have to manage a lot of things without it being obvious that you're managing them," she explains.

From her hands, the exams will be passed on to test supervisors and graders like Arnau Pallarès, who is doing this double task for the second consecutive year. "I'm an associate professor at the university, and I signed up because I think it could be interesting as a teacher to see how the tests work from the inside." To do so, Pallarès had to enter a lottery open to both secondary school teachers and university professors.

However, the lottery isn't the only criterion for deciding who supervises and grades the university entrance exams. The regulations establish that, for each subject, there must be at least 40% university professors and 40% secondary school professors, and that gender parity must be maintained, provided the number of applications allows. Furthermore, the first option is to select secondary school teachers who are already civil servants or permanent staff members at a Catalan university. If these profiles are insufficient, the selection is expanded to include interim teachers, university research staff, and teachers from state-subsidized secondary schools.

One week to correct the tests

The chosen candidates will have to supervise the tests for three days, morning and afternoon, and then have exactly one week to mark the exams for their subject. For all this, the teacher receives 165 euros for each of the three days they supervise tests and 15 euros per day in per diem.

Regarding marking, the remuneration can vary: for the first 50 marked exams, the teacher is paid 130 euros—2.6 euros per exam—and once they exceed 50, they are paid three euros for each additional exam. On the other hand, if a teacher marks exams in more than one subject, they receive 35 euros per additional subject and three euros for each marked exam in this additional subject.

When it comes to marking, teachers do not receive any instructions until the day of the exam, when they are given the marking criteria. "Up until that moment, you don't know anything, but once you get them, the marking guidelines are very detailed. They're meticulous because we all mark as much as possible, at least in chemistry... perhaps in language subjects there's more leeway," Pallarès acknowledges.

One of these subjects where the markmaker's interpretation of what the student has written can be more important is history. "I try to first look at 10 or 15 exams before seriously marking so I can get a sense of the level and be equally demanding with everyone," describes Gerard Llorens, who has been marking history exams for the University Entrance Exams (PAU) for seven years. He explains that "the level is lower than one would expect," but that he has encountered everything. "I've marked many brilliant exams, and I often run out of 9 and 10 stickers before I run out of fail stickers," he explains. However, he explains that sometimes there are "some outrageous things" that students who don't have a sufficient grasp of the subject tend to do. "If they don't know, they don't have time to write much, but if they do know something, sometimes they confuse characters... I've once been told that Lluís Companys was the president of Spain," he recalls.

However, both proofreaders insist that, although there's a risk of making mistakes, it's very important for students to elaborate as much as they feel necessary. "It seems they have a fear of writing, and that means they aren't specific enough, the text isn't coherent with what's required, and there are vaguenesses," Llorens insists.

Pallarès also asks for something similar in the case of science. "It's almost more important that they explain the entire procedure they followed to solve the problem than whether the final result is exact. If you do everything right and make a mistake with the calculator, but you don't explain the procedure to me, you'll immediately get a 0 because I can't figure out if you know how to do it," he warns.

From what the DNI loses to what is wrong with its

While teachers like Llorens and Pallarès oversee the exams in the classrooms, the presiding officers like Cerarols are responsible for ensuring everything runs smoothly so that students can take their exams as calmly as possible. "It's a real mess because you have to handle everything. From the ambulance phone number, to assisting distracted students, to looking after the teachers who accompany them, to the reviewers... You have to keep everything in mind for it to work," she explains.

Cerarols explains that, for example, she is the one who must give instructions to the reviewers on how everything works. "They have to make sure that things that shouldn't happen, like someone coming in with a cell phone, or checking that no one is speaking to them through an earphone from outside, don't happen, but they also have to be aware that one of their missions is to ensure the students are calm," she insists.

In addition, the exam chairmen must resolve any unforeseen incidents that may arise. "There have been students who have overslept or who have simply gone to the wrong exam location," Cerarols recalls. He explains that, in these cases, if the exam location is close enough, they call and request a 15-minute delay. If, on the other hand, it's too far away, Cerarols is responsible for confirming that the student can take the test at another center and then sending the completed exam to the corresponding exam panel.

"We've found that students have left their ID or lost it during the day. This is complicated because the examiner for each exam must verify the student's identity," he recalls. However, there's always a solution: "If they have a passport and their parents can take them, we'll hold onto the exam paper until we can check it. And if it's a very extreme case, we've sometimes held onto an exam paper until the Mossos d'Esquadra have filed a complaint explaining that they didn't have the papers because they'd lost them," the president admits.