A twist in the week leading up to the university entrance exams: spelling mistakes will remain only in language and literature.

BarcelonaA major twist in the university entrance exams that 44,200 students will take in Catalonia next week. Unlike what It had been hinted at the beginning of the course, in this year's PAU exams, spelling mistakes will only be included in language and literature subjects. That is, spelling will not be taken into account (and will not be penalized) in any of the 25 compulsory and optional subjects that do not directly assess a language or literature.

The change announced this Wednesday by the Department of Universities and Research means that one of the following will not be applied in the tests on June 11, 12, and 13: The main new features included in the new decree on selectivity and which, a priori, should begin to standardize the grading criteria and requirements throughout the country.

The decree that sets out the guidelines for the University Entrance Exams (PAU) throughout the country stipulates that criteria such as coherence, writing, or spelling cannot represent less than 10% of the grade in all subjects. The new PAU features document made public by the Catalan government states that in all subjects, writing will be assessed "with a discount that can reach up to 10% of the overall exam grade," but when it comes down to it, test correctors will be instructed not to penalize students if they make spelling mistakes in these 25 subjects.

According to the coordinator of the University Entrance Exams (PAU) in Catalonia, Pilar Gómez, they have decided not to apply these spelling correction criteria because "there are already enough new features this year" and they prefer, first, to manage the new tests with fewer options for different exam modes "with caution" in order to "consolidate the new exam model." Similarly, the head of the University Admissions Office, Mònica Garizuain, has clarified that this does not mean that students can write poorly or inconsistently and not have it reflected in their grade. "In these subjects, there has never been a discount for spelling mistakes, but obviously, if there are glaring mistakes or presentations that make it difficult to read the handwriting or are very messy, we will choose not to mark the exercise," she added.

One of the announced new features that will be applied is the maximum penalty of 2 points for spelling mistakes in the mandatory Catalan language and literature and Spanish language and literature exams, as well as in the optional Catalan literature and Spanish literature exams. In the case of the mandatory language exams, each spelling mistake will subtract 0.1 points, as was the case last year. However, now students can lose a maximum of two points for incorrect spelling.

In the case of the optional literature exams, mistakes will not be deducted according to a specific scale. Instead, the final exam grade may be reduced by up to 2 points in "cases of very serious grammatical errors, very poor writing, and comprehension problems."

On the other hand, in the foreign language tests (English, French, German and Italian) the same grading criteria are maintained as before: a discount of up to 10% will be applied to the score for each exercise if "the expression of the answer is deficient and makes it difficult to understand."

"Whenever there are changes, the results can suffer."

Among this year's new features is the introduction of four new subjects in the admissions phase—until now known as the specific phase—: graphic and plastic expression techniques; technical drawing applied to the visual arts and design; heart and vocal technique; and cultural and artistic movements. Furthermore, multiple-choice questions will have a considerably reduced weight, since, with the new decree, closed-ended questions can represent a maximum of 30% of the exercises in each exam.

Furthermore, all subjects will have a single exam format, not two as previously. This means that, for practical purposes, students cannot discard the syllabus when studying, as they will not be able to choose the test that includes content they have not covered. However, within the exam, there will be exercises in which they can choose which questions to answer. Finally, another of the previously announced new features is that, given that required reading has been eliminated from the high school curriculum, questions about specific literary works that all students have read will also be eliminated from the university entrance exams.

Regarding whether the change in the university entrance exam model could have an impact on university entrance exam grades, Minister Núria Montserrat wanted to send a message of calm to students. She defended Montserrat. However, Gómez did acknowledge that "whenever there are changes, the results can be affected."

Grades after San Juan

The latest news released this week concerns the long-awaited dates on which prospective university students will learn their university entrance exam scores. This year, due to the timing of the exams, the scores won't be released until after St. John's Day. Specifically, the Catalan government estimates that the university entrance exam results will be announced on June 25th. University pre-registration will take place from June 3rd to 30th, and the first allocation of places will be on July 11th. "We want all students to be able to enjoy a first-time university experience with all the celebration they deserve," the minister predicted.