Matura in Croatia
Nationwide leaving exams (državna matura) were introduced for gymnasium students in the school year 2009–2010. There are three compulsory subjects: Croatian language (or Serbian, Hungarian, Italian or Czech for minorities), Mathematics and a foreign language (English, German, Italian, Spanish or French). Classical gymnasium students are also able to choose Latin or Ancient Greek instead of or in addition to a modern foreign language. The optional subjects will be Geography, Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Computer science, History, Music, Visual arts, Ethics, Religious studies, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Politics and Logics.
The compulsory subjects are also available at a basic or extended level with 1 point of the extended level exam being worth 1.6 points of the basic level exam. Points of the basic level are converted into points of the extended level by dividing them by 1.6, so a student achieving 100/100 points in the basic exam, in the end will only be given 62.5 points (100/1.6). The extended level offers the possibility of achieving 100 points but carries the risk of gaining a lower result due to the elevated difficulty level.
The examinations are conducted by the National centre for external evaluation of education (Nacionalni centar za vanjsko vrednovanje obrazovanja).
Croatian Language exam has two parts: literature written exam and an essay. Students can choose whether to write the basic or extended level of the exam. The literature included in the exam is changed annually, in 2012 it being Camus' The Stranger, Cesarić's Lirika, Gundulić's Dubravka, Ibsen's A Doll's House, Krleža's The Glembays, Matoš's Pjesme, Novak's Posljednji Stipančići and Sophocles' Antigone for the basic level and Camus' Stranger, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, Držić's Dundo Maroje, Flaubert's Madame Bovary, Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Krleža's The Glembays and The Return of Filip Latinovicz, Marinković's Ruke, Nehajev's Bijeg, Poe's The Black Cat, Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Sophocles' Antigone! Šimić's Preobraženja and Šoljan's Kratki izlet for the extended level, respectively. The literature exam is 80 minutes long and is composed mostly of the multiple choice assignments, but also has a couple of matching questions assignments, whereas the written essay part of the exam is 160 minutes long and requires from 400 to 600 words. The literature exam will take place on May 23, 2012 and the essay exam will take place two days later.
Further enrollment into university programmes is conducted via Internet. Lists of students with right to enrollment are processed by the central computer for each university based on the results of the exams. The points gained in the exams are converted into points for enrollment. Each university sets its own criteria of valuing these exams depending on the area of science or art which is taught, for example, a student enrolling in a Philosophy programme will have 0% or 5% of points for enrollment extracted from his Mathematics exam, but up to 80% from Croatian so if the result of the Math test is excellent, but the Croatian test is bad, the student's chances are reduced because only 5% will be extrapolated from the excellent Math test an a large 80% percent from the slim result in Croatian, giving the student a lower sum of enrollment points. However, the same student may apply to a Mathematics programme and will be given points based on the very same exams, but a different percentage will be extrapolated, giving advantage to Mathematics. In the end the final 100% percent must be extrapolated from the exams, but the exams themselves are set by the universities. In general, the universities demand the three compulsory exams (Croatian, Math, Foreign language) to be passed (although can have 0% percent extrapolated as points for enrollment) along with one optional subject that is generally given higher attention (up to 70%). Each student has the right to attempt to enroll into a maximum of ten universities, and when chosen the preferred university (or universities) is deleted from the lists of the other 9 (or 8, etc.) thus allowing other students to move up these lists and achieve the right of enrollment in their preferred university.
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