European Baccalaureate written examinations

The written examinations will start at 10.00 or at 15.00. Please consult the timetable for details.

Arrival

• Candidates should be at the examination room at least 20 minutes before the written examination starts.
• Candidates who arrive late to a written examination may not be admitted. If there is a valid reason for candidates’ late arrival, the Chairperson or the Vice-Chairperson of the Examining Board or the Director of the School will decide whether they may nevertheless be admitted and whether they may possibly be allowed extra time for this examination paper.

Materials and proceedings

• Candidates are only allowed to write on the paper provided by the School for their work, i.e., the paper for the script and the paper for rough work. Rough paper will not be corrected.
• Candidates are to leave all of their personal belongings at the secretariat.
• Candidates may only take into the examination room the permitted equipment listed on the cover page of each examination paper, general stationery (ruler, eraser, pens, transparent pencil case) and bottles of water or juice.
• The possession of mobile phones, watches, smart watches and technological devices in the examination room is not allowed (unless otherwise specified). The possession of such previously mentioned material will be considered as cheating.

• Pencil can only be used on graph paper, partitions, art work, etc. as indicated in the cover page of examinations. Scripts must be written with blue or black ballpoint pens or rollerball pens. Text written in pencil will not be corrected.
• Correction fluid or erasable pens are not allowed. To correct mistakes, candidates must simply neatly cross out with the help of a ruler.
• When the examination paper provides several questions, candidates must indicate clearly which question they are answering.

Toilet

It is strongly recommended to go to the toilet before the examination starts rather than during it, so that the candidates use the maximum amount of time, maintain their concentration and avoid distracting others. Please, note that:

• Candidates will not be allowed to go to the toilet during the first 30 minutes of an examination or during the last 10 minutes. They shall be escorted by an invigilator and the time will be noted down.
• Candidates will not be allowed to go to the toilet more than once during the same examination. If a candidate has a special medical condition, they must provide a medical certificate to the school management so that exceptions can be made for them.

Leaving

• Candidates may leave an hour after the examination has started. However, it is strongly recommended to use all the time for detailed revision before handing in the paper.
• Candidates who wish to hand in their scripts early may not leave their seat until their scripts have been accepted by an invigilator. Once having handed in their scripts and left the examination room, the candidates cannot return to it while the examination is still being held.
• Candidates shall adopt an appropriate behaviour so as to not disturb the other candidates sitting in the same examination room. So as not to disturb the conclusion of the examination, candidates may not leave their seats during the last 10 minutes. The time appointed for the end of the examination must be strictly adhered to.
• Candidates must take care to hand in all pages of their scripts at the time appointed for the end of the examination. No page handed in later will be accepted: no extra part of their script will be taken into consideration / accepted by the invigilators after the candidates have left the examination room. Rough paper must be left in the examination room.
• Before the candidates hand in their scripts, they must check that the questions they have answered have been clearly indicated on the script. Candidates must also check that all the headers of the examination paper have been properly filled in, that all the used pages have been correctly numbered and that all A3 sheets have been arranged in the right order from the first used (outside) to the last used (inside). Graph paper sheets always come last.
• After the end of the examination, candidates may not take the rough paper and the examination papers with them.

 

European Baccalaureate oral examinations

The oral-examination timetable per course has now been released. The pupils will be informed separately about their individual time slots.

Arrival

• Candidates should arrive at school at least 30 minutes before the preparation time starts.
• Candidates are to leave all of their personal belongings at the secretariat.
• Candidates may only take into the preparation and examination rooms the permitted equipment and general stationery.

Collecting the question

• At the arranged time, each candidate shall proceed to the examination room to pick an envelope containing a question.
• Questions already used will be put back in their envelopes and kept aside until only 3 envelopes remain. Then all questions will be put together and shuffled so that pupils may pick from the lot. There must always be at least 3 envelopes to pick from.

Preparation time

• After taking their question, candidates will be escorted to the preparation room where they will have 20 minutes to prepare their answers.
• During the preparation candidates may produce some notes, using only the paper provided by the School.
• Candidates may consider structuring their presentation by using mind maps, diagrams, bullet points, drawings and/or a list of key words and main ideas. The purpose is not to write an essay because they should not read from their paper.

Examination

• The oral examinations will be conducted by 2 examiners: the candidate’s teacher and an external examiner.
• Oral examinations will last 20 minutes, plus 5 minutes for the examiners to discuss the final mark.
• During the examinations candidates may only use the document(s) supplied and the notes made during the preparation period.
• During the examination time candidates will be able to present the topic contained in the question. This should not be a mere reading of the notes taken during the preparation time. Both examiners will also ask the candidates further questions related to the topic. Normally, this is done in order to help the candidates elaborate their answer or to remind them of aspects that they may have forgotten to mention.

 

Viewing of the European Baccalaureate scripts after marking

The candidates or their legal representatives, if they are minors, have the right to view and get a copy of:

• For written examinations
  • Their original script
  • The final mark awarded to the examination script (average of first and second corrector mark and, where applicable, third corrector mark)
  • The mark (potential sub-marking: first corrector mark, second corrector mark and, where applicable, third corrector mark) awarded by each one of the correctors
  • The correctors’ commentaries
  • The examination paper
  • The marking scheme
• For oral examinations
  • The oral examination questions that they took
  • The oral examination mark sheet with the mark of both examiners

The request must be made in writing to the Director of the School not later than 4 calendar days after the candidates have been informed of the examination results.

The Director will make all documents available not later than 3 calendar days after receipt of the request. The Director may decide to make all documents available only through a secure electronic form.

A belated request for the viewing of the examination papers will be inadmissible.