The publication of new assignments for the exam was delayed – schools are impatient

While parents frantically get ready for school, and children walk the last summer days, a large group of people froze in anxious expectation. Senior grade teachers, 10th-11th graders, their excited “ancestors” and tutors can’t wait until demo versions of exam tasks are posted on a special site.

And they are late. Usually new options appear already in the 20th of August. Seasoned bet on the 25th: “Always new assignments for FIPI (Federal Institute of Pedometric Measurements) were hung on Fridays.”

However, back in July, FIPI director Oksana Reshetnikova said that “2024 examination models” would be presented at the end of August. And, about the “further vector” in the approach to KIMs (control and measuring materials, that is, assignments for the USE): “avoiding standardization, focusing on independent thinking.”

This means that there will be more interdisciplinary tasks and tests for “functional literacy,” analysts say. Russia has suspended its participation in the PISA international educational research project (under the auspices of the Economic Cooperation Organization). But the concept remains.

Perhaps the delay in the publication of KIMs is due to the fact that it is not clear what to do with social science and history. There will be a new unified textbook on history by Medinsky-Torkunov-Chubaryan, social science is also promised to be made “completely different” … But the new textbooks have not yet been seen in schools. Especially a lot of changes were announced in two subjects for high school, that is, just for grades 10-11. Although the new story will also affect the OGE, the line of textbooks will change from grade 5.

The results of the USE-2023 showed that not everything is in order with the tasks in biology and mathematics. Biology has traditionally been and remains difficult (this year it has the lowest average score of 50.87). In narrow tutoring circles, the term “Rokhlovshchina” is even adopted, after the head of the Federal Commission for the Development of the KIM Unified State Examination and the Unified State Examination in Biology, Valeryan Rokhlov. This year, accusations of “rokhlovism” fell on the lot of Ivan Yashchenko, the head of the training of KIMs in mathematics. From mouth to mouth, information is transmitted that mathematics-profile this year was “for Olympiads”.

The last exam showed that applicants are still sluggishly taking chemistry and physics as an additional subject. Chemistry was written for a passing score of 74 thousand people (and in 2022 there were 95 thousand of them). Physics – 89 thousand (was 100). In total, 630,000 graduates passed the Unified State Examination this year. The average score in chemistry is 56.2 points, in physics – 54.85. Despite all the calls to go to engineering specialties, social science (46% of graduates this year), computer science and biology were most often chosen as an additional subject at the Unified State Examination. It would be logical to simplify tasks in chemistry and physics, but the Federal Commissions and departments do not always move along the path of linear logic.

Of course, everyone is very interested in essays – the final one, as admission to the state exam, and the second, part of the task in Russian at the Unified State Examination. A year ago, it was promised that the final essay would not change anymore, the topics (there are only 1,500 of them in the FIPI bank) and the assessment methodology would remain the same. This year’s exam essay for many graduates, judging by the reviews, was an analogue of a “cold shower”. Quite a lot of Nekrasov and Gorky, for which no one was preparing, Yuri Nagibin, unexpected Bulgakov … And assignments: it could be just “about nature”, or it could be about citizenship in the work of such and such an author. Many more were “delivered” a lexical and spelling block. There were difficult examples: how to spell “super-bright” or “find a paronym for” hidden “(human). “We didn’t go through this with tutors,” graduates share.

Where the greatest changes will occur is in the Unified State Examination in English. By the way, according to MK, in some schools this year students were dissuaded from choosing this exam, advising them to choose another humanitarian discipline. Earlier it was reported that English will be taken on two dates – separately oral and separately written. In the oral there will be 4 tasks: reading the text, dialogue, interview (answers to questions) and a monologue-reasoning on the proposed topic. For everything about everything 17 minutes.

The written exam will consist of 38 tasks, one of the elements of which will be listening (as well as reading, grammar, vocabulary and writing). Although, perhaps, a fifth section will be added – “language materials”. 3 hours 10 minutes will be allotted for English writing.

While the tension from waiting is growing, there are forecasts from experts and just gamblers. For example, such “fortune-telling in computer science”: tasks will become more complicated, new conditions will appear.

“The order of Rosobrnadzor on the procedure for conducting the USE-2024 was published back in May,” says an expert in the field of education and the USE. – Those who are interested can see there the number of tasks for each subject, a fork of threshold points. There are 42 tasks in English. Another of what was promised was “a change in the requirements for spelling and punctuation” for the Unified State Examination in the Russian language. This may mean changing the evaluation criteria or the KIMs themselves. As practice shows, changes usually go in the direction of complication. With regard to Russian – multiple choice of answers instead of one, a detailed answer instead of a short one. The scoring criterion can be lowered for some difficult tasks from 3-5 to 1-2 points.

In general, I want to say: “Pot, do not cook.” Although educational departments swear that there will be no serious, revolutionary, cardinal changes in the Unified State Examination in 2024. And that KIMs are changing “smoothly”, so that it “is not a shock for the system, for teachers and graduates” … Still, I really want to live to such that there are no changes in the exams at all. All the same, year after year. And without any changes, the exam is a very difficult and nervous period in life.