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The national exam season begins this Tuesday with more than 160,000 11th and 12th grade students registered to take the tests that allow them to complete secondary education and apply for higher education by the end of the month.
Schools across the country are ready to welcome the 81,005 12th-grade students registered for the Portuguese exam, which begins at 9:30 a.m. and marks the start of the 1st phase of the 2025 national final secondary school exams.
This is one of the years with the highest number of applicants for the first phase of the national exams: 160,680 students, but only 55% say they are candidates for higher education.
Regardless of whether or not they wish to continue their studies, the 12th-grade Portuguese exam is once again mandatory for secondary school completion, following a hiatus caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
At 2:00 pm, it will be the turn of the 11th grade students who registered to take the Spanish, German, Italian and Mandarin exams.
By the end of the month, students will have to take more than 341,000 11th and 12th grade exams, according to data from the National Examinations Jury.
Biology and Geology is the second most enrolled subject: On Friday, June 20, almost 42,000 students are expected to take this 11th-grade exam.
The following week, the Physics and Chemistry exams (39,507 registered for the test that takes place on June 26) and Mathematics (38,733 registered), which takes place on June 30 and marks the end of this 1st phase of exams, stand out.
Data released last week by the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation shows that the main reason students signed up for exams was having to take "at least one exam to pass" the subject (79%).
The results of the 1st phase of the national exams will be announced on July 15th, followed by the 2nd phase, between July 18th and 24th.
The 2nd phase of the exams is intended for students who did not pass the 1st phase, who want to try to improve their grade or who want to improve their final grade in a subject.
Students then have a week to apply for the first phase of higher education -- from July 21st to 28th -- and the results will be announced almost a month later, on August 24th.
Information on the calendar for the national competition for access to higher education is available on the website of the Directorate-General for Higher Education (DGES) .
Although all national secondary school exams begin at 9:30 a.m. or 2:00 p.m., the ministry's services recommend that students arrive at school at least half an hour before the exam.
Students must have a citizen's card or other form of identification. The use of cell phones, computers, or watches with remote communication systems is prohibited.
Most exams last 120 minutes, with the exception of Mathematics, Descriptive Geometry and Drawing, which last an additional 30 minutes (150 minutes).