Fourth-graders will take the national external assessment in Bulgarian language and literature (BEL) and mathematics today and tomorrow. This year, the tests of the national external assessment in fourth grade will also include creative tasks and those requiring logical and spatial thinking skills, the press center of the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) announced.
Today, June 3, at 10:00 a.m., the first of the two exams begins, in which fourth-graders will demonstrate competencies in Bulgarian language and literature acquired in the initial stage of primary education, BTA specified. The test will test knowledge and skills in applying basic rules of the Bulgarian literary language, reading and understanding texts that function in communicative practice, interpreting a specific communicative situation and creating a text with a specific communicative purpose.
For 60 minutes, fourth-graders will solve a test with 25 tasks. Of these, 13 are linguistic, 11 literary and one - creative for creating a text. The Ministry of Education and Science reminds that unlike previous years, the test does not include writing under dictation. It is replaced by an editing task, in which students must find 12 words with spelling errors and write them correctly in the individual answer sheet, applying the learned spelling rules in practice.
The skills of skillful and appropriate text correction are not new to school practice, but are becoming increasingly relevant for modern life, which requires a competent and critical attitude to the diversity of texts, including from the digital environment. In addition to applying spelling norms, this test tests students' ability to critically evaluate someone else's text and to think, and to find spelling features in words, to edit them.
The last task is traditionally of a creative nature. Students are required to create a short text based on a series of two pictures using supporting words and questions.
On June 4 at 10:00 a.m. The second math exam begins, in which fourth graders will demonstrate knowledge of numbers, calculation skills, finding an unknown number, knowledge of units of measurement, finding the perimeter of a geometric figure and the area of a rectangle/square. There will also be tasks to describe real-world situations with mathematical models, as well as those requiring logical and spatial thinking skills and reading information presented in different forms.
For 60 minutes, students will solve a test with 25 tasks - 16 with a multiple-choice answer, four with a short free answer, four with an extended free answer and one task with an extended free answer containing three sub-conditions.
The maximum number of points is 100 for each of the exams, and the results will be announced by June 12.
Over 59,000 fourth-graders are expected to participate, including students with special educational needs (SEN), for whom school personal development teams have assessed that they need to be supported by teacher consultants. Students with special educational needs work 30 minutes more than the others, the Ministry of Education and Science explains.