A-levels: the exam questions include Brancati, Pavese, Calabresi and the Constituent Assembly

Regardless of the type of exam and the question chosen, candidates have six hours to complete the paper and then hand it in to the examination board.

Before the exam began, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had also sent her best wishes to the 527,000 Italian A-level students via social media: ‘Dear A-level students, good luck. Remember all the sacrifices you’ve made to get where you are, all the times you thought you wouldn’t make it but then did, all the times you’ve been proud of yourselves: take all of this on board and carry it with you into your final exams,” wrote the Prime Minister on social media.

‘Show who you are,’ he added, ‘and this will be the finest way to begin a completely new chapter in your lives, in which, ultimately, beyond everything you study, everything you learn, and everything you manage to glean from a textbook, what counts is what you are able to draw out of yourselves – the value you are able to demonstrate. That value is called determination, it is called a willingness to make sacrifices, it is called courage, it is called humanity. Draw on these qualities and you’ll have no trouble at all: good luck.”

A word of encouragement for this year’s A-level students also came from Minister Giuseppe Valditara, speaking on Radio RTL 102.5: ‘I’d like to send a clear message to all the young people listening to us: we don’t need perfect people, but those who can think critically about what they’ve learnt and reflect on their mistakes.’

Friday 19 June: round two. Same classroom, same time. From 8.30 am, the second written exam on the subject specific to each stream will take place: maths for the scientific stream, Latin for the classical stream, and so on. From next week, the oral exams will begin in alphabetical order, starting with the letter drawn by each individual examination board.

The topic most frequently chosen by students in today’s first written paper of the Maturità exam was the one relating to the extract from Mario Calabresi’s book *Alzarsi all’alba*, selected by 23.2 per cent of the candidates. The passage was the second option under ‘Type C – Critical reflection of an expository and argumentative nature on current affairs’.

The second most popular question was the third option under ‘Type B – Analysis and production of an argumentative text’: the extract from Frank Furedi’s essay ‘Borders Matter. Why Humanity Must Rediscover the Art of Drawing Borders”, chosen by 20.7 per cent.

19% opted for the first option in Category C: the extract from the article “It works a treat” by the journalist Wenke Husmann.

Two topics were chosen, with equal popularity, by 12.7% of A-level students: the second question in ‘Type A – Analysis and interpretation of an Italian literary text’, relating to Vitaliano Brancati’s work *I piaceri*, and the first question in Type B, devoted to President Giuseppe Saragat’s inaugural address to the Constituent Assembly.

6.5% of students chose the second option in Category B, based on an extract from Piero Bianucci’s book *Te lo dico con parole tue. La scienza di scrivere per farsi capire*.

Cesare Pavese’s poem ‘Passerò per Piazza di Spagna’, the first text in Category A, was chosen by 5.3 per cent of A-level students.

The question based on Wenke Husmann’s text was the most frequently chosen in general upper secondary schools (20.1%), whilst the one based on Mario Calabresi’s text was the most frequently chosen in technical upper secondary schools (30.9%) and vocational upper secondary schools (37.6%). The data are taken from a nationally representative sample survey.

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