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Hey guys! Sorry we are running a little bit late this week. Our family took a long weekend trip to Switzerland so there wasn't much time to sit down and write this post between hiking and homework. If you're interested in hearing about our trip, let me know and I'll do a post about it, otherwise I'm hoping to add some pictures up in the Photography section soon (I'll try to notify you when I do). Thanks and enjoy!
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So, hopefully you've all read the Part 1 to this article, otherwise you may be a little confused on what I'm talking about. If you haven't or if you want to read it quickly again for a refresher (I would advise you to do so), the link is here:
When I last left off, I was about to start talking a little bit about the brevet (bruh-vay). First of all, what is the brevet? The brevet is a big test that 9th graders (3eme) take at the end of the year. There's many different components to the brevet, and many questions you probably have about it. For example, what subjects are tested, what is the "brevet blanc", what are the different parts of it and what exactly is it for?
Let's start with the easiest part of the question: what subjects are being tested? The brevet tests French, Math, History-Geography-ECR (Civic and Religious Education) and two out of three of the sciences (Physics-Chemistry, Earth and Life Sciences, and Technology) which are randomly chosen a month before the test every year. Now, within each subject, there are certain components to be completed. For some, like Math and the sciences, it's simply questions like a normal test. For History-Geography-ECR, it's questions but with what the French call a "développement construit" (deh-vell-oup-moh cone-strue-eet), which is basically a French type of essay. Finally, for French, there are three parts: the normal test part with questions about grammar and comprehension of a text and art piece, a long essay about one of two topics (given on the day) and a dictée (deek-tey). A dictée is when a teacher reads out a text in French and you have to write it down, which sounds simple, but it actually one of the hardest things to do, especially if you're not a native speaker. You see, French is a very technical language with lots of accents, feminine vs. masculine spellings, different verb endings that often sound the same, and what they call irregular words. You can imagine the struggle.
However, these written tests are not the only part of the brevet (sigh). There is an oral evaluation as well. Lucky for me, you can pass the oral in another language should you wish and you can get extra points for doing so! The oral is basically a prepared presentation and five minute speech you give in front of a panel of judges and then you have to answer five minutes of questions about your topic, which has to fit into one of the following categories: Parcours Avenir (Future), Citoyen (Citizen), Artistique et Culturel (Artistic and Cultural) or Histoire des Arts (History of the Arts). It doesn't seem super complicated (I haven't done it yet, so at least I hope not!). I'm still deciding at the moment what exactly I will talk about but right now my idea is to talk about some of the effects of the Trump administration, as I find American politics super interesting.
So that pretty much covers exactly what is the brevet, but there is one more component that most students will complete. This is called the "brevet blanc" (bruh-vay blon) which, literally translated means "white brevet". This is the practice test version, that is usually taken a few months before the actual test, which takes place at the end of the year. It's the same test (although there are rumors that it is harder than the brevet itself) except that instead of two sciences you complete all three (just to practice) and you don't do the oral part. I took this test about two weeks ago and have received my grades for three subjects: Math, History-Geography-ECR (I'm just going to abbreviate to H-G-ECR) and Earth and Life Sciences. In Math, I got a 65/100 and the class average was 63.55/100. In H-G-ECR I got 32.5/50 and the class average was 31.71/50. Finally in Earth and Life Sciences, I got (surprisingly) a 20/25 and the class average was 15.58/25. All in all, in the French system anything above the class average is considered a pretty good grade and as a foreign student who skipped a grade, I think I deserve a little humble brag here (haha).
Anyway, now we can get to the big question. What the heck is all of this even for? I mean, I don't really know too much about other countries, but in the U.S. there's no big test in 9th grade or even really 8th grade, at least not as big of a deal as this. So why is it necessary in France? This, it turns out, is the big question. Teachers tell us that the brevet is taken for four main reasons: practice for the Bac, getting into high school, a diploma for finishing students and passing into 2nde. Teachers in France love (and I mean love) to stress students out about the Bac from a young age (I had teachers in 6eme who would give speeches about how you have to remember this for the Bac, or that this mistake can't be made on the Bac, etc.). I've also heard people tell me that high schools look at your brevet grades to see if you should be accepted (specifically for Pontonniers) as well. One thing that is true (more so back in the day but occasionally today) is that some students choose to finish their schooling in 3eme and go straight to a trade school or just become an apprentice, so the brevet was their diploma to show they had graduated something. Nowadays, it's less common for this to happen, but I guess people are still using this as a reason for the brevet. Finally, pretty much the same reason as getting into high school but teachers will tell you you can't pass into the next grade if you fail the brevet.
So, these seem like reasonable responses (I guess) but are they even true? The answer, in a nutshell, is not really. First of all, it definitely is practice for the Bac, however it's not really necessary to pass your Bac, especially since you have two or three years to study for it plus a Bac Blanc (like the brevet blanc but for the Bac). But do high schools really look at your brevet score to determine your acceptance? For the most part, not that I've heard of. First of all, the brevet takes place at the very end of the school year (late June, early July in France) and takes a while to grade. Applications to high schools are due way before the test is even taken and some schools decide on admissions before then as well. It's also unclear how these high schools would even obtain your brevet grades unless you submitted it to them directly, which wouldn't really make sense. The diploma thing for students finishing in 3eme makes sense, but I don't know any students who are doing this today and nowadays nearly everybody graduates at least high school. Finally, it's a complete myth that if you fail the brevet you can't go on to 2nde. First of all, it is very difficult to fail the brevet, since half of your brevet grade is based off of your second semester average grade (total) and in general teachers prepare you well. Even if you don't get top marks, it's unlikely you'll fail. It's possible, I guess, that they advise you to repeat 3eme but I doubt they will force you to or prevent you from leveling up.
Anyway, as for the brevet specifically, that's pretty much it. One other thing I will mention is that French teachers, ever the exaggerators, love to stress you out wayyy more than needed for the brevet. In reality, though strenuous the day of, it's not really that big of a deal and it's not life or death. What can make studying for the brevet difficult, though, is barely having enough time in the week to study. As I've said many times before, French schools have incredibly long hours. The longest a typical French day will go is from 8am to 6pm with an hour for lunch at 12pm. It's not uncommon, especially as you get older, that you will have school on Saturdays sometimes, too. Wednesday are alway half-days, though. Personally, for me, the earliest I get out in the week is on Mondays at 4pm (aside from Wednesdays, which is sometimes at 11am and sometimes at 12pm)*. Luckily, I don't have school on Saturdays, but I have plenty of homework to make up for that. It does depend significantly on your teachers, but 3eme students are loaded with homework on top of the long school hours (especially at Jean Sturm). This is one thing that has always frustrated me about the French school system. Homework-fine. Long school hours-fine. But together? It makes it really tough, especially when students have extracurriculars on top of that. I have teachers who know we finish at 6pm and still assign us homework for the next day.
This means that French people expect teenagers to: Wake up early and function when science proves that our brains aren't even fully functioning until 10am, work more hours a week in school than is legally allowed for the average French employee to work, and then get home and go straight back to work late into the night. This is asking too much, especially of teenagers who need more sleep than kids and adults. Even for the perfect student, working sometimes for 12 hours in a day is simply outrageous and ridiculous and just not possible. Thankfully, I do have long lunch breaks where I am able to have a bit more than just a measly hour to eat and a lot of our teachers are understanding, but in the end the amount of stress and work expected from us is unrealistic and not healthy. Plus, there's always a good portion of the class who ends up not doing the homework for various reasons, which just defeats the purpose of assigning it. I understand the need for homework, but if you're going to assign this much, at least give us a realistic amount of time to do it and don't make us go to school for 9 hours a day. If you're in school for that long, you should be learning enough already.
In the end, 3eme is a jam-packed, stressful year in France. While there are many aspects of the French system I admire, like the stages, there are also things that might make sense on paper, but in the end only succeeds in poor health and mental health of teenage students.
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Anyway, I hope this provided some insight into my life as a 9th grader in France! It's definitely a lot but I am (somehow) managing to juggle it all as well as three extracurriculars, a blog and a book. At the very least, I'm learning organization, prioritizing and time management! Again, make sure to leave a comment and let me know if you have questions or want to hear more about this topic, or if you are interested in guest blogging!
By the way, Max from last week has started an online newspaper and has re-published his article on Chinese Geopolitics there, so go check that out as well:
*If you want to see my full schedule and learn a little more about a typical day in my life at school, you can see that in this article:
Thanks for all your support and make sure to share this blog with friends and family to help us grow! Until next week!
Loreleixx
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