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Almost 13% of high school graduates fail physics exam

The maximal score of 100 points was gained by 41 students in the physics exam

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, June 24 (Itar-Tass) —— Almost 13% of high school graduates in Russia failed the physics unified state exam this year, which is 5% more than in 2011, the Federal Education and Science Supervisory Service reports.

About 6% of students failed the social science exam, more than 8% failed the geography exam, and almost 5% failed the literature exam – the flat rate since last year.

The minimal passing score was set at 36 points for physics, 39 for social sciences, 37 for geography and 32 for literature. The bad marks will not prevent misfortunate students from receiving their graduation diplomas.

The maximal score of 100 points was gained by 41 students in the physics exam, 80 students in the social sciences exam, 64 in the geography exam and 324 in the literature exam.

The service’s commission will double check certain exam papers in regions, where results are doubtful. The social sciences exam works with high scores will be double-checked in Kalmykia and Ingushetia. Some of the 100-point physics works will be checked again in Moscow, and all the high-score literature works will be checked in Kalmykia.

A total of 405,000 students took the social sciences unified state exam on June 13, 2012, and 173,000 took the physics exam.

On June 16 the geography unified state exam was taken by 23,000 students, and 41,000 students took the literature unified state exam.

In spite of its high popularity, the social sciences exam traditionally causes problems for Russian high school graduates. “Questions about the Russian state always prove difficult. Students are Russian citizens but far from all of them can answer the question what the Russian state system is,” Federal Pedagogical Estimates Institute Deputy Director Olga Kotova said.

Results of the unified state exams taken in May have been published. About 13% of students got Ds in the history exam, which was almost 3% more than last year (9.4%). Some 8.2% failed the biology exam (7.1% last year) and 11.1% failed the IT exam (9.8% last year).

High school graduates have also taken state exams in foreign languages, chemistry and the Russian language.

More than 900,000 students took state exams last year, among them 800,000 – this year’s graduates.

The Russian Public Chamber opened a hotline for answering questions related to the unified state exam.

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