r/AskEurope • u/implementrhis • 2d ago
Education Do you think the exam system in your country is too stressful?
I think this question is for teenagers only. Does the education system in your country have ruthless competition and heavy workload? Do you stay up at night just to get into prestigious Universities?How is it compared to east Asia like Singapore or South Korea? Do you wish to study more or less?
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u/TukkerWolf Netherlands 2d ago
No. Nothing of that at all. All universities are equally prestigious and (except for studies with numerus fixus) allow anyone that finished high school with the right diploma.
It is perfectly normal to enjoy your teens, have fun all the time, finish high school with mediocre grades and go to university to drink and party there for five years, barely succeed and then have a good job where you work for 32 hours and continue to have a relaxed life.
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u/Bartekwis01 2d ago
You have to be kidding. I'm moving to Netherlands ASAP lol, the quality of life seems sooo much better
On a more serious note, how aceptable is not speaking Dutch nor German in the Netherlands?(so English communication only)
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u/TukkerWolf Netherlands 2d ago
It is acceptable and not uncommon, but if you want to make Dutch friends you'll eventually have to speak Dutch or you'll remain an outsider.
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u/FreuleKeures 1d ago
Why the f* would you speak German in the Netherlands?
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u/henne-n Germany 1d ago
Every now and then I read that people seem to think that the Netherlands use both Dutch and German equally. I don't really now why because I haven't really heard about this from other countries that are next to Germany.
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u/SunflowerMoonwalk 1d ago
I used to work with a guy from the Netherlands in the UK, and another colleague who was from Asia but previously lived in Germany used to speak German to him... I told him several times that they don't speak German in the Netherlands but he just continued regardless...
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u/titus_berenice France 2d ago
France here. Our national end of high school exam, the baccalaureate, was a joke when I passed it ten years ago, and it is even more of a joke now. I think we could definitely make it harder. The problem with the bac it that since it is so easy to pass, a lot of incompetent students get admitted to university programs and then get absolutely demolished in their first year courses. I think the failure rate for law universities are like 50% in the first year and 30% in the second year. It is a quite brutal slap in the face for many and I wish our school system would have better prepared these students for higher education.
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u/crucible Wales 2d ago
teenagers only
Why? We’ve all gone through high school exams
For what it’s worth the media here were talking about GCSE exams “being too easy” nearly 30 years ago when I went to collect my results. To the point that England changed their grading system a decade ago.
I think British schools in general teach to the exam rather than the subject. Teens get stressed out about it and the media heap pressure on them every year. They’re not schools, more exam factories now.
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u/Cool-Instruction789 2d ago
Germany. I think it’s ok.
Hauptschule and Realschule qualify for different kinds of apprenticeships after 10th grade, Gymnasium ends with the German A-Levels (Abitur) and ends in 13th grade. After that you are qualified for Uni.
I went to a Gymnasium and did my A-Levels. It’s a mix of the grades you get in the last 2 years of school and the Abitur Exams themselves. You can only get a bit better or worse with the exams.
There are big differences between regions: The Abitur in Bayern is way harder than in NRW or Berlin. I am from NRW and a Uni friend of mine is from Bayern and even though most people are annoyed by the Bavarians and their hard Abitur, they are right! At the beginning of Uni, I was so much worse in math than my Bavarian friends and it took some time until I got to their level.
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u/dbxp United Kingdom 2d ago
Pretty much everywhere is less stressful for studying than east Asia. In the UK we have some prestigious unis but it's not like east Asia where everything hinges on one exam, you can resit exams if you do poorly and you take multiple courses which are split into multiple exams which spreads the stress.
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u/GoonerBoomer69 Finland 1d ago
Hell no.
You can theoretically do the bare minimum to pass your courses in Upper secondary school (high school) and it doesn't matter at all because your end of school exams are what you apply to university with.
Didn't study enough? Guess what, you get to try again until you are satisfied. Got bored of taking the exams again and again? You can just take the entrance exam to the university you want to go to. That's also infinite attempts.
It's so easy that i got a good grade out of all of the exams without studying at all. It was enough to easily get into the University i wanted to go to.
But anyways, if natural talent or more likely dumb luck is enough for good results, the tests are too easy.
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u/implementrhis 1d ago
Can you face poverty if you have terrible health issues that prevent you from getting good grades?
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u/GoonerBoomer69 Finland 1d ago
As of now, no because the government pays substantial benefits to people with disabilities or health complications that prevent working.
Enough to live with.
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u/Shalrak 1d ago
Denmark:
Our equivalent of high school is easy enough workload wise throughout the year, but the exam system and culture around it wrecks people mentally. Anxiety among teenagers is higher than ever, and so much relies on those few days of performance.
I wish we studied more, but without the pressure of exams and performance. The way the system is now, nerves, exam anxiety, charisma, confidence, those things have just as much impact on how you perform in an oral exam situation as studying, so we end up with a system where the students with the highest grades are not necesarily the most skilled or knowledgeable. The best students crack under pressure, while the ones who wing it with a smile often performs above their level in oral exams. It's so backwards.
It's also just natural to avoid things that bring up negative emotions. If we took away the pressure of exams, I think it would greatly improve a lot of students relationship with school and their will to study and lower anxiety among teens in general. We should study for the sake of learning, not for getting good grades.
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u/Roquet_ Poland 1d ago
The system is flawed but is that the cause for the stress? I mean, nearly everyone attending these exams wants to get a good education and not everyone can get to a prestigious university, we need to measure who's best somehow and even tho it's flawed, how else are we gonna measure it?
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u/FearlessVisual1 Belgium 2d ago
Grades don't really matter, as long as you get 10/20 minimum. All universities have equal prestige. The only exception to that is the entrance exams if you want to study medicine in uni. There are a limited number of numerus clausus, so the better grade you get at the exam, the more likely you are to get in.
There can be quite a steep increase in difficulty between high school and uni though, so you kind of have to brace yourself.
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u/olagorie Germany 1d ago
German here. I come from the region with the second most difficult Abitur and found it quite easy to get a very good grade if you pay attention the last 2 years beforehand. I think for the final exams I studied like 1-2 weeks. I got into the law school of my choice which had a restricted access, Numerus clausus.
On the other hand last year a young cousin of mine participated in prep courses during the winter and Easter holidays and he seemed super stressed out. Most of his class prepared like that. I don’t really understand why because the exams don’t seem to be harder.
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u/AirportCreep Finland 1d ago
High school grades don't matter too much. I had horrible grades (didn't technically graduate) yet I managed to get into a British uni with an entrance exam that I attended hungover. Graduated uni with almost top marks as I sorted myself out during my 2nd year.
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u/JonnyPerk Germany 1d ago edited 1d ago
I graduated from secondary school (Gymnasium) in 2012 and in my experience it required a light/moderate workload. 2/3 of your final grades are your performace over the last two years, the remaining 1/3 was the final exams. So the finals aren't a make or break thing. Also at the time the finals were 4 written exams spread over two weeks. I did also create a school myth as the guy that took a nap during the final exam and still got one of the best scores in class in that exam.
After that I studied engineering and the exams there were on another level. In most exams the majority of students got a failing grade. For some exams it took my friends and me several months of daily practice to get a passing grade and most students simply failed to graduate altogether.
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u/Andrew852456 Ukraine 1d ago
No, not at all for schools, I'd say the schools are just alright in terms of workload, but some individual teachers were quite demanding, especially the ones that got the qualifications in the USSR.
As for the university education, that's indeed quite a lot of stress, but I'd say it's bearable. It's really nice to have it online due to the war, and I'd say there's way more creative options for the assignments that you can choose from. Some of the subjects make no sense for the major though
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u/nee_chee Czechia 1d ago
High school grades barely matter here if you wanna go to university, some programmes will directly admit you if your grades are good enough, but most universities will have their distinct exams to enter. Same for the high school final exam, you just need to get it done and no one will likely ask for your results. The level of stress really depends on what high school do you go to. I've had it fairly smooth.
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u/thatguyy100 Belgium 2d ago
So high school is very doable imo. I was a shit student but I think that was more of a me problem then a school problem.
I'm now in uni and I do think that some things need to change there. Especially in the way the "herexamens" or second exams are done. Now the exams you fail in June and January are redone in August. I would like if those second chances were done closer to the first chances. Especially the January ones.
Having exams after having some vacation, and then having more vacation also seems a little counterproductive to me.
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u/katzengoldgott Germany 1d ago
Germany here and I’m not a teenager anymore (early 30s) but I wish Germany could make up their effing minds if we can have 12 or 13 years of school because this messed up our schedules all the time. Suddenly a year was cut off again but the stuff we had to learn in that time didn’t become any lesser.
So instead of 2 ½ years to prepare for the Abitur we only had 1 ½ years, and I remember that every week we started a new topic and had to write the exam for it in the next week, and that every week. It was insane and I couldn’t make it past the autumn break in the 11th year and I had to drop out and go to vocational school to finish my Fachabitur to be able to graduate.
But I also speak from a point of disability because I wasn’t diagnosed with ADHD until I was 26, plus I have a high suspicion of having dyscalculia. Teachers have been pointing out to my parents to get me tested for it so many times but they ignored it entirely and I was given grace grades for trying despite not understanding math past a 4th grade level at best.
So yeah, the German education system is extremely stressful, disorganised and ableist as hell considering that they decide if you are ‘fit enough’ to go to university when you’re 9 or 10 years old and although there is a path to make it from Hauptschule to Gymnasium, it’s not easy, and certainly almost impossible when you have severe learning disabilities.
My dyscalculia severely affects me, among other mental health issues, and our education system doesn’t do jack shit to support people like me past Gymnasium (high school), as if you cannot have learning disabilities or mental health issues past the age of 18.
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u/mattpeloquin 1d ago
I’ve been back at school for the past few years, studying an MBA, a doctorate, and now a Masters and law school.
For the first 3, it’s been primarily all writing for grades, although a few exams for the MBA. The MBA and doctorate are in the U.S. and the masters in Malta.
But for law school, it’s been weird as it’s in the UK. I have closed book exams that are only writing essays.
It seems so weird because in the real world, research writing is not closed book. So it’s having to just memorize everything to then write like 1000 words. Seems unpractical.
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u/Fairy_Catterpillar Sweden 16h ago
It's way less stressful than in east Asia.
You just need to have passed all courses to get into what ever university you want to, however you need sort of top result in all subjects to get into the most popular programs at all universities and collages, for example medicine, psychology, some engineering or economy programs.
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u/Constant-Leather9299 2d ago
Poland. I'm no longer a teenager, but I used to be one lol.
Grades do not fucking matter. All that matters is the score you get from Matura (end of high school) exams. There are some subjects that are compulsory (Polish, English/foreign language, math) and all the other exam subjects are only needed if the uni major you're aiming for requires it. I went into Japan Studies so all I needed are advanced Polish and advanced English. I literally didn't study for any of it, as it was math that was giving me trouble. I think I scored above 65% (passing score is 30%) so me and my family considered it a massive success lol. I remember I also got like 98% in English.
Other than that you also had to give a presentation about a chosen topic for a the Polish exam and it was easily the most stressful part for me. But I chose a custom topic on a subject that I actually liked so the jury enjoyed learning something new instead of hearing about the same topics all day long.