The History of Spain exam that has fallen this year in the Selectividad de Andalucía allows students who have only studied the subject of the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera to get a good grade. The Jerez soldier who ruled between 1923 and 1930 has been on two questions on the same exam at the same time. This case has generated stupefaction among teachers from other autonomous communities.
Primo de Rivera has fallen in the Andalusian Selectivity for the last six years. Students already know it and it is one of the most studied topics. This year, when the centenary of the 1923 coup is celebrated, he has been in the PEvAU twice. The exam consisted of two blocks. In the first, where a maximum score of 5.5 points could be obtained, there were four topics to choose from and the student only had to choose one: the crisis of the Bourbon monarchy, the revolutionary six-year term, the Primo de Rivera dictatorship and the governments democratic.
In the second, which implied a maximum score of 4.5 points, there were six questions to choose three. One of those six questions was once again Primo de Rivera but reformulated in another way: “Which monarch reigned during the historical stage that runs between 1923 and 1930? Briefly explain at least four relevant events from the stage that began in 1923.”
In summary, the student who chose Primo de Rivera in the first block could also choose Primo de Rivera again in the second block. And, if he did it right, he could add the 5.5 points from the first block plus 1.5 points from the second block. That is to say, a total of 7 points for answering the same thing twice, which would allow him to pass comfortably even leaving the rest of the questions blank.
It is one of the consequences of the greater optionality that the Government allows in the Selectivity since 2020, the year of the Covid pandemic. The Ministry of Education says in a ministerial order that universities have to put an exam “in a way that allows all students to achieve the maximum score on the test.” In the Baccalaureate Assessment Test for Access to the University of Andalusia, the so-called PEvAU, the degree of electiveness is very high. In one block he offers four questions from which students must ask only one and in another block he presents another six questions from which they can choose three. What nobody imagined is that they could be the same and that the scores could accumulate.
“It must be a mistake,” ventures a History professor from the Community of Madrid. “These exams are usually cut and paste with questions from other years that are combined by blocks. The logical thing is that in one of them they would have asked about Primo de Rivera and in another about Franco. All students usually study Primo de Rivera because it always falls, but it doesn’t make sense to ask twice for the same thing. Primo de Rivera must have repeated it without realizing it because, if not, I can’t explain it to myself,” he adds.
What happens is that it does not seem like a mistake on the part of the person who asked the questions because in the Andalusian History of Spain exam two years ago the same thing also happened with Primo de Rivera: in block A you could choose this topic and in block Block B reappeared with this formulation: “Which monarch reigned during the historical stage that took place between 1923 and 1930? Briefly explain at least four relevant events from the stage that began in 1923.”
“It’s worse than all that,” laments another Andalusian teacher. “This is not an error: it is done that way so that the grades are higher. Something similar happened with the confiscations a few years ago.”
The Andalusian History exam would be nothing more than an anecdote if it weren’t for the fact that the grade that a student obtains in a region helps them to enter any university in Spain thanks to the so-called single district. This means that Andalusian students who only know Primo de Rivera are ahead when it comes to choosing a place than those from other regions where their exam has been more difficult and, therefore, they have obtained a lower grade after studying more.
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