It has been announced that an essay writing component will be added to the foreign language subject in graduation exams starting from 2027. In parallel, the SEC has decided to extend the exam duration by an additional 15 minutes. However, there are concerns among applicants that this additional time will not be sufficient, especially for essay writing.
At the same time, many applicants in this year's graduation exams noted that the questions were thought-provoking and time-consuming, and even though their knowledge levels were sufficient, they could not fully answer all questions due to lack of time.
It is interesting to know, considering the time-consuming nature of the questions and the addition of a new essay component, will a 15-minute increase in exam duration be sufficient for applicants?
Education expert Elchin Afandiyev (Afandi) spoke to AzEdu.az on the topic.
He noted that if the volume of texts is kept large, it would be more appropriate to set the additional time at 30 minutes:
"The State Examination Center will add a 100-word essay writing requirement to the foreign language subject block starting from 2027. Naturally, applicants must complete this task appropriately.
Currently, trial exams are being conducted in this format, and applicants can complete the essay task even without additional time. From this perspective, allocating an additional 15 minutes can be considered at least fair as a general approach.
However, it should be noted that the exam includes reading comprehension and listening comprehension tasks in both Azerbaijani and foreign languages. In some cases, the volume of texts is large, which creates a time shortage for applicants. An additional 15 minutes may only be sufficient if the presented texts are short and easier to understand.
Otherwise, if the texts remain voluminous, an additional 15 minutes could negatively impact time allocation. For this reason, in such a situation, increasing the exam duration by 30 minutes is considered more appropriate.
If the texts are chosen to be short and the questions are simple and clearly formulated, then an additional 15 minutes may be sufficient."
