On Monday, June 23, 2025, over 159,000 eighth-grade students across Romania sat for the first exam of the National Evaluation: the written test in Romanian language and literature. The test, designed to assess a broad range of language skills, included two literary excerpts as support texts—one from Radu Tudoran's beloved novel Toate pânzele sus! and the other from Emil Racoviță's travelogue Spre Polul Sud. Students were tasked with various exercises, culminating in a narrative composition describing an incident from an excursion, requiring a minimum of 150 words.
While the exam was generally considered accessible and well-balanced by educational authorities, the correction process revealed an abundance of errors, amusing misinterpretations, and linguistic mishaps that have become something of a tradition in these nationwide assessments. According to Romanian language and literature school inspector Anița Avram-Rusu, the exam's questions were “equilibrate, accesible și coerent formulate,” providing a comprehensive evaluation of the competencies students have acquired throughout their schooling.
Despite this, many students struggled with nuances in grammar and interpretation. For instance, some candidates failed to correctly identify an attributive subordinate clause with a distant regent term in one of the texts, confusing it with other attributive determinants. An especially subtle syntactic challenge involved distinguishing the adjective “greu” functioning as a predicative noun from the adverb “greu,” a difficulty that not all students could overcome.
Moreover, a particularly tricky idiomatic expression, “a tăia frunză la câini” (literally, “to cut leaves for dogs”), caused widespread confusion. This phrase, not commonly used in everyday speech, was misinterpreted by many as meaning “to feed the dogs,” with one student even explaining, “to cut leaves for dogs means to feed the dogs. They also need to eat vegetables.” This humorous misunderstanding highlights how idiomatic language can prove a stumbling block for young learners.
The test’s first subject required students to analyze and compare the two literary fragments, including an exercise where they had to identify a common element between the texts in at least 30 words. The second subject demanded a creative narrative—a recounting of a memorable event from an excursion. Here, the examiners encountered a wide range of responses, from well-crafted stories to compositions riddled with grammatical errors, fractured logic, and unintended humor.
During the correction process, teachers encountered numerous “perle” or “pearls,” as the media dubbed them—unintentionally funny answers and mistakes that, while entertaining, could negatively impact students' grades. These errors ranged from basic spelling and punctuation mistakes to more profound issues with coherence and expression. According to the official grading rubric, five points out of 100 were allocated for coherence of expression, three for punctuation, four for orthography, and three for adhering to the minimum word count.
Inspector Anița Avram-Rusu noted that while many exercises seemed straightforward, they were designed to differentiate between students’ levels of preparation subtly. “At first glance, the subjects seemed 'easy,' without presenting difficulties. However, upon closer analysis, we appreciate that they allow a fair distinction based on the real level of preparation,” she explained. This balanced approach aims to fairly evaluate students’ mastery of Romanian language skills, from comprehension and interpretation to written expression and grammatical accuracy.
Despite the exam’s overall accessibility, some students misunderstood the focus of certain questions. For example, in one task requiring the identification of a character trait based on a fragment, several candidates mistakenly attributed curiosity to Anton Lupan because he looked inquisitively at another character, Ieremia. However, the fragment actually highlighted the portrait of the other character, not Anton Lupan himself. Such misreadings underscore the challenges students face in literary analysis.
Attendance was also a factor in this year's exam, with 171 eighth-grade graduates absent from the test, leaving 3,058 candidates present to complete the Romanian language exam. The examiners administered two main subjects, both anchored in the two literary texts, ensuring a coherent and comprehensive assessment of students’ skills.
This National Evaluation is a crucial milestone for Romanian students, as their admission to high school depends on their average grade across all exam subjects. The average is calculated as the arithmetic mean of the grades obtained, rounded to two decimal places without further rounding, emphasizing the importance of every single point earned.
While the examiners and educators acknowledge the amusing “pearls” found in students’ papers, they also recognize the impact these mistakes can have on students’ final scores and their chances of admission to preferred high schools. The balance between humor and seriousness is delicate, as the exam serves both as a rite of passage and a significant academic hurdle.
In the end, the 2025 Romanian language National Evaluation exam revealed once again the complexity of assessing young learners’ language abilities at a national scale. It highlighted the importance of nuanced understanding of grammar, idiomatic expressions, and literary analysis, while also reflecting the challenges students face in mastering these skills. The examiners’ careful design of balanced and varied tasks continues to provide a fair platform for evaluating the diverse talents and preparation levels of Romania’s eighth graders.
