YEREVAN, MAY 7, NOYAN TAPAN. The comprehensive school finals and united university entrance examinations will be held on June 2-17. This year comprehensive school leavers will take united examinations in "Armenian Language and Literature", "Mathematics" and "Foreign Languages". Those who fail to take examinations for good reasons will be allowed to take them on July 2-10. The director of the Evaluation and Test Center Manuk Mkrtchian said at the May 7 press conference that everything possible will be done to ensure transparency of examinations: the examination process will be filmed and shown on a monitor, as well as special devices will be used to prevent the use of mobile phones. Speaking about the changes in the tasks of math examination, M. Mkrtchian said that the previous model, by which 1 point instead of 0 was subtracted from the school leaver's score in case of a wrong answer, will no longer be used: this applies to the test tasks 17, 18 and 19 which require long answers. They will be multiple-choice: one answer shall be chosen from 4 versions. No calculators will be allowed during the examination. "The tasks have been prepared in such a way that no calculators are needed to solve these problems," he assured those present. According to M. Mkrtchian, no changes were made in the other examinations. The test papers of the united examinations have already been printed in the UK and will be brought to Armenia in late May, while the school finals' tasks have been printed in Yerevan. No guidebook has been developed for Spanish examination - out of all the foreign language examinations, so the examination in Spanish will be conducted based on the principles developed for the tests of the other languages. The deadline for changing the application for taking examinations ends on May 30. This year about 15 thousand people will take exam in Armenian language and literature, about 9 thousand - math exam, and about 10 thousand - exam in a foreign language. The results of the united examinations will be checked by computer at the Evaluation and Test Center (ETC), while the results of the school finals - at schools based on the correct answers to be put on the ETC's website on the following day. The director of the center announced that it is envisaged to conduct some pilot examinations in 4 Armenian marzes in mid May with the aim of organizing united examinations in the remaining subjects as well next year. "Pilot exams in natural sciences and other subjects to be held on May 10-15 will allow us to make decisions related to compilation of guides and test papers on these subjects. School leavers will be supplied with these guides at the beginning of next academic year," he said.

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