Liberty.”Those words are not lyrics from a song by a heavy metal band like Black Sabbath, but a reference to the Statue of Liberty. The Abitur exams were created from a national pool of questions and distributed by the education ministry in Baden-Württemberg. The resulting grades are used for a system known as “numerus clausus” that rations admission to popular university programs. Mr. Bölling suggested that the test, which holds an important place in German culture, was becoming easier, as a bigger proportion of young people try to get into university. In 1960, 7 percent of school leavers took the test; in 2000, it was 37.2 percent; and in 2015, it was 53 percent, according to official figures.

Source: New York Times May 05, 2018 10:56 UTC