Talk:Secondary education in France/Comments

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I finished by changing the table in which there is written BAC S (natural sciences) to BAC S (various sciences depending on chosen options) because saying that the BAC S is a natural science BAC is totally false.

Biology is nor mandatory nor necessarily a very high coefficient subject, the vast majority of students choose a Math or Physics & Chemistry specialty (more so for Math). The streams are chosen by students in 2nde, if a student choses ISI (Introduction aux sciences de l'ingénieure= introduction to engineering sciences) as well as ISP (initiation aux sciences de production= Introduction to production sciences) as his option and determination courses (I won't get into explaining precisely what this is because it gets complicated) the student simply can not take natural sciences classes because no school offers that possibility. In première students can choose to take SI (sciences de l'ingénieur = engineering sciences ) and drop biology classes. What I am trying to say is that students can pass a BAC without ever having taken biology in Lycée. Moreover even those who choose biology don't necessarily choose to specialize in it , in wich case biology counts as much as French in the BAC exam (coefficient wise), even for students that do specialize in biology, Math still counts nearly as much on the BAC exam(biology : 8 Math : 7).

The source of your confusion is most certainly the fact that most students choose biology throughout the their entire studies at a Lycée. The ISI, ISP, and SI options I was talking about are available in few Lycées in France, for example I know my Lycée (Lycée Chaptal) is the only Lycée in the northern district to offer these options. But as I said previously biology doesn't necessarily have high coefficient in the BAC and even if a student specializes in it the coefficient will not be much higher than the Math coefficient.

I just want to add that the Lycée system is fairly complex, the article about it does a good job of explaining it very quickly despite a few mistakes but in reality the details are numerous and simplifying them without understanding them can lead to important errors such as thinking the BAC S in a natural science BAC. Just for information : I am Steven a student at the Lycée Chaptal in 2nde right now.