The ENEM
Two weekends each November in Brazil, approximately 4 million prospective university students quiver in their seats before 5 hours of concentration on 90 multiple choice questions covering: (Day 1) languages, literature, art, ICT, history, philosophy, sociology and geography; then, (Day 2) natural sciences and mathematics. This exam is called the ENEM and it is the world’s 2nd largest national test — behind China. There is also a 30-line essay, written by hand, that conjures students’ critical reasoning and problem-solving skills to systematically address a social issue in Brazil, which adds 30 minutes to Day 1. This is called a Redação and it’s what favors informed, socially-conscious students with excellent writing skills.
Here are a few examples of the essay prompts (Note: candidates who do not respond directly receive a note of zero and cannot enroll in university):
“The role of work in the construction of human dignity”
“Living online in the 21st century: the limits between public and private life”
“The question of children’s advertising”
“The persistence of violence against women in society”
“Ways to combat religious intolerance”
“Challenges to educate deaf citizens”
“The stigma associated with mental illness in society”
“Invisibility and civil registration: guaranteeing access to citizenship.”
Consider the following solutions (mandatory concluding paragraph) that students who earned full marks proposed to the 2020 and 2021 prompts:
2020: The stigma associated with mental illness in society
It is urgent, therefore, that the Ministry of Health creates a platform, using digital resources, that contains information about mental illnesses and proposes appropriate behaviors and attitudes to be adopted during an interaction with a person who presents a pathology of the genre, in addition to disclosing the most frequent signs related to the lack of psychological health. This measure will promote a larger informational network and provide greater support to those in need. Furthermore, it is the role of society and the media to elaborate campaigns that advocate opposition to the prejudice that affects patients of this nature, which can be carried out through mobilizations on social networks and via informative television programs. This initiative is capable of engaging the Brazilian population to combat this type of discrimination. As such, the Platonic philosophy will be converted into reality in Brazil. — Raíssa Picolli Fontoura2021: Invisibility and civil registration: guaranteeing access to citizenship
There is, therefore, urgency to put an end to this notorious, structural issue in Brazil. It is up to the Ministry of Family and Human Rights, responsible for the maintenance of social security, to promote, in partnership with city halls and sub-prefectures, an increase in the effectiveness of civil registration in municipalities. This action will take place through campaigns, which will contribute to raising awareness about access to civil rights, and mandates for hiring employees to speed up registration, mainly of birth certificates. In this way, there will be a reduction in the marginalization of a portion of the population, either actively, by guaranteeing access to citizenship, or by breaking the cycle of invisibility. — Sarah Fernandes Rosa
This level of unedited, time-constrained writing for high schoolers is truly impressive. Furthermore, the task is realized in between 90 multiple choice questions that are no walk in the park themselves. Here’s an example of a medium difficulty question in the literature section:
Text I
“He ran to the portrait room, opened the piano, sat down and spread his hands along the keys. He began to play something of his own, a sudden inspiration, a polka, a boisterous polka, as the ads say. Without rebuff on the composer’s part; the fingers went pulling out the notes, connecting them, wiggling them; one would say that the muse composed and danced for some time… Composed alone, typing or writing, without the vain forces of the vesper, without exasperation, nothing to request from heaven, nothing to ask the eyes of Mozart. No boredom. Life, grace, novelty, dripped from his soul like a perennial fountain.”
Text II
Um homem célebre exposes the torment of the popular musician who seeks to attain the sublimity of a classical masterpiece, and with it the gallery of the immortals, but who is cheated by an uncontrollable inner disposition that pushes relentlessly in the opposite direction. Pestana, celebrated in the soirées, ballrooms, dance halls and streets of Rio de Janeiro for his irresistibly dance-worthy compositions, hides himself from the rumors of his return in a room full of the grand icons of European music, dives into classical Viennese sonatas, prepares himself for the supreme creative jump and, when he realizes, he is the author of yet another ineluctable and bouncy polka.
Machado de Assis’ short story makes a reference to maxixe, a musical genre associated with slavery and miscegenation. In Text II, the character’s conflict in composing works of the genre is representative of the
(A) low musical complexity of the compositions adjusted to the general public’s taste.
(B) prevalence of African musical references in the imagination of the Brazilian population.
(C) incipient attribution of social prestige to instrumental music made for dancing.
(D) tense relationship between the erudite and the popular that constitutes Brazilian music.
(E) importance attributed to classical music in Brazilian society in the 19th century.
… So now you’ve got an idea of what the ENEM is like. A feat indeed.
What makes this exam special is its weight in Brazilian society. 4.67 million people have signed up to take the exam this year, and a surprisingly large sum of educational investment goes into the preparation of students, since it is the only way to get into the best, publicly-funded universities in Brazil.
Indeed, Brazil is one of the few countries in the Americas that offers university programs 100% tuition-free: even med school! Given that only 5 of the top 50 universities in the country are private, and all accept ENEM results as a method of entry into any degree program, the exam is taken very seriously. It costs R$85 to sign up for, but most Brazilian students can get the fee waived. On the other hand, some universities choose to hold Vestibular exams which can charge any fee and present unique structures (always including a Redação) that the institution chooses to create.
On Sunday, November 5th at 13:00 BRT, the doors and gates will close to every test site in the country and the quivering will begin. The test only runs once a year, so those who are unsuccessful in their quest to enter a specific university program will have to wait as much time to try again.
Brazil is a country where some students will inevitably arrive late, for any number of reasons out of their control, or simply desist from the dream of attending university. On the other hand, Brazilian students who choose to pursue their dreams gain resiliency and the ENEM is not considered the be-all and end-all. A great country to compare these cultural phenomena with is South Korea, whose Suneung exam is considered the most challenging national examination of high school students in the world.
Planes are grounded during the listening portion of the English section so their noise does not disturb the students. In some cases, students running late for the test may be escorted to their testing site by police officers via motorcycle.[5][6]… Most complaints after the test involve administrator actions such as talking, opening windows, standing in front of a desk, sniffling, clicking a computer mouse, eating candy, and walking.
Pressure to perform well on the Suneung has been linked to psychological stress, depression and suicide.[28][29] The highly competitive exam is also cited as a contributing factor to South Korea’s declining birth rate, as parents feel pressure to pay for expensive hagwon cram schools to help their children study.[11] Critics also say that students from wealthier families have an advantage due to the prevalence of cram schools, and that the test detracts from students’ education with its emphasis on rote memorization and topics that are distinct from the curriculum followed in schools. — Wikipedia
The culture of committing those who are unable to pass such exams in one go to ‘failure’ or labelling them as ‘lesser’ exists around the world. However, the remarkably few generations that have passed, since attending university was not the norm, is a good indicator that students can afford to take their time to decide what they really want to do with their lives. In my case, the decision to pursue medicine in Brazil only came at age 25.
Brazil’s mostly progressive politics of the 21st century have paired with the ENEM in a way that might surprise North Americans: racial quotas. In 2012, a federal law was passed to employ quotas for the selection of black and mixed race students who attended public school, proportional to the make up of Brazil’s population. This has already had a tremendous effect, and it is one of the reasons for the ENEM’s record of 8.6 million test takers in 2016. The future of the exam and Brazil’s public universities is uncertain, but, for now, it seems that 4 million students are anxiously awaiting (and cramming before) Day 1 and high school educators are busy making their own guesses for what content will find its way into 2023’s rendition.
1 week to go!
