Alberta Diploma Exam
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The Alberta Diploma Exams are the provincial tests given to all grade 12 students in Alberta, Canada. Results are an important factor in admissions to universities and colleges across Canada as exam marks make up fifty-percent of the course grade for grade 12 level subjects.
Diploma examinations required to receive an official high school diploma in Alberta are English 30-1 or 30-2 and Social Studies 30 or 33.
A major contributing factor to the introduction of the Diploma Exams was the events surrounding Holocaust denier James Keegstra. After the Keegstra incident the Alberta government and many provincial governments across the country instituted standardized testing as a method to check on teacher's performance. When the Diploma Exams were introduced, Alberta Learning also introduced Provincial Achievement Tests for students in grades 3, 6, and 9.
Another contributing factor to the introduction of Diploma Exams was to prevent the inflation of marks by biased and over-generous teachers. This puts grade averages significantly lower than the rest of the country. This phenomenon of grade inflation is particularly common in Ontario.
[edit] Subjects
Grade twelve subjects for which there are diploma exams are:
- English Language Arts 30-1
- English Language Arts 30-2
- Social Studies 30
- Social Studies 33
- Math 30 Pure
- Math 30 Applied
- Biology 30
- Chemistry 30
- Physics 30
- Science 30
- Français 30
- French Language Arts 30
All tests consist of a Part A and a Part B; Part A is a written test and Part B is a multiple choice test. For tests in maths and sciences, Part A takes place in the morning and Part B in the afternoon of the same day. For humanities subjects, Part A takes place two weeks before Part B.
