123. What the hell is the BAC?

so what i've realized is that for the majority of my posts from the last two or three months have been BAC. BAC. BAC. & yet, some or maybe a lot of you readers probably don't have a clue what i'm causing about. so let's make is clear, once & for all, since it just became clear to me this morning...

The Baccalauréat Français, a.k.a. the BAC, is like finals but more...serious, for lack of a better word. It started TODAY, THE day of fate for 327 785 other Terminales like me. Except that me, being a foreign student, I get to take things a little more lightly & actually get to stand back & analyse this whole ordeal.
You see, this BAC this is MAJOR. It's like no final exam you'll ever take, except maybe the Bar Exam. The entire nation takes the EXACT same test at EXACTLY the same time, on the same paper. The sujets are TOP SECRET because out of the hundreds of notions you've studies throughout the year, you'll end up with one & the catch? You don't know which one. & neither do the teachers, nor the administrators, nor anybody, except the people who wrote the damned thing & printed them. Except that the printing place is TOP SECRET & they super verify that the minority who knows the sujets are NOT qualified to pass the BAC, cause you can be 90 and pass it & even at that age, cheating is cheating. They've even got back-up sujets in case there's a leak.
I know, right?

Actually, the BAC takes place in other regions of the world as well: Amérique du Nord, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Pondichéry, la Réunion, Liban, Antilles-Guyane, etc.

It's all kind of funny, actually, especially for me cause the more serious I'm supposed to be, the more funny it is for me & since this is WAY serious, well, this is WAY funny.

So you can pass different kinds of BAC but the most common is the Baccalauréat général, which has three branches: Littéraire, Sciences économiques & Scientifique. I'm in Série S, so I pass: Philosophie (3), Histoire/Géographie (3), LV2 (2) (Espagnol for me), Mathématiques (7+2), LV1 (3) (Anglais for me), Physique/Chimie (6), SVT (6) & Sport (2). Actually, the BAC is a two-step deal. In Première, which was last year, you also have to pass Français écrit (2) & Français oral (2) but since I wasn't here last year, I'm passing the whole thing in one shot. Yay me.(!?) Last thing, there's a TPE (research project) that everyone did last year but I wasn't there so too bad. If you get >10 you get extra points but you don't lost points...

Every exam is marked on 20 & you need 10 to pass. But everything also depends on the coefficients, which I've marked in parentheses above. Basically, for me to get my BAC, I need (3+3+2+9+3+6+6+2+2+2)*10=380 points to pass, out of 380*2=720. I'm cheering for a 576 but aiming for a 504.

Wish me luck!!

[bt]