ICFES examination


The ICFES exam or Saber 11, is a high school exit examination administered annually in Colombian high schools for grade 11. The exam is standardized, similar to the SAT and ACT standard examinations taken by high school students in the United States. The purpose of the exam is to evaluate students' aptitude in five subjects: Critical Reading, Mathematics, Social Studies, Science, and English. Each question consists of four multiple-choice answers except for the English section. The English section tests the students' knowledge by providing between 3 and 8 possible answers for each question.
Although the ICFES provides several tests for different academic purposes, the Saber 11 is nationally recognized as the most important test since it evaluates students' academic readiness for admission to institutions of higher learning.

Purpose

The exam is usually taken by high school seniors, but students who have already obtained their diplomas and want to improve their score can also take it. The examination is intended to measure basic academic skills that are needed for academic success in college: such as critical reading, quantitative reasoning, citizen skills, scientific reasoning, and a second language.
ICFES, which stands for the Colombian Institute for the Evaluation of Education, is the institution in charge of the nationwide administration of the exam. The institute also uses the results for research purposes and public policy design for the improvement of secondary education throughout Colombia.
Both private and public universities in Colombia use the exam score as the main criterion for admissions. More competitive programs of study, such as medicine, requires a higher score.

Structure

The exam has five sections:
The critical reading section consists of 41 multiple-choice questions. It entails passages from different academic and literary sources. Answers to all of the questions are based on the content stated or implied by the passage.

Mathematics

The Mathematics section of the exam is made of 50 multiple-choice questions equally distributed between two examination sessions. A large portion of the test is problem-solving oriented, and students are required to both analyze numerical data and draw conclusions from it, or compute answers to a problem using previous mathematical knowledge. The other portion of the exam is more academic-oriented and requires extensive knowledge in advanced topics like Calculus, Algebra, Trigonometry, Probability, and Conic sections.

Social Studies

The Social Studies section of the exam is made of 50 multiple-choice questions equally distributed between two examination sessions. These questions include a context or a source that must be analyzed by the student to invent a solution to an issue. The exam tests the knowledge of the Colombian constitution, economic principles, global history, national and international politics, and geography.

Science

The Science section of the exam is made of 58 multiple-choice questions equally distributed between two examination sessions and evaluates three subjects: biology, chemistry, and physics. Questions usually require the student to explain or predict a phenomenon stated on a diagram or a text using previous knowledge. A large portion of the test is experimental and requires the student to propose an experiment to evaluate different phenomena or to describe which variables are involved in the result and what would change if those were modified. For physics, topics evaluated include kinematics, electromagnetism, waves, and thermodynamics. For chemistry, inorganic and organic chemistry, mixtures, reactions, and stoichiometry are tested. For biology, concepts include cellular biology, DNA, genetics, ecosystems, evolution, and food webs.

English

The English section of the exam is made of 55 multiple choice questions and is evaluated during the second examination session. It consists of seven parts with increasing complexity and is intended to evaluate text comprehension and use of English. In the first portion, basic English comprehension is evaluated through conversations and signals. The last portion consists in four passages of increasing difficulty: in two of them the student has to answer a series of questions based on the content stated or implied on the passages and in the other two the student must select a word that correctly fits a sentence from a selection of grammatically correct words.

Normative

The exam is intended to evaluate the student's academic skills on each subject. The internal structure of the exam is designed following evidence-centered design and states that skills are defined by a series of affirmations; these affirmations are formulated taking into account a series of evidence suggested by previous research. Evidence is evaluated by tasks and items, which are composed of a context, a question, and four possible answers.

Scoring

The ICFES exam qualifies students using percentiles and a global score that ranges between 1 and 500 points while each subject ranges between 1 and 100 points. Scores are computed based on the three-parameter logistic model.

Logistics

The exam is divided into two sessions, each lasting four hours and thirty minutes. ICFES assigns students to different testing centers at schools throughout the Colombian territory, so most students can reach nearby schools to take the exam. The organization and logistics related to the test are managed by ICFES. Different companies are contracted to transport valuables to ensure the integrity of the test.
The exam is available twice every year, and students can choose at what time they will take it according to the month they are graduating, typically either in June or December. Usually, students that are graduating in June take the exam in March, and those who are graduating in December take it in August. The day of the exam is always a Sunday, and it is divided into two four-hour sessions. During each session, students are allowed to go to the restroom once and as soon as a student is done, that student can leave the room as long as more than two hours and a half had passed since the session started.
Until 2020, this examination was not taken into consideration for admission at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, one of Colombia's main public colleges, because the university administers its test. However, one must have taken the ICFES exam to apply to the university. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the university decided to drop its admission test and began considering the ICFES examination score as part of the entrance criteria.

Global scores and percentiles

The following chart summarizes the scores obtained by students during the second application of the exam in 2019. In this particular exam administration, a total of 546,212 students took the examination.

History

The exam was created in 1966 when the Colombian Association of Universities and the University Fund signed Agreement number 65. This agreement was reached after research done by the Colombian Government and members of Colombian Universities. Initially, the exam used a scoring scale that ranged between 100 and 400 points and was heavily based on memory and concepts. Subjects evaluated included Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Social Studies, Spanish Language, Mathematics, and an elective subject that could be a foreign language or a logical reasoning test.
In 2000, the exam was completely restructured and began evaluating academic skills rather than concept memorization. The modified exam also evaluated eight compulsory subjects: Language, Mathematics, Social Studies, Philosophy, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and a second language ; and two elective subjects. Performance on each test was graded on a scale from 0 to 110-120 points depending on nationwide results. Global performance indicators were delivered to each student using a metric named puesto which ranged from 1 to 1000. Each puesto contained 0.1% of the total population and was calculated through an index that was based on a normalized average of the scores for each subject and dispersion. Qualifying at Puesto 1 meant that a student was at the top 0.1% of their exam administration.
In 2014, the current exam was introduced and completely replaced the previous exam. This new version is more aligned with international exams such as the SAT and reduces the former eight compulsory subjects to five areas: Critical Reading, Mathematics, Social Studies, Natural Science, and English.
In 2016, ICFES phased out the puesto metric and began using more traditional percentiles.

Awards

ICFES awards students who get the best results nationwide each year. In a televised ceremony called La Noche de Los Mejores, both the President of Colombia and the Education Minister give a medal known as "Distinción Andres Bello" to students who are top 50 in the national ranking or at the top 10 on each department of Colombia. Awards are also given to the top 0.2% of students from public schools in each city and the schools with the best aggregate results.
Disadvantaged students who score highly on the exam can be recipients of Generación E, a state scholarship that grants them access to the most prestigious colleges and universities in Colombia.