The National English Olympiad addresses high school students in Romania.
The contest has four phases:
The school phase - taking place sometime in late October, with large number of participants; the subjects are Use of English (75 points) and Letter/Article/Report Writing (25 points); 80 points will qualify the student for the next phase.
The county phase - late November; the subjects are Use of English (50 points), Letter/Article/Report Writing (25 points) and Creative Writing (25 points); 85 points qualify the student for the next phase.
The county phase - early January; the subjects are Creative Writing (50 points), Letter/Article/Report Writing (25 points) and Use of English (25 points); 90 points qualify the student for the listening (100 points) and speaking (100 points) tests; with an average of 90 points, students qualify the for the national phase.
The national phase – first week in February; all students will participate in all three tests: writing – the subjects are Creative Writing (75 points) and Letter/Article/Report Writing (25 points), listening (100 points) and speaking (100 points). Prizes are awarded descendingly.
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Despite the high degree of subjectivity involuntarily affecting the evaluation of the written pieces and the inconsistency of the way prizes are awarded every year, generating discussions and dissatisfaction among the organisers, the evaluators and the students, the contest survives, dislocating around 250 students, 50 teachers and 30 evaluators for about a week (during the inter-semestrial holiday!) and making them travel to and from the national phase, always organised by a different county… The costs involved are huge and, surprise-surprise, the Ministry of Education makes such ridiculously unrealistic calculations that the organising county school inspectorate receives less than 2/3 of the total amount of money needed, so the inspectorate team do their best and strive to find sponsorships in order to provide as much and as good of everything as possible.
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