hanca
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Maturita is a state exam, to finish school. Usually when they are 18-19 years old. In the UK they have A levels, which is quite similar. I think in most European countries they have final exams from several selected subjects.North Americans don't know a) what the term "Maturita" means, the word itself, and b) and the "concept of it" as there are no "Graduation/Exit Exams" on top of "individual courses exams" during last year of high-school. In North Am you only take regular exams for the actual courses you take during last year and if you pass (given you passed all previous years) you get your High School Diploma. (the entry exams into Universities in USA are also a completely different process and concept, not like in Eastern Europe and some other countries in Europe, etc.).
If a person fails in High School, or does not complete all 4 grades of High School, drops out, in other words "does not graduate", he/she can later (at ANY age) take General Education Test/Exam and get a "GED" - General Education Diploma, which is not the same, but equivalent to High School Diploma. US issued GED is often not recognized by other countries. But it can be used in USA (don't know about Canada) to apply to some (not all) colleges/universities and all trade schools.
So to explain for those who don’t have that, the students study during their school year all the subjects they would have on any school year (and are assessed throughout the year), but on top of that at the end of the school year they have to pass a state exam from several chosen subject (usually 4 subjects at the grammar school, but can be more) - those exams are from everything they learned in those subjects within the four year at the grammar school. Czech school system is based on memorising a lot of materials, so one needs to put in quite some time to put into your head all the knowledge.
And in the Czech Republic there is no equivalent of US GED exam that could be taken later. If you don’t graduate, that’s your problem and you will probably regret it in the future.
This really wouldn’t be a good year for Anna to experiment with going abroad.
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