In the Enem objective test, the grade does not only take into account the number of correct questions

Imagine that your answer card for the National High School Exam (Enem) 2024 is already filled out, as well as the essay sheet, both handed over to the classroom inspector. But when you leave the exam location with your test book, will you know how to calculate the final grade achieved?

In the Enem objective test, the grade does not only take into account the number of correct questions, but also the coherence of the participant’s answers across the 180 objective questions that make up the exam.

To help participants and the general public understand how this score calculation is made, the National Institute of Educational Studies and Research Anísio Teixeira (Inep), test administrator, makes available on its portal the Participant’s Guide – Understand your score on Enem.

The document explains the methodology used to correct Enem tests: Item Response Theory (TRI). And the criteria adopted for the calculation aim to measure the participant’s proficiency in four areas of knowledge: mathematics, languages, natural sciences and human sciences.

“The use of IRT in calculating the results does not change the difficulty of the test. Yes, it contributes to better detailing the grades, which helps to avoid a large number of ties”, explains the Inep Participant Guide.

Item Response Theory

Item Response Theory (IRT) uses mathematical calculations to evaluate a competitor’s skill and knowledge in multiple-choice tests such as Enem and considers the coherence of the participant’s correct answers.

When calculating the grade, this statistical model observes the particularities of each test question. The weight of each item in the total calculation takes into account three variables, called parameters, which define the minimum and maximum values ​​of the test.

Discrimination parameter: differentiates participants who dominate from those who do not dominate what is evaluated by the question.

Difficulty parameter: evaluates the complexity of the question. The more difficult the item, the greater its value.

Casual guess (guess): considers the probability of a participant getting the question right without mastering the required skill.

Based on the three parameters, two people with the same number of hits and errors can have different grades, as it all depends on which questions are right or wrong.

In practice, participants who get the difficult questions right are expected to also get the easy questions right. This is because, theoretically, more complex skills require the mastery of simpler skills.

Toshio Nakamura, director and mathematics teacher at Galois school, in Brasília, which prepares high school students for the Enem, explains that the IRT does not only take into account the number of correct answers, but also the coherence of the answers to the set of questions.

“If you get a difficult question right and an easy one wrong, the candidate will not earn the points for the difficult one. It will receive a lower score because Inep considers that the participant got it right because they kicked the item. So, for the difficult question to be worth more, he must have gotten the easy question right.”

“The Enem correction system will prioritize the candidate who really knows the subject and not the one who, often, by luck, gets the questions right”, explains Nakamura.

Inep explains that there is a relationship between the number of correct answers and the score calculated by the TRI. The mathematical model adopted by Inep for the exam indicates that a participant with a high number of correct answers will have a high score, while a participant with few correct answers will have a low grade, despite the Enem score not being calculated directly by the number of correct answers.

In Enem, weights are not used for the final calculation of grades. As explained, knowledge is assessed based on the consistency of answers and the characteristics (parameters) of each question.

Inep also clarifies that each participant’s grade depends solely on their own knowledge and is not related to the performance of other participants in the same edition of the exam.

The minimum and maximum grades in objective tests are not the same every year because they depend on the test questions. When publishing the results, Inep will make available the minimum and maximum grades for the tests.

The Inep document A Redação do Enem 2024 – Participant’s Handbook and the notice for this edition of the exam detail how argumentative dissertations will be corrected.

The material also presents annotated samples of texts that received maximum points (1,000 points) in the 2023 edition.

In total, five skills will be required when correcting texts:

Mastery of formal written Portuguese;

Organization of ideas;

Intervention proposal for the problem addressed, respecting human rights.

Initially, the writing will be independently corrected by two correctors. Each broker will assign a grade between zero and 200 points for each of the skills and the final grade will be the sum of the performance in each of them. In the event of a major discrepancy between the two brokers’ scores (according to the notice), the writing will be independently corrected by a third broker.

The evaluation panel may assign a zero grade in the following situations: in writing that deviates from the proposed topic; given the non-compliance with the dissertation-argumentative structure; if the written text has up to seven lines; if you use swear words or drawings; if it contains any form of identification in the space intended exclusively for the text of the essay; if it is written predominantly or entirely in a foreign language; if the handwriting is illegible, making it impossible to read by two independent evaluators.

If the essay contains a copy of the texts from the essay proposal or the test booklet, the number of copied lines will be disregarded when counting the minimum number of lines.

The answer keys for the objective tests will be published on the Inep portal on November 20th.

And on January 13, 2025, the institute will publish the final results of Enem 2024. The participant will be able to access their individual results on the participant’s page, with the login and password of the federal government’s single digital services portal, the Gov. br.