At the end of 3ème, the fourth year of collège, pupils sit the Brevet, the first state exam. This exam marks the passage from collège to lycée and includes papers in French, Mathematics, Modern Languages, History & Geography.
In the "Brevet International", two special papers replace the modern language and history & geography papers of the standard brevet exam—
- Language and literature - covering reading, comprehension, linguistic and grammatical exercises and essay writing.
- History and geography - which includes questions in both English and French and covers European history from 1919 to 1990 as well as the geography of the main economic powers.