EXANI-I

Overview

EXANI-I (Examen Nacional de Ingreso a la Educación Media Superior) is a standardised admission exam run by CENEVAL (Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior), a Mexican non-profit that designs national entrance and exit exams. EXANI-I evaluates general academic skills in students who have finished lower-secondary school (secundaria) and are applying to upper-secondary education (educación media superior — bachillerato or preparatoria). It is a separate, earlier exam from EXANI-II, which CENEVAL administers for undergraduate university admission after bachillerato.

Who can apply

EXANI-I is for students who have completed, or are about to complete, secundaria (lower-secondary school) and want to enter an upper-secondary institution — a preparatoria, bachillerato, technical high school, or similar centre — that has contracted CENEVAL to run its admission exam. Unlike EXANI-II, which many students take independently, EXANI-I is usually organised by a state education secretariat or by the admitting school network, which announces the registration window to secundaria students directly.

Exam pattern

EXANI-I is given in a single session lasting a maximum of 4.5 hours, with multiple-choice questions offering three answer options each. 130 questions count toward the global score, split across four areas, plus 30 diagnostic English-as-a-foreign-language questions (CEFR level A2) that do not count toward the score — 160 questions in total.

Marking and results

Each correct answer is worth one point and each incorrect or unanswered question is worth zero — there is no penalty for guessing. Results are reported on the CENEVAL index, a scale from 700 to 1,300 points; the technical mean is 1,000 points, representing roughly 50% correct answers. CENEVAL does not set a fixed passing score for EXANI-I. Instead, the admitting institution or state system sets its own cut-off or uses the global and per-area scores to rank applicants against the places available, since the report also shows where a student's score falls relative to everyone else who sat that session.

Important dates

For 2026, CENEVAL has published four registration-and-exam windows for EXANI-I, though the actual dates students can use depend on which window their state or institution opens:

Fees

For 2026, secondary reports put the regular EXANI-I registration fee at $480 MXN, rising to$650 MXN for late registration. The institution or state system that contracts CENEVAL ultimately sets and collects the fee, and some public bachillerato admission systems cover or subsidise it for secundaria graduates, so the amount a given applicant pays can differ from these figures.

How to apply

Because EXANI-I is contracted by the admitting institution or state education system rather than bought directly by every applicant, registration is normally organised through the student's secundaria or the state's bachillerato admission process, which publishes a convocatoria (call for registration) with a link into CENEVAL's registration portal. To register, a student creates a profile with their CURP, full legal name as it appears on their birth certificate, date of birth, and an email address they check daily, then uploads a passport-style photo and the requested documents — typically a certificate or proof of secundaria studies, proof of address, and proof of payment. Registration produces a pase de ingreso (admission pass) carrying a CENEVAL folio number, which is required to sit the exam.

After the exam

The admitting institution or state system receives each applicant's EXANI-I report and uses the global score — sometimes alongside the per-area scores and the applicant's secundaria grades — to rank candidates and assign places in upper-secondary schools, since places at a given preparatoria or bachillerato are usually limited. Exactly how the score is weighted against other criteria varies by state and institution.

Preparation tips

CENEVAL publishes an official guide for EXANI-I describing the topics covered in each of the four scored areas; working through it before the exam is the most direct way to see what each area actually tests. Because wrong and unanswered questions score the same, attempt every question rather than leaving any blank. With 160 questions (130 scored plus the 30-question English diagnostic) to complete inside 4.5 hours, practising under timed conditions helps avoid running out of time on the Pensamiento matemático section, which carries the most questions of any single area.