Bagrut

Overview

The Bagrut (Hebrew for "maturity", officially Te'udat Bagrut, the Matriculation Certificate) is Israel's secondary-school leaving certificate. It is not a single sitting but a cumulative record built up over grades 10 to 12: students take a series of subject exams, set and graded under the Ministry of Education, in "study units" (yechidot limud) of increasing difficulty, and the results are combined into one certificate. Passing the Bagrut both completes secondary education and feeds into university admission, where it is combined with a separate test, the Psychometric Entrance Test (PET), run by the National Institute for Testing and Evaluation (NITE) rather than the Ministry of Education.

Who can apply

The Bagrut is taken by students enrolled in an Israeli secondary school (state, state-religious, or a recognised private school) over grades 10 to 12, through their school. External candidates who are not enrolled in a recognised school can also register to sit Bagrut exams as external examinees through the Ministry of Education. Students who moved to Israel partway through secondary school (olim) can apply for specific leniencies in subject or unit requirements, administered through the Ministry and support organisations for new immigrants.

Exam pattern

Each Bagrut subject is studied and examined at a "study unit" (yechida) level from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most demanding; one unit is roughly 90 class hours of instruction in that subject. A subject's final grade may draw on more than one exam sitting across grades 10 to 12 (for example, a lower-unit exam in grade 10 or 11 followed by a higher-unit exam in grade 12), and some subjects add an oral component alongside the written exam.

To receive a full Bagrut certificate, a student must accumulate a minimum number of study units across a mix of compulsory and elective subjects, including at least one subject examined at the 5-unit level. The compulsory core is:

On top of this compulsory core, students choose elective subjects (such as physics, chemistry, biology, computer science, literature, economics, or a second foreign language) to reach the overall unit total the Ministry requires for a full certificate, generally at least 21 study units in total, with at least one subject taken at the 5-unit level.

Marking and results

Each subject is graded on a 0-100 scale. A subject's final grade usually blends two components: an externally set and centrally graded Ministry exam, and an internal, school-based assessment (often called the "magen", or shield, grade) based on coursework and school tests across the year. The exact weighting varies by subject, but exam-heavy subjects commonly weight the external exam more heavily than the school-based component.

A student's overall "Bagrut average" is a weighted average of all examined subjects' grades, weighted by the number of study units in each subject — so a 5-unit subject counts for more than a 1-unit subject. To be awarded a full Bagrut certificate, a student generally needs a passing grade in each required subject, the minimum study units described above, and an overall average at or above the threshold the Ministry sets. This Bagrut average, not the Psychometric score, is the number schools and universities refer to as a student's matriculation result; it is reported separately from the Psychometric Entrance Test score used for university admission.

Important dates

Bagrut exams are not held on one date but across several windows through the school year:

• Winter Bagrut exams — held around January, mainly for students completing a subject early or resitting one.

• Summer Bagrut exams (Moed Aleph) — the main exam window, running through May and June, with individual subjects spread across the window on dates the Ministry publishes each year. For the 2026 summer window, for example, the civics exam date fell around 11 June, with other subjects such as biology and physics (including lab components) scheduled across June; exact dates shift from year to year and some are rescheduled after the timetable is first published.

• Summer Bagrut exams (Moed Bet) — a second sitting shortly after Moed Aleph, mainly for resits and grade improvement.

Because dates are republished and sometimes revised every school year, students should check the Ministry of Education's current-year Bagrut timetable rather than relying on a previous year's dates.

How it's administered

Bagrut exams are set and centrally graded by the Ministry of Education, but sat at the student's own school under invigilation on the nationally fixed exam dates. Civics and some other lower-unit subjects may be assessed through an internally graded school course instead of an external sitting, depending on the Ministry's rules for that year and subject. Some subjects (for example English) include an additional oral component, graded separately from the written exam. Because the Bagrut spans three school years, a student's final certificate typically combines results from several exam sittings taken across grades 10, 11 and 12, not a single end-of-school exam day.

After the exam

A full Bagrut certificate confirms completion of Israeli secondary education. For university admission, Israeli universities and colleges combine a student's Bagrut average with their score on the Psychometric Entrance Test (PET), a separate test administered by NITE (not the Ministry of Education) that measures verbal reasoning, quantitative reasoning and English on a 200-800 scale. Many institutions weight the two roughly equally when ranking applicants, though exact weighting and minimum thresholds vary by institution and programme. The Bagrut and the Psychometric Entrance Test are run by different bodies and registered for separately — a Bagrut certificate does not include a Psychometric score, and vice versa.

Preparation tips

• Plan subject and unit choices early in grade 10: the compulsory core plus elective subjects need to add up to the Ministry's overall unit minimum, including at least one 5-unit subject, by the end of grade 12.

• Treat the school-based ("magen") component seriously through the year, since it typically contributes a meaningful share of the final subject grade alongside the external exam.

• Use the Ministry of Education's past Bagrut exam papers for each subject, since question formats and marking schemes tend to repeat from year to year.

• Track the current school year's exam timetable directly on the Ministry of Education's site, since dates are published and occasionally revised every year.

• If also planning to apply to university, prepare for the Psychometric Entrance Test separately and early, since it is a distinct test with its own registration and preparation materials through NITE.

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