Eighth Grade Exam (Poland)Egzamin ósmoklasisty

Overview

Egzamin ósmoklasisty (the eighth-grade exam, often abbreviated E8) is Poland's exam at the end of primary school (szkoła podstawowa), sat in grade 8. It is set nationally by the Centralna Komisja Egzaminacyjna (CKE, the Central Examination Board), with the regional examination boards (Okręgowe Komisje Egzaminacyjne, OKE) running the sessions in schools. Unlike the matura (Poland's end-of-secondary-school exam, also run by CKE), the eighth-grade exam does not award a certificate of its own and has no pass/fail threshold — it is a ranking tool whose percentage scores feed directly into admission to secondary school (liceum or technikum).

Who can apply

The exam is mandatory for every student finishing grade 8 of a Polish primary school, including adult primary schools; it is a condition of completing primary education, not an optional entry. Parents or legal guardians declare, by 30 September of the exam year, which modern foreign language their child will be examined in, from among the languages the student studies at school as a compulsory subject. Finalists and laureates of CKE-recognised subject olympiads or voivodeship/multi-voivodeship subject competitions can be exempted from sitting a given subject; the exemption is treated as the maximum score (35 points for Polish or mathematics, 30 points for the foreign language) rather than as skipping the ranking entirely.

Exam pattern

Every student sits three compulsory written exams: Polish, mathematics, and one modern foreign language. There is no oral component and no elective subjects.

Students choose their foreign language from the languages taught at their school as a compulsory subject: English, German, French, Russian, Spanish, or Italian. For 2026, CKE reported that 98.4% of students sat the foreign language exam in English.

Marking and results

Each subject is scored as a percentage of the maximum points available for that paper (Polish and mathematics up to 45 raw points each with no letter grades), rounded to a whole number, and also reported on a centile scale showing how a student's result compares nationally. There is no pass/fail threshold on any subject — the exam is used only for secondary-school admission ranking, not for certification.

For admission to liceum or technikum, a candidate's exam percentages are converted into points: the Polish and mathematics percentages are each multiplied by 0.35, and the foreign-language percentage is multiplied by 0.3. Combined, the exam can contribute up to 100 of the 200 total recruitment points a candidate can earn; the other 100 come from primary-school grades and achievements (up to 18 points for documented special achievements, 7 points for a certificate with distinction, and 3 points for volunteering).

Important dates

For the 2026/2027 school year, the main exam session runs 10–12 May 2027: Polish on 10 May, mathematics on 11 May, and the foreign language on 12 May, each starting at 9:00. An additional session for students who miss the main session for documented health or other reasons runs 9–11 June 2027. Results are announced on 6 July 2027. Foreign-language declarations are due to the school director by 30 September of the school year in which the exam is sat, with a later window to change the declared language (typically into February, extended into spring for olympiad laureates and finalists).

How to apply

There is no individual application: every grade 8 student is registered for the exam by their school. The only action required from a family is submitting the written declaration of which foreign language the student will be examined in, by the school-set deadline (by 30 September of the exam year), and submitting a further declaration if the family wants to change that language before the change deadline.

After the exam

The exam itself carries no certificate and no retake within the same year — a student who is dissatisfied with a score cannot resit it that year, only in a later year's cycle if they repeat grade 8. Results, converted to recruitment points alongside primary-school grades and achievements, are used by secondary schools (liceum and technikum) to rank and admit applicants through the regional electronic recruitment system; schools publish point thresholds for each programme once admissions conclude.

Preparation tips

• Practise with CKE's own published sample papers (informatory and arkusze) for Polish, mathematics, and the chosen foreign language, since these set the real exam's question style and marking scheme.

• Treat mathematics and Polish as the highest-leverage subjects for admission points, since both are weighted at 0.35 versus 0.3 for the foreign language.

• Confirm the foreign-language declaration early and check the school's deadline for changing it, since a late change is not accepted outside the published window (except for olympiad laureates and finalists).

• Research the point thresholds of target secondary schools and programmes from recent admission cycles, since these vary by school and change year to year.

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