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The 2024 National High School Exam Enem) will be held on two Sundays, on November 3rd and 10th, and is already attracting thousands of students across the country.
With just under a month to go until the assessment, the Ministry of
Education MEC), through the National Institute of Studies and Educational Research Anísio Teixeira INEP), released details on the calculation of grades and the methodology used to assess candidates.
Enem uses Item Response Theory IRT) to calculate the scores for the
exam's 180 objective questions, distributed across four areas of knowledge: Languages, Codes and their Technologies, Human Sciences and their Technologies, Natural Sciences and their Technologies, and Mathematics and their Technologies.
IRT is a mathematical model that analyzes the probability of a participant getting a question right based on their level of knowledge. To do this, it takes three parameters into account:
1. Discrimination: Assesses the question's ability to distinguish between participants who have mastered the content of the question and those who have not.
2. Difficulty: Measures the complexity of the question; the higher the value, the more difficult the question.
3. Random correct answer: Considers the probability of a candidate getting a question right by chance, without actually mastering the content.
Inep uses these parameters to ensure that the tests are comparable to each other, regardless of the Enem edition. To this end, national pre-tests are carried out, creating a bank of items calibrated for the four areas assessed.