Final year: how to plan the maturità year from September

The final year of high school has a feature the other four don’t: the deadline is fixed and doesn’t move. The first paper of the 2027 maturità (Italy’s school-leaving exam) is on Wednesday 16 June, the second on Thursday 17 June — they were set by ministerial order no. 106 of 10 June 2026, so the dates are already certain while you are still buying your books. The whole rest of the year is organised backwards from there.

The problem I see every year in lessons is not a lack of effort: it is that the plan starts in March. In March the Year 5 syllabus is not finished, the tests of the second term weigh more than those of the first, and the time to review the four previous years simply isn’t there any more. This guide is meant to avoid that: the real stages of the year, what changes according to your track, and a plan by period that you can start today.

The stages of the year, in order

Mark these on the calendar now, before they become emergencies.

1. September–December: the tests of the first period. In schools with a trimester the class council is in mid-December; in those with two halves it comes between the end of January and the start of February. It is the period in which the Year 5 school credit is built, which counts in the total of 40 points accumulated across Years 3, 4 and 5. A scraped 6 in December is worth less than it seems in June.
2. End of January 2027: the subjects decree. It is the document that decides the subject of the second paper for each track, the four disciplines of the oral exam and the subjects assigned to external examiners. It is expected by the end of January (in 2026 it came out as ministerial decree no. 13 of 29 January). Until that day nobody can tell you for certain what will come up — whoever tells you in October is guessing.
3. March 2027: the Year 5 INVALSI tests (grade 13). The 2027 calendar has not yet been published; the expected window is March (in 2026 it ran from 2 to 31 March). They are Italian, Maths and English (national standardised tests), with English split into reading and listening at two levels, B1 and B2. An important and often misunderstood point: for admission, taking part counts, not the result. They are not “passed” or “failed”: not taking them, however, blocks your admission.
4. February and May: the mock first and second papers. Almost all schools do one in February and one in May, in real conditions (six hours, same structure as the real paper).
5. 15 May: the class council document. It records the syllabus actually covered: it is the text on which the oral exam questions are built, and it is worth really reading it instead of filing it away.
6. 16–17 June: the written papers, with the oral exam in the following weeks. At the art high school the second paper continues on the 18th and 19th; music and dance schools are split over two days.

On the final mark, which almost nobody has clear in September: 40 points at most of credit, plus 20 for the first paper, 20 for the second and 20 for the oral exam. A candidate with 32 credit who gets 14, 13 and 16 finishes on 75. The bonus (up to 3 points) is at the board’s discretion but only if you already have at least 90 points between credit and papers, and top marks with honours require 100 points reached without resorting to the bonus. Translated: the credit built from September to May is worth more than any last-month sprint.

What changes according to the track

The second paper is the only part of the exam that is really different from school to school. What follows is last year’s picture, which is the most solid reference until the January decree comes out.

Two things hold for everyone. The first: at the classical high school the paper is a passage of 10–12 lines with an Italian pre-text and post-text, translation plus three questions, six hours, dictionary allowed; the marking grid is out of 20 points (comprehension 6, morphosyntax 4, lexicon 3, rendering in Italian 3, questions 4) and a pass is 12/20. The second: at the classical, languages, human sciences (LSU) and art high schools maths and physics have two hours a week in the last three years, so every topic is seen only once. It is not a second-paper subject, but it remains an admission subject and often an oral-exam one: there the Year 5 failed subject builds up silently, usually on limits in January.

The admission requirements to keep watch on now

It is not bureaucracy: every year someone arrives in May to discover they are exposed on one of these points.

• Attendance of at least three quarters of the annual timetable.
• A pass in all subjects; the class council can admit with one failing grade, but with a reasoned resolution — it is not a right.
• A conduct grade of at least 6.
• Taking part in the INVALSI tests (from 2026 the results go into the student’s Curriculum).
• School-work training (formerly PCTO): 90 hours in licei, 150 in technical institutes, 210 in vocational schools. If you are missing hours, September is the month to make them up, not April.

On the oral exam: it covers the four disciplines set by the January decree, plus school-work training and civic education, and starts from the student’s Curriculum. Refusing to take it or staying silent means failing the exam. The board has five members (an external chair, two external examiners, two internal): for 2027 it is the second application of this formula, not a last-minute novelty.

The plan by period, from September to June

September–October. Recover Year 4 before it is needed. In maths the October hurdle is limits and asymptotes, which rest on goniometry, exponentials and logarithms done the year before: if those are shaky, it is not the limits that aren’t working. If you have doubts, an hour of testing on goniometric formulas tells you at once which side you are on. In physics you start with electromagnetic induction, and Lenz’s sign is the classic mistake that then stays for the whole year.

November–December. Derivatives in maths; in physics induction is wrapped up (self-induction, alternator, RL and RLC circuits) and from December Maxwell’s equations and electromagnetic waves start, continuing into January. At the classical, languages and human sciences high schools you meanwhile arrive at the calculation of limits. Here the goal is the grade for the first period, which is credit. Whoever is aiming at an admission test (TOLC, Bocconi, the polytechnics) must decide now whether to take the winter or the summer sitting: they are two different study calendars, not the same plan shifted.

January. The subjects decree comes out. The next day, the plan changes: work is concentrated on the subject of the second paper and the four oral-exam disciplines. It is also the month of the class council for the first half-year in schools with two periods.

February–March. First mock second paper and INVALSI. It is the right moment to begin structured revision, not in May: in maths the complete function study and indefinite integrals, at the classical high school the Year 5 authors in the original language. In physics the syllabus is still on electromagnetic waves and the spectrum; special relativity normally arrives between March and April.

April–May. Definite integrals, volumes of revolution, differential equations; in physics special relativity is wrapped up and quantum physics arrives. They are topics that arrive late and stay little practised, and they are exactly the ones that appear in the questions. Second mock paper, the 15 May document, and first outlines of connections for the oral exam.

June. Revision working backwards: papers, not theory. In the last two weeks you gain more by redoing a whole timed paper than by rereading a chapter.

What “being ready” means on a question

Let’s take a concrete example, because “reviewing asymptotes” means nothing until it is put on paper. Let’s look for the oblique asymptote of

First step, the slope:

Second step, the intercept — and this is where marks are lost, because many stop at $m$:

The oblique asymptote is therefore $y=2x+1$. Three lines, two limits, no intuition: either you have done it twenty times and it comes out in two minutes, or in the exam you lose a quarter of an hour on it. The difference between “I know how to do it” and “I can do it in time” is all here, and it is the reason why Year 5 revision is done with a pen in hand.

The same goes for physics. The question “what is the induced emf” is always solved in the same way — write the flux, differentiate it with respect to time, put the minus sign — and whoever gets stuck usually doesn’t have a problem with electromagnetism, but with the derivative of a composite function. If electromagnetism is your weak point, I have written a dedicated guide on electromagnetism for the maturità; for function study the complete scheme is in function study step by step.

How to use the mock papers (and when to start)

A mock paper done in May serves to measure anxiety. One done in February serves to build the plan. I always recommend the same scheme:

1. One complete paper by February, timed, six hours, without interruptions and without consulting anything. It serves to discover where the time runs out, not to get a nice mark.
2. Marking with the ministerial grid, not “by eye”: the second paper is assessed on four indicators (understanding, identifying, developing, arguing) and a pass is 12/20. Many students discover here that they lose marks on arguing, that is on explaining the steps, not on the calculation.
3. Targeted revision of the errors that emerged, by topic, before redoing a whole paper.
4. A second complete paper in May, to check that those holes are closed.

On the site you’ll find the maturità practice tests organised by paper: five complete practice tests of the maths second paper in ministerial style, with two problems and eight questions, six hours and an estimated mark out of twenty, plus three of the physics second paper for the “in case physics comes up” scenario (the questions are in Italian). They are free and need no registration: the correct answer to every question is free, the guided step-by-step solution unlocks with your first lesson. Even just the estimated mark, though, tells you in February what you would otherwise discover in June.

Typical mistakes in the final year

• Waiting for the January decree to start studying. The Year 5 syllabus is the same whatever comes out: the decree shifts the priorities, not the start date.
• Treating INVALSI as a formality and then skipping it. It is an admission requirement: the only way to really get it wrong is not to turn up.
• Neglecting the subjects “that won’t come up anyway”. They count for admission and for credit, and the oral exam can touch them anyway.
• Revising by rereading. Rereading gives the feeling of knowing; redoing an exercise with the book closed gives the real information.
• Putting off making up school-work training hours. In May it becomes an admission problem, not an organisational one.
• Preparing the oral exam as a list of connections learned by heart. You start from the Curriculum and the board’s materials: if the path is learned parrot-fashion, the first off-script question demolishes it.

How we work

With Year 5 students the first meeting is for taking stock: what is missing from Year 4, where you are already behind on the Year 5 syllabus, which admission requirements are still open. From there the plan is built on the periods I described above, with a complete mock paper by February and one in May, marked with the real grid.

Lessons are online, one to one: you’ll find current rates and packages on the pricing page — the 10-hour package, over a whole year, is the option almost everyone uses. If exam anxiety is the heaviest part, it is worth tackling that too: I wrote about it in managing test anxiety.

If you want to understand where to start in your case, the quickest way is to try a second-paper practice test and then book a free introductory call: tell me the track, your school’s period system and how Year 4 went, and I’ll tell you honestly how much work is needed and in what order. You’ll also find the full programme of maths and physics tutoring if you want to see how I structure the Year 5 path.