Human sciences second paper practice tests.
Two complete papers built on the pattern of the ministry paper: an essay based on documents and eight questions, and you pick 1 + 4 as in the exam. You write on paper, and when you get stuck you reveal the outline and the theoretical references one step at a time.
They cover pedagogy, sociology and anthropology: the same three areas the second paper of the human sciences high school (not the economic-social option) really tests.
The maturità is Italy’s school-leaving exam; its second paper is the written test in the main subject of your school type, which for the human sciences high school asks for an essay on documents plus short-answer questions on pedagogy, sociology and anthropology.
Test in ItalianThe questions of this simulator are in Italian, as in the real exam.
Whoever scores lowest in the human sciences second paper is, almost always, not the person who knows the least theory: it is the person who writes it without tying it to the prompt. The prompt always starts from documents — an extract, a figure, a quotation — and asks you to argue from those, not to pour out everything you know on a subject. An essay that cites Bourdieu and cultural capital without ever going back to the document that introduced them loses points even if the theory is correct.
The second typical weak point is keeping pedagogy, sociology and anthropology in three separate compartments. The marking grid rewards links between disciplines — for example: Bourdieu’s sociological concept of cultural capital explains, from a pedagogical point of view, why identical school policies produce different results for different families. An essay that treats the three subjects one after the other, never letting them talk to each other, looks complete but is worth less than a shorter, better connected one.
On the short-answer questions the opposite mistake is writing a mini-essay when the question is worth 2.5 points out of 10 per prompt: the answer should be direct, with the right concepts named straight away, not introduced by a paragraph of context that the time — and the marks — do not reward.
In practice: before writing, underline in the document the words that point to a precise concept (socialisation, cultural relativism, rationalisation…) and use them as your outline — it is what we ask you to do, against the clock, in the two practice tests below.
- Open the paper
Practice test 1
Socialisation and digital media · education and social inequalities
- Open the paper
Practice test 2
Welfare and the contemporary family · identity and globalisation
Frequently asked questions about the human sciences second paper.
What is the human sciences second paper really like?
The candidate writes an essay based on documents provided (one prompt chosen from two), then answers a selection of short-answer questions on the Year 5 pedagogy, sociology and anthropology syllabus. On this site we map it onto the same scheme as the other maturità papers: 2 prompts (you choose 1) and 8 questions (you choose 4), estimated mark out of 20.
What subjects does the paper cover?
The “human sciences” block of the human sciences high school (not the economic-social option) includes pedagogy, anthropology and sociology. The prompts ask you to argue from documents that rework — without invented quotations — the theories of authors such as Durkheim, Weber, Bourdieu, Dewey, Montessori, Bauman and Levi-Strauss.
How does the marking work?
You write the essay and the answers to the questions as in the exam, then reveal the guided outline, the correct theoretical references and a model paragraph, one step at a time, and finally mark yourself by comparing what you wrote. The practice test estimates the mark out of 20 with the standard grid (prompt 10 points, each question 2.5).
Do I need to quote authors with exact phrases?
No, in fact it is risky: what counts is the correct use of the concepts (socialisation, cultural capital, cultural relativism, rationalisation...) applied to the task, not the literal quotation of a sentence you might remember wrongly. The guided solutions always show how the theory is applied, not just how it is defined.
Shall we prepare for the maturità together?
If the practice test shows gaps in pedagogy, sociology or anthropology, have a look at the humanities tutoring — or start with the free diagnostic call.