The first test of the 2026 Maturity exam officially began this morning, Thursday 18 June at 8.30 am. A crucial appointment which this year involves 527,747 students throughout the national territory, a figure with a slight increase of 0.6% compared to the previous year. To manage the delicate evaluation operations, 13,996 examination commissions were mobilized, structured according to the mixed formula which includes an external president, two external commissioners and two teachers within the school institution.
Seven types of tracks for the first test: what are they?
The first written Italian test, a task that offers a maximum score of 20 points on the final grade and for which the graduates have a total of six hours available, with the only obligation of a minimum stay in the classroom set at three hours. The Ministry of Education and Merit has developed seven official tracks, decrypted simultaneously in each institute through the dissemination of the electronic package.
The structure of the test is divided into three different options: type A, dedicated to the analysis of the text, which proposes two passages of a narrative or poetic nature included in the historical period from the Unification of Italy to the present day; typology B, focused on the argumentative text, which offers three multidisciplinary ideas linked to historical, scientific or social fields; and finally type C, focused on contemporary current issues through two tracks designed to stimulate the critical spirit of the candidates.
The traces: from Pavese to Calabresi passing through Saragat
So who are the protagonists of the 2026 Maturity tracks? For type A (text analysis), the poetic section was dedicated to Cesare Pavese with the famous lyric poem I will pass through Piazza di Spagnaa love poem dating back to 1950 and included in the posthumous collection Death will come and will have your eyes.
On the prose front, the Ministry’s choice fell on an extract of the work The pleasures by the essayist and writer Vitaliano Brancati from Catania. Great points of historical and sociological reflection instead characterize typology B (argumentative text): track B1 calls into question the founding values of the Republic by examining the Constituent Assembly through the inauguration speech given by President Giuseppe Saragat.
For the remaining argumentative and topical proposals, the graduates find themselves dealing with the pages of the volume Getting up at dawn signed by the Italian journalist and writer Mario Calabresi, as well as an extract from the geopolitical essay Borders matter. Because humanity must rediscover the art of drawing borders written by British sociologist and academic Frank Furedi.
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