The preliminary examiners then supply the others with a list of the candidates who are entitled to be admitted to the second oral examination. On this occasion each candidate is separately examined for one hour and a half by each examiner, but care is taken that in all the principal subjects of study the candidate is examined by at least two out of the three examiners.
Each examiner records his opinion of the merits of every candidate in replying, orally and in writing, by awarding him a credit varying between O and 20, the highest number indicating a very superior result.
[This scale of merit] is employed to express the value of the oral replies, written answers, or drawings. It has the following signification, and appears to be generally in use in the French military schools:—
| 20 | denotes perfect. |
| 19 18 | denotes very good. |
| 17 16 15 | denotes good. |
| 14 13 12 | denotes passable. |
| 11 10 9 | denotes middling. |
| 8 7 6 | denotes bad. |
| 5 4 3 | denotes very bad. |
| 2 1 | denotes almost nothing. |
| 0 | denotes nothing |
Considerable latitude is granted to the examiner engaged in deciding upon the amount of credit to be allowed to the student, for the manner in which he replies to the various questions. He is expected to bear in mind the temperament of the candidate, his confidence or timidity, as well as the difficulty of the questions, when judging of the quality of the reply, more value being given for an imperfect answer to a difficult question than for a more perfect reply to an easy one.
[The reports of the examiners], together with the various documents belonging to each candidate, are sent from each town to the minister at war, who transmits them to the commandant of the Polytechnic School to make out a classified list.
[Very different value] of course is attached to the importance of some of the subjects, when compared with others; and the measure of the importance is represented in French examinations by what are termed co-efficients of influence, varying for the several subjects of study and kind of examination. The particular co-efficients of influence for each subject in these written and oral examinations, are as follows:—
| Co-efficients ofInfluence. | |||
| Oral examination— | analytical mathematics, | 20 | |
| Oral examination— | geometrical ditto, | 14 | 52 |
| Oral examination— | physics and mechanics, | 16 | |
| Oral examination— | German language, | 2 | |
| Written compositions on | mathematical subjects, | 5 | |
| Written compositions on | descriptive geometry, drawing, and description, | 5 | 34 |
| Written compositions on | logarithmic calculations of a triangle, | 2 | |
| Written compositions on | mechanics, | 2 | |
| Written compositions on | physics or chemistry, | 4 | |
| German exercise, | 1 | ||
| French composition, | 5 | ||
| Latin translation, | 5 | ||
| Copy of a drawing, | 5 | ||
| Total, | 86 | ||
In order to make out the above mentioned classified list, the respective credits awarded by the examiners to each candidate are multiplied by the co-efficients representing the weight or importance attached to each subject; and the sum of their products furnishes a numerical result, representing the degree of merit of each candidate.
A comparison of these numerical results is then made, and a general list of all the candidates is arranged in order of merit.