Free Practice Questions for PAU General Sciences (Cantabria)

No, and it is important to know the difference. The official Cantabria PAU paper for Ciencias Generales is a 90-minute exam sat in Spanish and organized into four compulsory sections (apartados), each worth 2.5 of the 10 total points. Within most sections, candidates choose one of two open-response tasks to complete, and the questions require written, justified answers rather than a selection from a list of choices. This bank is an English-language multiple-choice study adaptation of the official 2º Bachillerato theory syllabus (scientific methodology, matter and energy, the Earth system, 21st-century biology, and forces and motion) — not an official translation, not a past paper, and not a simulation of the exam format. Use it to drill the underlying knowledge quickly, then practice writing full, justified responses to open-ended prompts separately, because that is what the examiners actually mark.

The official subject title is Ciencias Generales, a 2º Bachillerato subject introduced nationally by Real Decreto 243/2022 (LOMLOE), which created a fourth Bachillerato modality — the Bachillerato General — alongside Ciencias y Tecnología, Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, and Artes. Under this decree, students in the General modality take Ciencias Generales plus two further elective modality subjects, and Ciencias Generales is examined as their PAU modality paper by the University of Cantabria (UNICAN) PAU Organising Commission.

Ciencias Generales is the compulsory modality-specific exam for students who followed the Bachillerato General track, taken during the mandatory Access Phase (Fase General) of the Cantabria PAU — the same phase and, on the official 2026 timetable, the same exam slot in which Ciencias-track students sit Matemáticas II, Humanidades-track students sit Latín II, and Ciencias Sociales-track students sit Matemáticas Aplicadas a las Ciencias Sociales II. Each Bachillerato track sits only its own assigned modality subject, not all of them.

The Access Phase admission grade combines Bachillerato GPA (60%) and the PAU Access Phase mark (40%, made up of Lengua Castellana y Literatura, Historia, a foreign language, and the modality subject — Ciencias Generales for General-track students). An overall mark of at least 5.0 is required to pass, and candidates can then sit up to four additional Admission Phase (voluntary) subjects to add up to 4 extra points toward specific degree programs.

The official saberes básicos are organized into five blocks: Construyendo Ciencia (scientific methodology), Un Universo de Materia y Energía (matter and energy), El Sistema Tierra (the Earth system), Biología para el Siglo XXI (21st-century biology), and Las Fuerzas que Rigen el Universo y las Fuerzas que Nos Mueven (forces and motion). The written exam scores four sections corresponding to the matter-and-energy, Earth-system, biology, and forces blocks, while scientific-methodology skills are assessed as a transversal thread running through the tasks in those sections.

In Cantabria, official PAU examination papers are provided in Spanish.

The 2026 ordinary convocation runs June 2–4, with Ciencias Generales scheduled on the first exam day alongside the other modality-subject papers (including Matemáticas II). The extraordinary convocation runs June 30–July 2, 2026. Exact session times are published each year by the University of Cantabria PAU Organising Commission.