recovering even some of these forgotten courtesies might improve how people lived together
En la mañana del 2 de junio, más de 14.000 estudiantes en Sevilla y toda Andalucía se sentaron ante el primer examen de la PAU 2026, enfrentando no solo una prueba académica, sino una pregunta de fondo sobre la vida en común: ¿ha perdido España la capacidad de hablarse a sí misma con cortesía? A través de un artículo de Manuel Vicent sobre las buenas maneras y su erosión en el discurso público, el examen de Lengua Castellana y Literatura II convirtió la evaluación universitaria en un espejo de la sociedad contemporánea. Como ha ocurrido en cada generación, se pidió a los jóvenes que midieran el presente con las herramientas del lenguaje y la memoria literaria.
- Más de 14.000 estudiantes sevillanos iniciaron la PAU 2026 a las 8:30 de la mañana con una pregunta que trascendía el aula: si la convivencia social se deteriora cuando se abandona hasta la más pequeña cortesía.
- El texto de Manuel Vicent, publicado en El País, trazó una línea directa entre la pérdida de los buenos modales cotidianos y la hostilidad que domina las redes sociales y el debate político actual.
- Los estudiantes debieron no solo analizar el argumento de Vicent, sino posicionarse ante él, reflexionando sobre su propia experiencia con la crispación digital y la polarización que han normalizado el insulto.
- El bloque técnico del examen exigió precisión lingüística y lectura atenta, identificando los momentos en que la objetividad del autor cede ante su frustración visible.
- La sección literaria planteó una elección significativa entre el teatro de vanguardia anterior a 1939 y el realismo comprometido de la posguerra, recordando que el lenguaje siempre ha sido un campo de batalla histórica.
- El examen en su conjunto tendió un puente implícito entre Vicent y un siglo de dramaturgos españoles, sugiriendo que hablar con verdad en tiempos difíciles no es un problema nuevo, sino una tarea permanente.
La mañana del 2 de junio, miles de estudiantes andaluces se enfrentaron al primer examen de la PAU 2026 con una pregunta que difícilmente esperaban encontrar en una prueba de acceso a la universidad: ¿puede la recuperación de las buenas maneras mejorar la convivencia en España?
El texto central del examen era una columna de Manuel Vicent publicada en El País bajo el título 'Las buenas maneras'. Vicent partía de los pequeños gestos que antes se enseñaban sin cuestionarlos —lavarse las manos, no hablar con la boca llena, respetar al otro— para argumentar que su abandono no era un asunto menor. Esa erosión cotidiana tenía, según él, una continuidad directa con la brutalidad del debate político y la crueldad que circula sin freno en las redes sociales. Su tesis era sencilla y provocadora: recuperar algo de esa cortesía olvidada podría transformar la calidad de la vida compartida.
El primer bloque del examen pedía a los estudiantes analizar el texto, reconstruir su estructura argumentativa y, después, responder con voz propia: ¿ha perdido realmente España la capacidad de comunicarse bien? Era una invitación a pensar desde la experiencia propia, desde los conflictos que han visto en pantallas y titulares.
El segundo bloque exigía precisión técnica: sintaxis, vocabulario, cohesión textual, y la identificación de los instantes en que Vicent dejaba ver su propia frustración bajo la superficie del análisis. Leer no solo lo que dice un texto, sino cómo lo dice y qué revela sin querer.
La parte literaria ofrecía una elección entre dos períodos del teatro español: el experimental y rupturista de Valle-Inclán y Lorca antes de 1939, y el realismo cargado de silencios de Buero Vallejo y sus contemporáneos bajo el franquismo. Elegir entre ambos no era solo demostrar conocimiento, sino comprender cómo las circunstancias históricas determinan lo que un artista puede decir y de qué manera.
Así, el examen construyó sin anunciarlo una conversación entre tiempos: Vicent hablando del presente, y un siglo de dramaturgos recordando que la pregunta sobre cómo hablar con verdad en épocas difíciles nunca ha dejado de ser urgente.
Across Andalucía on the morning of June 2nd, more than 14,000 students sat down to begin the 2026 university entrance exams. In Seville alone, the halls filled with teenagers and young adults facing the first test of the season: Spanish Language and Literature II. The exam started at 8:30 in the morning, and with it came a question that felt oddly urgent for a standardized test—one about whether Spain had lost the ability to talk to itself.
The centerpiece of the exam was a newspaper column by Manuel Vicent, published the previous May in El País. The piece, titled "Las buenas maneras" (Good Manners), took aim at a particular kind of social erosion. Vicent began by recalling the small courtesies that schools once taught without question: washing your hands before eating, not speaking with your mouth full, showing respect to others. These were not profound moral lessons. They were the texture of everyday life, the lubricant that made shared space tolerable. But Vicent's argument moved beyond nostalgia. He traced a line from the abandonment of these basic habits to something larger—the coarsening of public discourse, the prevalence of insults in political debate, the casual cruelty that flourishes on social media. His central claim was straightforward: if Spain recovered even some of these forgotten courtesies, the quality of how people lived together might improve dramatically.
The exam's first section, worth four points, required students to analyze Vicent's text directly. They had to identify his main ideas, map the structure of his argument, and assess what he was really trying to do as a writer. Then came the harder part: they had to write their own response to his premise. In the context of contemporary Spain, had the country genuinely lost the ability to communicate well? The question forced students to think about their own experience—the arguments they witnessed online, the tone of political coverage, the way disagreement had become weaponized.
The second block of the exam, worth six points, shifted into more technical territory. Students faced questions about syntax, vocabulary, and the mechanisms that hold a text together—the small choices a writer makes to guide a reader through an argument. They had to identify moments where Vicent revealed his own feelings about the subject, the places where his objectivity cracked and his frustration showed through. This was close reading in the traditional sense: understanding not just what a text says, but how it says it.
But the exam also demanded knowledge of Spanish literature itself. Students had to choose between two historical periods of Spanish theater. One option covered the early twentieth century through 1939, the era of Ramón del Valle-Inclán and Federico García Lorca, when Spanish drama was experimental and formally daring. The other tracked theater from 1939 onward, focusing on writers like Antonio Buero Vallejo who worked in the shadow of the Franco regime, developing a realist aesthetic as a way to speak about difficult truths. The choice itself was meaningful: students had to demonstrate not just familiarity with these writers, but understanding of how historical circumstances shape what artists can say and how they say it.
The structure of the exam—pairing a contemporary essay about social breakdown with questions about linguistic precision and historical drama—created an implicit conversation. Vicent was arguing that language matters, that the words we choose and the manners we observe shape whether we can live together. The literary section asked students to understand how writers across a century had grappled with similar questions: how to speak truthfully in difficult times, how to make language do work that matters. For 14,000 students in Seville and across Andalucía, the morning's test was not just about demonstrating competence. It was an invitation to think about why these questions—about civility, about how we talk to each other, about what literature can teach us—still felt urgent enough to put on a university entrance exam.
Notable Quotes
The abandonment of basic courtesies has led to political confrontation, public insults, and hatred on social media— Manuel Vicent, 'Las buenas maneras'
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did the exam designers choose a text about lost manners for the opening question? It seems almost quaint.
It's not quaint at all. Vicent's essay connects something small—how you behave at a table—to something massive: whether a society can function. The exam is asking students to see that connection.
But students taking a university entrance exam probably aren't thinking much about civility. They're stressed, they're competing.
Exactly. Which is why the question matters. The exam is asking them to step outside that pressure for a moment and think about the world they're entering. It's asking: what kind of conversation do you want to be part of?
The second section gets very technical—syntax, cohesion, subjectivity. Why pair that with the bigger philosophical question?
Because understanding how language works is not separate from understanding what it means. When you can identify where Vicent reveals his frustration, you're learning that writing is never neutral. Every choice carries weight.
And the theater options—why give students a choice between two historical periods?
Because both periods are about writers finding ways to speak truth under constraint. Whether it's the experimental boldness of Lorca or the careful realism of Buero Vallejo, the question is the same: how do you use language when the stakes are high?
So the entire exam is really about one thing.
Yes. It's about understanding that language is not decoration. It's the substance of how we live together.