In Quebec, in order to obtain their high school degree students must pass their History of Quebec and Canada course offered in the 4th year of high school (MELS, 2003). To achieve this, students must not only get a passing grade in their course but also pass the provincial examination. This governmental assessment is worth 50% of the students’ overall grade (MELS, 2017). The success rate of the exam has been rather low at around 71% for the years between 2012 and 2015 (MEES, 2015). How can we explain this situation? This article will present the results of a project that has studied 194 copies of the June 2014 provincial exams. Results suggest that the principal weakness of students is their inability to interpret historical sources, particularly iconographical documents, which are used throughout the exam. This difficulty is accentuated when the title or the chart legend of the document does not share a similar vocabulary with the one used in the question.