<p>Although centralized final examinations play a&#xa0;crucial role in educational governance, they have rarely been the subject of empirical research in biology education. For instance, it remains unclear what student performance is actually measured in these centralized examinations. This study therefore addresses the curricular validity of centralized final examinations in biology: Using Berlin as an exemplar, all <i>N</i> = 88&#xa0;centralized examination tasks from 2013 to 2023 were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The study examined which biological topics were addressed in the examinations and how many assessment units per examination task were allocated to the four competence areas: subject knowledge, scientific inquiry, communication, and socioscientific issues. The results show, firstly, that numerous biological topics from upper secondary education were not or barely tested (e.g., factors affecting enzymatic reactions, nature and species conservation, human evolution). Secondly, the competencies required to solve the examination tasks were almost exclusively in the areas of subject knowledge (54.2%) and communication (41.3%), whereas almost no assessment units were allocated to scientific inquiry (2.0%) and socioscientific issues (2.5%). Significant differences were observed between the four thematic areas of physiology, ecology, genetics, and evolution regarding the addressed competence areas. Finally, the implications of the deficient curricular validity of the centralized biology examinations for the design of examination tasks and for the teaching practices of biology teachers are discussed.</p>