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Ele chumbou no exame de matemática.

Ele chumbou no exame de matemática.
He failed the maths exam.
From Lesson 298:O trabalho e os papéis (chumbar, a greve)·Portuguese (Portugal)

Breakdown of Ele chumbou no exame de matemática.

o exame
the exam
a matemática
the math
chumbar
to fail (an exam, a year)

Questions & Answers about Ele chumbou no exame de matemática.

I know falhar means "to fail". Why is chumbou used here instead?
While falhar means to fail at a task or miss a goal, it is not normally used for school grades or tests. In Portugal, chumbar (which comes from chumbo, meaning lead) is the most common everyday word for failing an exam or a school year. You can also use the slightly more formal verb reprovar.
Why does the sentence use no (em + o) before the exam?
In English, you directly "fail an exam", but in Portuguese, the verbs for failing a test (chumbar and reprovar) require the preposition em. You literally say that someone failed in the exam, which combines the preposition em with the masculine article o to make no.
Why is it just de matemática and not da matemática?
When a noun acts as a general category or describes the type of another noun—like naming the subject of an exam—Portuguese usually drops the definite article. You use the simple preposition de because it is a general "maths exam", rather than an exam about one specific, previously defined set of mathematics.
Why is the verb in the Pretérito Perfeito (chumbou) instead of the Imperfeito (chumbava)?
The Pretérito Perfeito (chumbou) is used here because failing this specific exam was a single, completed event in the past. If you wanted to describe a past habit, such as "He used to fail maths exams", you would use the Imperfeito and say Ele chumbava nos exames de matemática.

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