Abstarct: Private tutoring, commonly referred to as shadow education, has become widespread in Iraq, particularly in Baghdad, as families seek to improve their children's performance on the high-stakes Grade 12 national Baccalaureate examination, where English is a compulsory subject and a key determinant of university placement. Despite its prevalence, empirical evidence on whether students who receive private tutoring demonstrate significantly different English examination performance compared to those who do not remains limited and inconclusive, especially in the Iraqi context. This ex post facto quantitative study investigated whether there is a statistically significant difference in Grade 12 national English examination scores between students who received private tutoring and those who did not, after controlling for prior academic achievement (Grade 11 English scores), gender, and school type. Using two-stage stratified cluster sampling, 8 schools (5 public, 3 private) were selected from Baghdad, and one intact Grade 12 English classroom was randomly selected from each school, yielding a sample of 200 students (100 who received private tutoring and 100 who did not). Data included official English examination scores from the Iraqi Ministry of Education and tutoring participation data from school records and verified self-reports. A one-way between-subjects analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was conducted to compare adjusted group means while controlling for the three confounding variables. After adjusting for covariates, there was a statistically significant difference in examination scores between groups, F(1, 195) = 48.77, p < .001, partial η² = .20. Students who received private tutoring demonstrated significantly higher adjusted mean scores (83.8, SE = 0.47) compared to students who did not receive tutoring (79.2, SE = 0.47), with an adjusted mean difference of 4.60 points, t(195) = 6.97, p < .001, Cohen's d = 0.98. Both null hypotheses were rejected. The findings provide evidence-baxsed insights into the association between private tutoring and English examination performance, inform parental decision-making about tutoring investments, guide educational policy in Iraq, and contribute to the limited body of research on shadow education in conflict-affected and developing educational systems.