9.0 IELTS reading comprehension but still can't understand all the English graduation exam questions?

Candidates with 1,600 SAT and 8.5 IELTS also said the English test was difficult.

Pham Tran Tien Khanh is one of the few Vietnamese candidates to achieve a perfect SAT score of 1,600, and also has an IELTS certificate of 8.0. Khanh also won second prize in the national English proficiency exam in grades 11 and 12. The male student assessed the English exam for the 2025 high school graduation exam as "really difficult".

“In terms of grammar and structure, this year's English exam is quite familiar, but students must have a solid grasp of basic knowledge in textbooks and a firm grasp of grammar structures to be able to achieve 7 points.

I think many IELTS 9.0 readers will not understand everything when reading today's test because the vocabulary is too difficult, focusing mainly on the two reading passages. Once the vocabulary is difficult, the more you read, the less you understand, combined with the pressure in the exam room, it will bring many disadvantages to candidates when doing the test," Khanh said.

Sharing the same opinion, Nguyen Huy Bach (Tay Ho High School, Hanoi ) commented that "The test was much more difficult than the sample test". Bach has an IELTS certificate and plans to apply for the A01 group (math, physics, English). Bach could not understand many questions in the test because there were many specialized words he had never encountered before.

The English graduation exam was unexpectedly difficult, making Bach a bit confused and worried. Luckily, Bach did well on the physics exam.

In Ho Chi Minh City, many students have the same opinion that "English is too difficult". Notably, this city has led the country in average English test scores for 8 consecutive years, and its English level can be considered outstanding compared to other provinces and cities.

Pham Ha Bao Han, Tan Binh High School, said, “The English test was long and the vocabulary was difficult to translate. I felt confused reading it and didn’t have time to finish the test.”

Nguyen Phung Dinh Duc, Tay Thanh High School, shared: "The English subject has a reading passage of 10 difficult sentences, with many long and advanced words, so it is really challenging for candidates."

The English test for high school graduation is similar to the IELTS test.

Ms. Do Thi Ngoc Anh, an English teacher at DOL Dinh Luc, with an IELTS score of 8.5 and a master's scholarship from the University of the West of England, UK, commented that this year's high school graduation exam in English has certain similarities with the IELTS exam. The exam has questions requiring a high level of understanding similar to the IELTS reading comprehension test, creating a significant challenge for candidates.

Question types such as finding main ideas, finding specific information, understanding vocabulary in context, and even inference questions all require candidates to have a deep understanding of the passage.

In addition, candidates need to be able to distinguish between reading for details and reading for generalization and summarization. This requires flexibility in applying both detailed and general reading skills to grasp information effectively.

“In terms of advantages, the test closely follows the published sample test. The common score is around 6 or 7.

If students master the higher reading comprehension sections, which require more complex vocabulary, as well as understand the stronger connections between sentences, they can achieve a higher score of 8 or 9. A score of 10 will not be much," said Ms. Ngoc Anh.

Although the question was difficult, Ms. Ngoc Anh still thought this was a good question.

According to the female teacher, the topics in the exam are close to Vietnam and very close to young people.

For example, the topic of agriculture ; the topic of awareness of the value of health for the quality of life of young people; the content of "greenwashing" (roughly understood as 'greenwashing' - a form of false advertising or misleading by some businesses, pretending that their products really reduce pollution, are very environmentally friendly but in fact it is a media trick).

Regarding review methods for students in the next course, MSc. Do Thi Ngoc Anh said that the more difficult the questions are, the more one must understand the basic thinking, there is no room for learning tricks.

The female teacher suggested applying the method of essential thinking to grasp the main idea of a sentence through the structure and grasp the main idea of the whole paragraph through the connection between sentences. This method also helps candidates to be able to guess vocabulary in context, even when encountering difficult words or specialized words. This means that students of the next course (born in 2008-2009) need to know how to read and understand a reading passage, know how to select the words to read and the words that can be skipped without affecting the ability to understand the main idea of the whole passage.

Candidates taking the 2025 high school graduation exam under the new program completed the exam this morning with two elective subjects, of which about 353,000 candidates chose to take the foreign language exam.

Many candidates left the exam room with sad faces because they did not do well on the English test.

On social networks, many teachers also expressed their personal opinions that the English test was too difficult.

“The 2025 high school English exam will replace the 2018 “most difficult” exam and become the most classic difficult exam in the history of high school exams, even university entrance exams,” said an English exam preparation teacher.

Hoang Hong - My Ha - Huyen Nguyen - Thao Quan - Tuyet Luu

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/90-doc-hieu-ielts-cung-khong-hieu-het-de-tieng-anh-thi-tot-nghiep-20250627164639369.htm