High School English Exam 2025: Deviating output standards, trade-offs for "dual" goals?

(Dan Tri) - The 2025 High School English exam was assessed by experts to deviate from the B1 output standard when using many terms, sentence structures, requiring inference and deep analysis which are typical of B2 to near C1 levels.

The test has a level of difficulty that exceeds the standard.

The 2025 high school graduation exam marks the first time that students studying under the new generaleducation program for 3 years of high school will enter a decisive national exam.

In the context of education shifting strongly from "knowledge transfer" to "capacity development", expectations are set for the exam questions of subjects, especially English, when there is a large number of candidates registering for the optional exam with more than 352,000 out of a total of 1.13 million candidates taking the new program (accounting for about 30%).

This requires the test to adhere to the output standards and accurately reflect the ability to use the language in practice. However, this year's English test is controversial because of its difficulty level exceeding the standard, its unfriendly design, and the questions not being fully standardized before being applied.

According to the 2018 General Education Program, students completing grade 12 are expected to achieve English level B1 according to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), meaning they can communicate independently in familiar situations, understand simple texts, and handle basic needs in study and life. This is a reasonable goal for general education.

However, the 2025 exam has a series of questions that are more difficult than the B1 level, both in terms of vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. Academic readings such as “greenwashing”, “tourism behavior” or “digital agriculture” use many abstract terms, complex sentence structures, requiring in-depth reasoning and analysis. These are characteristics of B2 to near C1 levels.

Students with international English certificates are also confused by a series of difficult technical terms (Photo: BN).

Many candidates with an international IELTS certificate of 6.5–7.0 still feel that the test is “more difficult than necessary”, even native teachers at international test preparation centers also commented that the test is overloaded with academic language and the questions are unfriendly.

Instead of testing the ability to use English in everyday communication and learning, the exam focuses on tricks, traps and logical interpretation – which does not reflect the applied language ability that the general education program is aiming for.

Output deviation, trade-off for "dual" goals?

In my opinion, the cause of this situation lies in the “dual-purpose” exam design mindset: both for graduation and for classifying students for university admission. This is the key point that causes conflict.

If the exam is to be recognized as a graduation exam, it needs to stop at level B1, ensuring universality, fairness and encouraging average and good students to strive to meet the standards. If it is to be classified, the exam needs advanced questions to distinguish students' abilities at level B2 and above.

When “combining two objectives into one question”, the test is forced to range from very easy to very difficult. But without transparent information about the difficulty level structure, students will be confused in their review, teachers will have difficulty adjusting their methods, and the test will easily fall into a state of deviation from the standard.

Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh, former Director of the Department of Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Training ; Member of the Advisory Group of the National Committee for Education and Training Innovation, term 2016-2021 (Photo: NVCC).

Another, equally important, suspicion is that the test may not have been standardized by pilot testing. In international accreditation systems, tests must go through multiple rounds of testing to assess difficulty, discrimination, validity, and reliability.

Parameters such as average time per question, discrimination index between good and average students, or the level of adherence to CEFR standards are all required before the test is officially used. However, the 2025 High School English Test has not published any test data, nor has any technical analysis report been shared.

The lack of transparency in the exam preparation process cannot be overlooked for a national exam that affects millions of students each year.

It should also be emphasized that while international assessment systems such as IELTS, TOEFL or the VSTEP national English test all aim to measure English proficiency in life - study - career contexts, this year's high school exam focuses on testing language knowledge and the ability to handle exam tips.

This is contrary to the competency development orientation in the 2018 General Education Program and reduces the practical application of the exam results. Universities also find it difficult to rely on it to predict the ability to learn English in an academic environment.

Need to separate the objectives of the exam

Faced with the above shortcomings, the education sector needs to consider adjustments to ensure the correct orientation and goals of the exam.

First, it is necessary to separate the objectives of the test. The graduation exam should follow the B1 standard and not be too heavy on classification. For university admission, it is possible to use a separate test or accept results from international English certificates/standardized competency assessments (such as VSTEP, IELTS, TOEFL, etc.).

Next, it is necessary to clearly announce the exam matrix according to the CEFR framework, and to be transparent about the proportion of questions according to each level (B1 - B2 - advanced) so that teachers and learners have a basis for orientation. It is very important to conduct large-scale pilot testing and publicize technical indicators such as difficulty, discrimination, and reliability of each multiple-choice question.

Experts suggest that the objectives of the exam should be clearly defined (Illustration: Hai Long).

In addition, the exam needs to clearly shift from assessing knowledge to assessing practical application skills. The texts in the exam should reflect real-life communication contexts such as emails, announcements, conversations, short articles, etc. instead of abstract academic passages that are far from the real life of Vietnamese students.

Finally, to ensure the stability of the exams, the Ministry of Education and Training needs to standardize the national exam development team in terms of both expertise and test-making techniques. Designing a standardized exam that accurately reflects the output standards and ensures reliability requires not only professional knowledge, but also pedagogical assessment capacity - a unique skill that not all good teachers possess.

The Ministry needs to have a policy to train, standardize and closely monitor the test-making team - considering this a strategic link if it wants to have a breakthrough in educational development for the progress of learners.

A national exam cannot be based solely on the "feelings" of the test maker, but needs to be built according to pedagogical, scientific , and standardized principles - placing the learner at the center and aiming for fairness, reliability, and measuring the correct output standards of the educational program.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/de-thi-tieng-anh-thpt-2025-lech-chuan-dau-ra-danh-doi-vi-muc-tieu-kep-20250629170937450.htm