High school graduation English exam: Assessment or puzzle?

(Dan Tri) - "When the line between "assessment" and "puzzle" is blurred, the consequence is that many students, despite having worked hard for 12 years, face the risk of being eliminated from their learning journey just because their test scores are far beyond their actual abilities."

The above is the comment of Dr. Dang Ngoc Toan, Director of the Center for Community Development and Climate Change Response in the Central Highlands (CHCC), under the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations, about this year's English exam.

Dr. Dang Ngoc Toan, Director of the Central Highlands Center for Community Development and Climate Change Response (Photo: M. Ha).

Is the test to "evaluate" or "puzzle"?

According to Dr. Toan, when he saw the English exam for high school graduation this year, he was surprised, not only because the exam was difficult for most students, but also because it was too long and heavy, to the point of being difficult to explain.

For a student with average reading comprehension, reading the entire content is a challenge, not to mention having to analyze, reason and choose the correct answer among sophisticated distractions.

With the philosophy of the exam, is this exam really aimed at all students across regions, who study in very different conditions, or is it only really suitable for a small group of elite students in urban areas, specialized schools, or exam preparation centers?

High school graduation English exam 2025 (Photo: Hoang Hong).

If exams are shaped based on the abilities of a minority elite, but applied to all, the principle of fairness, a core value ofeducation , is seriously compromised.

“In my opinion, a true exam should be a tool for objective assessment and learning orientation, not a barrier or a strict test of students' ability to "endure" pressure.

As the line between “assessment” and “puzzlement” becomes blurred, many students, despite 12 years of hard work, face the risk of being eliminated from their learning journey just because of a test that is far beyond their actual ability.

It is even more dangerous if we accidentally turn the exam into a mechanical screening tool, leaving behind students who are more disadvantaged in terms of learning conditions.

One of the worrying manifestations is the confusion between “difficulty” and “quality”. There is a notion that the more difficult and longer the test, the more it shows progress and a higher level of education: That is a misconception.

Difficulty does not mean scientific or advanced. Good exams need to highlight the knowledge and skills that students have been equipped with according to the program. Exams need to differentiate but within the limits of general ability, in order to identify the level of thinking development, not to "trap" candidates.

Candidates taking the 2025 high school graduation exam (Photo: Phuong Quyen).

Make a barefoot person compete with a person wearing climbing shoes

According to Dr. Toan, in reality, teaching and learning conditions between regions in Vietnam are still very different, many mountainous and rural areas lack qualified English teachers. Therefore, applying the same yardstick is anti-educational, like asking everyone to climb a mountain, but some go barefoot, others are equipped with climbing shoes.

Education reform cannot stop at the form, renaming an exam, changing a set of textbooks, or adjusting the question matrix, but must start with a fundamental change in educational thinking. A progressive education is not measured by the failure rate, but by the number of students who are given more opportunities to excel.

English education is a typical example of the mismatch between learning and testing. When the output is poor but the test questions are increasingly "high-level", what is the test measuring? Language ability or the ability to cope with testing techniques?

If exams continue to be a place to express complexity instead of an honest and humane measuring tool, education will become more and more distant from life and less and less likely to receive the necessary consensus from the public.

“I strongly recommend that education policy makers, especially those who directly develop exam questions, enter real classrooms to listen, accompany, and clearly feel the conditions under which students are studying, how they are being taught, and what they need to learn better.

A national exam cannot be a place to express personality, subjective views or professional ambitions, but must be designed with understanding, science and above all, a humane spirit," said Dr. Toan.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/de-thi-tieng-anh-tot-nghiep-thpt-danh-gia-hay-danh-do-20250629225713322.htm