How difficult is the 2025 high school graduation math exam?

Difficult is the teacher's comment on the 2025 high school graduation exam in math that more than 1.1 million candidates nationwide have just completed.

Parents waiting to pick up their children after a math exam in the pouring rain in Ho Chi Minh City

Photo: Nhat Thinh

Regarding the math questions of this year's high school graduation exam, teacher Lam Vu Cong Chinh, Nguyen Du High School (District 10, Ho Chi Minh City), affirmed that the difficulty and the score range of this exam will be concentrated at the level of 5.5 to 6.

Specifically, teachers at Nguyen Du High School commented that the high school graduation exam for math has a structure quite similar to the sample exam that the Ministry of Education and Training announced and has questions similar to the examples and exercises that have appeared in textbooks.

There are 2 to 3 questions related to knowledge of grade 10 and grade 11 and are in part 1 of the exam. With the requirement of recognition and understanding, these questions are considered the "anti-failure" part of the exam.

The content of the exam is differentiated from part 2 - multiple choice true or false and part 3 - short answer. The questions in the true or false section also have similarities with the examples and exercises in the textbook. In part 3, there are 2 high-level application questions. Specifically, with the exam code 0124, there are questions 1 and 4.

However, Mr. Cong Chinh recognized that the high-level application questions and the true-false multiple-choice questions leaned more towards probability knowledge, without good knowledge coverage.

Besides commenting on the difficulty of the exam, Mr. Chinh also added that the use of multiple choice test formats in this year's exam created difficulty for the exam.

In the multiple choice test from 2024 and before, all 50 questions are multiple choice with 4 options, all with the same score. Therefore, the average student can get from 5 to 6 points. The remaining content can still be "cheated" with a fairly high probability.

But with multiple choice tests from 2025 onwards, from parts 2 and 3, candidates can no longer "go lucky".

Math exam has different content and format compared to 49 years ago

From 1975 to present, high school graduation exams are either essay or multiple choice with objective questions.

This year, part 1 has only 12 objective multiple choice questions, worth 3 points (out of 10 points). Part 2 is true or false questions, a combination of essay and subjective multiple choice questions, with a scoring scale that is not equal but rather classifies the students' level relatively accurately.

Specifically, there are 4 big questions with a score of 4 points. Each big question has 4 small questions. If you answer one small question correctly, it is 0.1 point; 2 questions correctly, it is 0.25 point; 3 questions correctly, it is 0.5 point and all 4 questions correctly, it is 1 point.

Part 3 consists of 6 questions, each worth 0.5 points. These are really subjective multiple choice questions. Candidates complete the questions and write the numerical answer in the answer box. This part is the most difficult part of the exam.

The exam is different from the exam 49 years ago, but all students and teachers are not surprised because the structure and problems in the exam are completely similar to the reference exam announced by the Ministry of Education and Training. The number of 10 points will be less than last year because the structure and format of this year's exam has minimized the possibility of luck when taking the exam.

The content of the exam covers grades 10 to 12 and focuses on grade 12. There are no tricky and tricky questions like in previous years. There has been significant progress in both the form and content of the exam.

Master Pham Hong Danh

Principal of Vinh Vien High School (HCMC)

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/de-thi-tot-nghiep-thpt-mon-toan-nam-2025-kho-nhu-the-nao-185250626173150185.htm