Is this year's high school graduation math exam too difficult?

đề thi toán - Ảnh 1. — Candidates after completing the math exam in Ho Chi Minh City - Photo: NAM TRAN

Although they finished the math exam yesterday, June 26, many candidates are still "concerned" about the difficulty of the math exam for this year's high school graduation exam.

Difficult math problems or high classification?

This is a topic that has been discussed a lot on social networking sites since the afternoon of June 26.

A post on a forum claiming that the math test was “as long as an essay” received more than 3,500 comments and 1,500 shares. Many candidates shared their feelings of confusion and disappointment…

Tien Thinh wrote: "Today's math test was a real nightmare. The questions were not only long but also extremely difficult to understand. I sat looking at the paper for an hour without knowing where to start. There were types of questions I had never seen in any class."

You think this year's exam is more like a test to select excellent students than a test of high school students' abilities.

Not only complaining about the difficulty, many candidates were also upset about the way the question was worded. Gia Linh gave an example: "Question 3 of Part II is written in a roundabout and lengthy way. Just summarizing: 'A study on drug residues in aquaculture showed the result...' is enough, there is no need to ramble on with the whole paragraph 'residues in water since the use of drugs...'".

Xuan Huong account expressed confusion about the probability questions, saying that "the test questions do not follow the textbooks", "the types of questions learned and the types of questions in the test are completely different".

You stated your personal opinion: "The true/false test format helps to clearly classify students, avoiding random circling. But the scoring method is too strict, one wrong answer costs 0.5 points, very stressful."

However, some candidates also noted positive points when they said that the test had a clear "lifeline": the first part had some basic questions, as long as they had a solid grasp of the background knowledge, they could pass the test.

"The first 12 questions have 4 free questions, plus one or two true/false questions, and that's enough to pass. If you want a high score, you have to be really steady," wrote a candidate.

At the exam sites that Tuoi Tre Online reporters were present at on the afternoon of June 26, candidates also had mixed feelings about the math exam.

At the exam site of Ly Tu Trong High School (Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa ), candidate Nguyen Bao An shared: "This year's exam closely follows the curriculum, but the last questions of Part II are really difficult, requiring the application of advanced knowledge and test-taking experience."

In Bac Giang , candidates like Nguyen Viet Dung and Pham Khoi Nguyen both rated the first part of the exam as "easy", helping average students earn graduation points. But the probability and geometry sections were "difficult areas", requiring a lot of time to calculate.

In Nghe An , candidate Phuong Anh (Huynh Thuc Khang exam site) said that this year's math test was structured according to the new program (2018), in which the true/false part caused a waste of time in reasoning. "The test was clearly differentiated, the probability and geometry questions were difficult. I think I only got more than 7 points," Phuong Anh said.

At the exam site of Tran Phu High School for the Gifted (Hai Phong), candidate Tran Hai My assessed that the exam was highly classified, students need to have a very solid knowledge to be able to get a score of 9 - 10: "The multiple choice part helps non-specialists to increase their score, but to do well in the whole exam, they have to be very excellent."

đề thi toán - Ảnh 2. — Candidates at an examination site in Ho Chi Minh City after 'passing' the high school graduation math exam - Photo: THANH HIEP

'Math test in line with the spirit of the new program'

Master Ha Minh Son - teacher at Bui Thi Xuan High School (HCMC) - commented that this year's math exam was quite good, classifying candidates. For students with average academic performance, they can get 5-6 points, completing the graduation goal.

As for students with good academic performance, candidates can get higher scores from 7-8. Those who are really good and excellent can get scores from 8-9 or higher. "A test that can classify candidates like that, both achieving the graduation goal and the university entrance goal, I think it is a good test," said Mr. Son.

Regarding the content, Mr. Son assessed that the 2025 math exam focuses on practical problems and the application of math knowledge to solve practical problems, in line with the spirit of the new 2018 education program. Teachers in many high schools have also guided students to review in this practical math direction since the beginning of the year.

"However, to be able to analyze the questions well and solve questions quickly under pressure in the exam room requires a very high ability to apply knowledge from the candidate," he said.

MSc. Le Phuc Lu - lecturer at the University of Natural Sciences, Ho Chi Minh City National University - commented that this year's exam covered many areas of knowledge spread across three levels: grades 10, 11 and 12. The structure of the exam has some innovations, but all of them have been informed in advance in the sample exam, so candidates can still be proactive in their approach and answer the questions. Providing many drawings helps students visualize and solve problems more intuitively.

Notably, according to the teacher, the true-false and short answer sections have many long sentences, incorporating real-life data, requiring students to not only have knowledge but also good reading comprehension skills to extract information and correctly identify the key points that need to be calculated.

The answer filling section, corresponding to the application and high application levels, focuses more on knowledge from grades 10 and 11 such as combinations, classical probability, first-degree inequality systems, distance between two diagonal lines... Meanwhile, some important topics from grade 12 such as conditional probability and Oxyz spatial coordinates have not been explored in depth.

MSc. Le Phuc Lu sees it differently from the familiar multiple choice format, the fill-in-the-answer section does not have the opportunity to "randomly circle the correct answer", forcing candidates to solve completely and absolutely accurately to get points.

"The test is highly differentiated and more challenging than the previous sample test. In 90 minutes, candidates will hardly be able to solve all of the questions, but will need to strategically choose and focus on familiar and strong types of questions. The expected score range will be around 6 - 7 points," the teacher analyzed.