Math scores "destroy" college dreams: Difficult questions or biased learning?

The exam is really difficult for ordinary students.

The 2025 high school graduation exam ended with shocking statistics: The whole country had 777 failed math exams (1 point or less), a record high number in many years.

Of these, nearly 340 candidates achieved high scores in other subjects but still failed to graduate due to failing math. Most of these students chose to take the social science exam with other exams being literature, history, geography, economic education and law.

Điểm toán hủy diệt giấc mơ đại học: Đề khó hay học lệch? - 1 — 777 candidates failed the math exam in the 2025 High School Graduation Exam, which means they failed to graduate (Illustration: Huyen Nguyen).

This makes the public wonder: is the problem in the test questions, the teaching method, or the way the students learn?

Commenting on this issue, teacher Tran Manh Tung, a math teacher in Hanoi , said: “This is a wake-up call. The fact that so many students have failed math shows the serious consequences of lopsided learning, rote learning, and coping in learning.”

According to him, even if you achieve good results in your strong subjects, just "stumbling" in one subject is enough to cause the university door to close in front of you.

In addition, the record low math scores show that the majority of students did not meet the requirements of the exam.

This situation is a hard lesson about lopsided learning and the importance of studying all subjects equally.

Analyzing further the math scores, Mr. Tung commented that this year's score distribution was clearly low, the bell curve tilted heavily to the left, showing that the exam was really difficult for the majority of general candidates.

He expressed surprise when the average math score dropped more than expected.

“Many experts, teachers, and students commented that this year’s math exam was difficult, and the average score was expected to decrease. However, it was quite surprising that the national average score dropped sharply from 6.45 points last year to 4.78 points this year. The highest score (median score) dropped from 6.8 to 4.6 points,” said Mr. Tung.

Điểm toán hủy diệt giấc mơ đại học: Đề khó hay học lệch? - 2 — Teacher Tran Manh Tung, math teacher in Hanoi (Photo: NVCC).

Objectively speaking, the test was not too difficult in terms of knowledge, but Mr. Tung said that it "strongly differentiated the general student population" because they were not familiar with the new format of the test.

Specifically, the test has long, complex puzzles that take candidates a lot of time to read and analyze, leading to not having enough time to complete the test. The main reason is that during the learning process, students have not been trained enough with this type of question.

"In general, this is the first year of taking the exam according to the new program, and candidates have not met the requirements and format of the exam," Mr. Tung analyzed.

Eliminate the "learn from the top" mindset

Mr. Tran Manh Tung emphasized that the 2025 exam is in line with the spirit of the 2018 General Education Program, requiring candidates to study solidly, understand deeply, grasp the essence and know how to apply flexibly and solve problems in practical contexts.

However, the teaching and learning methods that have long focused on the goal of multiple-choice testing by learning from the top down have been ignored. This clearly reveals the negative side of multiple-choice testing for so long.

According to Mr. Tung, the new exam, although still mainly in the form of multiple choice, has a similar reasoning method to essay, requiring students to start from the basics up.

The male teacher considered this "a wake-up call for teaching and learning". He emphasized that in the coming years there will have to be strong adjustments in the way mathematics is taught and learned in high schools.

For students, studying is not just about coping with multiple choice questions. They need to understand deeply, practice analyzing questions, expressing their thoughts and managing their time.

For teachers, it is impossible to just teach according to old questions and practice questions in a rut, but it is necessary to shift to teaching to develop thinking - application - problem solving skills.

However, he also raised the question that if the Ministry of Education and Training still maintains this level of difficulty to differentiate candidates and uses graduation exam scores as a favorable basis for university admission, this will be a "very big challenge in terms of scores for the next 3-4 years".

Mr. Tung supports the current exam structure because he thinks it is reasonable according to the new program and requires students to change their learning methods.

On the other hand, he also suggested that the Ministry of Education and Training should continue to learn from experience and improve the exam questions, because there are still opinions that the exam questions are still confusing, illogical, unclear or too long... especially with problems that have practical application situations.

Finally, regarding the university admission problem, Mr. Tran Manh Tung commented that if the high school graduation exam remains as difficult as in 2025, comparing and converting scores between methods and subjects will be a "fairness problem" that the Ministry of Education and Training needs to thoroughly solve.

Another math teacher in Ho Chi Minh City agreed that the 2025 high school graduation exam is appropriate, but the difficulty level needs to be recalculated.

“The fact that nearly 800 candidates failed, only 13/63 provinces and cities achieved an average score of over 5 in math, no province achieved 6 points shows that the math exam has an unusual screening level. Therefore, if the Ministry maintains its viewpoint on the difficulty level, it will be very stressful for students and even teachers. Without extra classes, students get high scores," said this teacher.