Teacher's comments on math test: good student gets 8 points, that's good enough

According to many math teachers, the way the math exam for the 2025 high school graduation exam is designed will minimize the number of candidates who get extra points through luck.

No tricky questions or traps for candidates

According to Mr. Tran Ngoc Minh, math teacher at Quynh Luu 1 High School ( Nghe An ): The math exam for the 2025 high school graduation exam closely follows the orientation and sample exam of the Ministry of Education and Training. The exam structure consists of 3 parts. Part 1 consists of 12 multiple choice questions, which are the basic knowledge of grade 12 (grades 11 and 10 have some questions). Average students will try hard to do all 12 of these questions.

Candidates at the exam site of Viet Duc High School ( Hanoi ) show their determination before entering the math exam.

PHOTO: TUAN MINH

Part 2 is a true-false section with 4 questions, average students can approach 1 question, the remaining 3 questions will be difficult for them. Part 3 is 6 short answer questions, average students can handle 1 or 2 questions, the rest must be done by very good students.

Mr. Diep Tinh, a math teacher at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School for the Gifted ( Quang Nam ), also commented that the first advantage of this year's math exam is that in all the questions in all three parts of the exam, there are no tricky questions or questions to trap students. Although there are difficult questions, they are difficult because they require a high level of knowledge and thinking.

The next advantage is that the questions related to real-life situations presented in the exam are very rich and interesting. Another advantage of this year's exam is that it has high differentiation, clearly shown in the two parts of true or false and short answer.

The knowledge in the exam is exactly as the Ministry of Education and Training announced in advance: 70% of knowledge is grade 12, the remaining 30% is from grades 10 and 11. Of course, in 70% of the questions related to grade 12 knowledge, there is content related to knowledge of lower grades.

Minimize the chance of scoring points by "killing"

According to teacher Tran Ngoc Minh, with this year's exam, students only scored an average of 4 to 4.5 points, because the element of luck is much less than before. Previously, with questions that had available answers, students could "lose", but now with short answers, there is no room to "lose".

Therefore, the average math score this year is likely to be 1 - 1.5 points lower than last year. Most students will score between 6 and 6.75 points. Last year, the average math score of students at Quynh Luu 1 High School was 7.42; this year it will probably be only around 6.42.

Teacher Minh compared: "With last year's test, most of the students were able to do 33 recognition and understanding questions, so they could get 6.6 points. With the remaining 17 questions, even if they don't know how to do them, they can still randomly choose and still get 7 questions right, getting about 1 to 1.4 more points. This year, students have to do the test and have the answers to fill in. However, students can still have a little luck in the right or wrong part, but the chance of getting lucky is greatly reduced."

According to Mr. Minh, after the exam, he received some feedback from students. The good students were excited, while the average students found the exam very difficult. The important thing is that they all believe that their efforts will be recognized. Unlike last year, the good students who were considered "hard" could get up to 8.5 points, and if they were lucky, they could get 0.5 more points, and some students even got lucky and got 0.75 points.

Good and excellent students get 8 points is good news

After many candidates complained about the long exam, Mr. Minh and Mr. Tinh both said that this was unavoidable with the type of questions that involved modeling and real-life situations. Just explaining a situation took up to 5-7 lines.

Therefore, if students do not review well or read the questions carefully, they will not understand what the questions ask. "Average students hardly dare to read or do those practical math problems," said Mr. Minh, then shared: "Overall, this year's math test is a good test. If we reduce a few ideas in the short answers, or the right and wrong answers so that average students can do a little more, they will be happier. But that will make it difficult for highly competitive universities to use high school graduation exam scores as a basis for admission."

Mr. Tinh said: "In my opinion, with this test, achieving a score of 5 is not difficult for most students. The common score range in the score spectrum will be from 6 to 8. However, achieving a score of 9 or 10 is difficult, even achieving a score of 8 is difficult. To achieve a score of 8 or higher, one must be a good student, have a solid grasp of knowledge, understand the lesson, have good thinking, understand real-life situations and have good integration skills.

This year, few students dare to dream of getting 9 or 10 points in math. With a short question, if you answer one question wrong, you will lose 0.5 points. Therefore, even for students with good academic performance, getting an 8 is already a good thing."

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/giao-vien-nhan-xet-de-toan-hoc-sinh-gioi-duoc-8-diem-la-mung-roi-185250626185805234.htm