'Red Army', the function that makes candidates stuck in the ability assessment test

Although considered 'easier' than the first round, the second round of the Ho Chi Minh City National University's capacity assessment exam still had many difficult or unfamiliar questions, causing many students to regretfully 'take the test by mistake'.

Candidates attend the second round of the competency assessment exam at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry. PHOTO: NGOC LONG

What are candidates afraid of in the competency assessment test?

At the Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry exam site, many candidates participating in the second round of the competency assessment exam on the morning of June 1 said they had to "fail" math questions related to functions as domain and limit (lim, short for limit). "The test gave us both sin and cos functions and asked us to do lim from h to 0," Ngo Quoc Hung, Nguyen Cong Tru High School (Ho Chi Minh City), informed. "This is a part that I have not reviewed carefully so I find it a bit difficult."

"Overall, I found the second round easier than the first, especially the scientific thinking and Vietnamese sections. I hope to score over 700 points to be considered for admission to the electrical and technology industry," Hung added.

Also having difficulty with the math section, Tat Thai Thanh Tam, a 12th grade student at Luong The Vinh High School (HCMC), said he found the most difficult question to be the question of giving a function and then "inverting this function and that function with m". As for Nguyen Lac Thuong Mien, a 12th grade student at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School (HCMC), he had difficulty with the geometry questions "either I didn't know how to solve it or my solution was too long so I couldn't finish it in time".

"As for the logical thinking part, I found the question about bus tickets a bit confusing, but the rest were quite easy. The Vietnamese part covered a lot of knowledge in our curriculum, and there were no more guesses like the questions about peach blossoms and peach blossoms in the first round," the female student added.

Candidates leave after completing the second round of competency assessment exam. PHOTO: NGOC LONG

Ta Hoang Anh and Nguyen Ngoc Gia Han, 12th grade students at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School (HCMC), said that the second round of exams was "easier" than the first round, as they had 5 minutes left to review their answers. "We found that the math exam had more basic knowledge, while the Vietnamese exam was shorter and not as long as the first round," the two female students shared.

In the Vietnamese section, both Hoang Anh and Gia Han were confused with the question that took material from an excerpt from the Tale of Kieu : " Hong quan voi khach hong quan / Already turned to that point, the rhyme has not been released yet ". "The question asked us what 'hong quan' and 'khach hong quan' mean among the 4 answers given. I was stuck so I had to 'give up' to go home and look it up again", Hoang Anh shared.

Similarly, Doan Do Quang Minh, a 12th grade student at Tran Dai Nghia High School for the Gifted (HCMC), was also impressed with the question about "red army" and "red-pants guest" because the male student got this question wrong. "When talking about red army, I always think of the Soviet Red Army, meaning soldiers, but in fact it means 'creator'. Meanwhile, 'red-pants guest' refers to a beautiful woman," the male student said while researching online.

Further explaining the meaning of these two phrases, author Le Van Hoe in the book Truyen Kieu annotated that "hong" means big (in hong phuc) and "quan" is the potter's wheel, so "hong quan" literally means big wheel, and people compare the rotating machine of creation to this wheel. On the other hand, ancient Chinese women used to wear red pants, so "hong quan" (hong here is red - PV) means women and girls.

The use of these two phrases in the sentence, according to author Le Van Hoe, "means that Kieu has been wandering around the world for so long and has not yet been forgiven", because the word "hong quan" next to "khach hong quan" is to imply "an extremely powerful force for a weak person".

Notably, this is not the first time that the Tale of Kieu has appeared in the competency assessment exam. Previously, in the first round of the competency assessment exam, the exam also quoted the opening passage of the Tale of Kieu: " A hundred years in the human world / Talent and fate are so incompatible / Going through a life of ups and downs / The things I see are heartbreaking / What's strange about the beauty of jealousy / The blue sky is used to the habit of red cheeks fighting with jealousy " and asked what the phrase "bị sắc tư phong" means.

Candidates discuss the exam after the exam ends. PHOTO: NGOC LONG

What do test prep teachers say?

Mr. Dang Duy Hung, manager of the Lasan - Helius Education system, which specializes in preparing for private exams in Ho Chi Minh City, said that the second round of the competency assessment test was "a little easier" than the first round. "If the first round test was at level 10, the second round would be at level 9," the male teacher said, adding that the average score of the second round of the exam is likely to increase because "many candidates responded enthusiastically after taking the test."

Regarding the Vietnamese part, Mr. Hung assessed that the questions were less complicated and had conflicting answers, so it was easy to find the correct answer. "There are only a few questions that require you to understand deeply, for example, choosing between myths and epics. You will also do well on the 10 reading comprehension questions if you understand the argumentative and deductive operations in parallel... The English part also has many 'easier' questions than the first round, even though the vocabulary part is of the same difficulty level," Mr. Hung acknowledged.

"The math part is quite good," the male teacher shared, saying that this part of the exam "anti-tricks" better than the first round. Mr. Hung added that the "lim" question that many candidates could not do was related to trigonometry, which is a content that students do not have much access to. Because this content has its own "formula for the limit of trigonometric functions", but according to the new textbook, 11th graders do not have as much to learn as in the old program.

According to Ho Chi Minh City National University, the second round of the competency assessment exam had a total of 92,272 candidates taking the exam this morning, June 1. PHOTO: NGOC LONG

Meanwhile, the logical thinking section had a series of difficult questions related to bus tickets, which likely took up a lot of the candidates' time. "The data analysis section was moderately concise, neither difficult nor easy. The scientific reasoning section had many questions that required candidates to understand the sentences thoroughly, but the physics and chemistry questions were surprisingly easy because reading comprehension can calculate the results very quickly," said Mr. Hung.

According to information from Ho Chi Minh City National University, this morning there were a total of 92,272 candidates taking the exam, spanning across 11 provinces and cities from the Central to the Southwest regions. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Chinh, Director of the Center for Testing and Training Quality Assessment (Ho Chi Minh City National University), said that in 2025 there will be 155,556 candidates taking the exam and the results of the second round of exams are expected to be announced on June 16.

In 2025, 111 universities and colleges registered to use the results of the Ho Chi Minh City National University's competency assessment exam for admission. Previously, in 2024, the exam helped Ho Chi Minh City National University recruit more than 9,200 new students and accounted for more than 38% of the total enrollment target of the entire system. The maximum score of the competency assessment exam is 1,200, with each question having a different weight depending on the difficulty of the question.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/hong-quan-ham-so-khien-thi-sinh-be-tac-trong-de-thi-danh-gia-nang-luc-185250601200631823.htm