Is the 2024 high school graduation math score distribution showing the negative side of multiple choice testing?

On July 17, the Ministry of Education and Training announced the scores and distribution of scores for the Math subject in the high school graduation exam. Accordingly, no candidate scored 10 points in Math.

Math score distribution chart 2024

According to Mr. Tran Manh Tung, a Math teacher in Hanoi , the 2024 Math exam is only meant for high school graduation, but it is not accurate to use it for university admission. Although this is the last year of implementing the 2006 General Education Program, Math has not yet approached the way of setting questions in the direction of assessing capacity, and has not shown its own color.

Looking at the layout of the 2024 high school graduation math exam, there are up to 10 differentiated questions (2 points). These are questions with medium to high difficulty, if students do not have a firm grasp of the knowledge, it will be difficult for them to solve.

The application and high-level application questions are too difficult, long, complicated, and lack the element of true application. Many questions mainly exploit technical calculation factors and do not require deep reasoning (like function questions). In addition, there are questions that make multi-layered assumptions to increase the difficulty, leading to long, complicated questions; exceeding the requirements of a multiple-choice question (like max, min questions).

Teacher Tran Manh Tung

According to Mr. Tung, if the questions are too difficult and students cannot do them, they will be randomly circled. The rate of students who can do the application and high application sections is equivalent to the rate of "filling in the blanks". The scores of 9.2; 9.4; 9.6; 9.8 are all achieved by about 25% of candidates (among those who scored 9.0 or higher). With this situation of questions, it will be difficult to accurately assess the ability and classify students.

"The math test is showing the downside of multiple choice tests, which is that they cannot comprehensively assess students' abilities. Students are working hard to become "math solvers". Because the time to solve multiple choice questions is too long, no different from essay questions," commented Mr. Tung.

Considering the score distribution of the Math subject in the 2024 high school graduation exam, nearly 183 thousand (17.4%) of the exams were below average and no exam scored 10 points. The range of 5.6 - 9.0 points increased significantly compared to 2023.

From there, Mr. Tran Manh Tung assessed that the university admission benchmark in 2024 will increase. Specifically:

Group A00 (Math, Physics, Chemistry): Standard score can increase from 0.5 - 1 point

Group A01 (Math, Physics, English): Standard score can increase from 0.2 - 0.5 points

Group B00 (Math, Chemistry, Biology): Standard score can increase from 0.2 - 0.5 points

Group C00 (Literature, History, Geography): Standard score can increase sharply from 0.5 - 1.5 points

Group D01 (Math, Literature, English): The standard score will also increase sharply from 0.5 - 1 point.

The 2024 high school graduation exam will take place on June 26-28 with more than one million candidates participating. Of which, Math is one of three independent and compulsory exams for graduation recognition. After finishing the Math exam on the afternoon of June 27, many Math teachers commented that this year's exam was quite long, with many difficult and challenging questions for most students.

Previously, in 2023, the average score in Math of more than one million candidates was 6.25. The highest score was 7.6 and only 12 exams scored 10. The number of candidates scoring below average was nearly 217,000, accounting for more than 21.6%.

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/giao-duc--y-te1/pho-diem-mon-toan-tot-nghiep-thpt-nam-2024-dang-the-hien-mat-trai-cua-thi-trac-nghiem--i380983/