Candidates breathed a sigh of relief after the elective exam.

môn tự chọn - Ảnh 1. — Candidates after the elective exam at the Chu Van An Secondary School, Hanoi - Photo: NAM TRAN

Candidate: History and geography are easy, chemistry and biology are within my ability but English is difficult.

Leaving the exam hall, Hoang Nam (Phan Dinh Phung High School, Hanoi ) shared: "I am very happy to have completed my exam very well this morning, I feel relieved after a long time of studying, now I can rest. I wish all the students taking the exam this afternoon good luck!"

After the elective exam at Thai Nguyen Secondary School (Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa ), candidate Tran Minh Han said that the history and geography exams were quite easy, with little differentiation. "I reviewed thoroughly so I found this year's exam not difficult. The right-wrong and quick-answer questions require a little more concentration to complete well," Han shared.

Candidate Le Thanh Hong An at Ly Tu Trong High School also said that this year's history and geography exams were relatively "easy" as most of the questions were from textbooks. According to Hong An, many candidates will probably get high scores in history and geography this year. "I am confident that I can get 8 points in history and 8.5 points in geography," Hong An said.

Thí sinh thở phào sau giờ thi môn tự chọn - Ảnh 2. — Student Dai Nguyen (Vo Thi Sau High School, Binh Thanh District) hugs his friend after completing the geography exam that his friend said he was not good at - Photo: THANH HIEP

Taking the English and Physics exams, candidate Nguyen Truong Khanh (a student at Nguyen Van Troi High School) said that he could get a good score in English because the basic questions were easy to understand, and the idioms and vocabulary were more difficult, but not to the point where he could not do them. As for Physics, he found the exam to be at an average level, easy to get a score of 7, but difficult to get a score of 8.5 or higher.

Candidate Quoc Khoa at the Ly Tu Trong High School exam site said that this year's exam questions were relatively difficult, requiring a solid grasp of knowledge, with many questions related to reality and the application of a lot of knowledge.

According to Quoc Khoa, the chemistry and biology tests are within one's ability if one has a solid grasp of the knowledge in the textbooks, and many of the questions are highly classified. "The difficult questions for students fall into true-false questions and focus on reading and understanding practical knowledge," said Quoc Khoa.

Regarding the English test, candidate Le Ai Van (Thai Nguyen Secondary School) commented that the test was relatively difficult, the first questions were very difficult and the later questions started to get easier. "I found that this year's test had many new words that required candidates to have a good vocabulary, especially the reading comprehension part, which requires a good vocabulary to understand. I am confident that I can get about 8 points in English" - Ai Van said.

môn tự chọn - Ảnh 5. — Minh Kien (Nguyen Thai Binh High School) at Nguyen Gia Thieu High School exam site (Tan Binh) happily left after completing all the exams this year - Photo: NGUYEN KHANG

In Can Tho City , many candidates at the examination councils also commented that the chemistry test was relatively easy, within their ability but a bit long compared to the 50-minute test time. The English test was difficult, especially the reading section, so it is predicted that the English test score will not be high.

At the Binh Minh High School exam site (Binh Minh town, Vinh Long province), many candidates breathed a sigh of relief because they felt their test results were quite good. "The chemistry multiple choice section has many reading comprehension questions, so I am confident that I can do it. The short answer section requires thinking based on the knowledge learned to find the correct answer," said candidate Nhat Huy.

For geography, candidates shared the same opinion that the short answer part is easy to score if you know the basic calculation formulas; history is also quite easy when the knowledge is in the review program of teachers at school...

Teacher's comments on English test: Highly differentiated test, score range 5-7

According to Mr. Le Minh Chau, deputy head of the English department at Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted, Ho Chi Minh City, this year's English exam was carefully designed, balancing language skills and analytical thinking.

Up-to-date topics that reflect real social issues help learners practice language skills in a global context.

"It can be said that the topic of the reading passage is very good, referring to many diverse fields: personal finance, tourism, technology in agriculture, environment and climate change. In it, there is a very topical reading passage about greenwashing (fake environmental branding), which is critical and requires candidates to have critical thinking. The section on digital agriculture provides many specialized terms, testing candidates' ability to read and understand technology and processes," commented Mr. Chau.

According to Mr. Chau: "The test has some easy phrases in the fill-in-the-blank section, such as phrasal verbs and conjunctions, so candidates can complete this section well. The phrase-filling or sentence-filling and blank-filling section (a new section this year) requires students to have a firm grasp of grammar structures; the section on arranging sentences to create a good dialogue into a paragraph is of course quite difficult."

Mr. Chau commented: The level of differentiation of this exam is quite high. The score range is mainly 5-7 points. Good students can get 8-9 points.

Ms. Dieu Linh, an English teacher at Chu Van An High School for the Gifted in Hanoi, also said that this year's English score will not be high because it is quite difficult, similar to the sample test announced by the Ministry of Education and Training.

"The first difficulty is the new format. Even though students have time to practice, it still takes time to get used to this new way of thinking. The second difficulty is that the reading comprehension test requires thinking in many ways such as filling in sentences, filling in phrases... Even after the 5th question, it is difficult," said Ms. Linh.

According to Ms. Linh, the average English score this year is only 6-7 points. There won't be many 8+ points.

Mr. Vu Ha Thanh Luan, an English teacher for grade 12 at Lomonosov Secondary and High School, said that the reading topic in the exam still closely follows the topic in the 2018 general education program, but the long reading passage with many vocabulary words at a high level makes it difficult for candidates who want to get a score of 8.5 or higher because students must have a good vocabulary, reading comprehension skills, and the ability to reason based on context to be able to get a high score.

"Processing these 40 questions in 50 minutes is not a simple challenge for good students," Mr. Luan commented and predicted the average score would only be 5.5-6.5.