The Ministry of Education and Training also gave initial explanations about this at a press conference yesterday afternoon (June 27).
ENGLISH TEST: STUDENTS CRY, TEACHERS SHOCKED
According to Ms. Le Thi Thu Huong, an English teacher at Huynh Thuc Khang High School, Vinh City, Nghe An , most of her students complained that the English test was too difficult and too long. Ms. Huong shared: "The students said that it was very difficult to complete this year's English test in 50 minutes. There were many new words in the test. Most of my students are confident in English, so they chose to take this test."
Ms. Huong analyzed: "Last year's test had 50 questions to be done in 60 minutes, an average of 1.2 minutes/question. This year's test has 40 questions to be done in 50 minutes, an average of 1.25 minutes/question. It seems like candidates have more time, but last year's test had many independent, single questions, which could be answered right away by looking at each question; this year's test is structured in clusters of questions, each question is related to the other, and is related to the entire text, so candidates need more time to answer the questions." "At first, when students see the long test paper with dense text, they are "shocked". Then, when they read the text and see that there are some difficult questions with many new words, while they only have 50 minutes to do the test, many students continue to panic. If they stay calm, and more importantly, have time to apply their reasoning and logical analysis skills, they will be able to do the test. But the reality is that they do not have enough time to do it. For students, once they do not have enough time to think and have to do it by blind guessing, it means that the test paper is difficult," said Ms. Huong.
Parents encourage their children in the 2025 high school graduation exam with many innovations
PHOTO: NHAT THINH
Mr. Pham Gia Bao, a teacher specializing in IELTS preparation in Hanoi , also said that this year's English test was really "difficult" even for students with an English level of 7.0 IELTS. The change in direction of the Ministry of Education and Training (previously focusing on testing grammar and vocabulary, this year focusing on testing reading comprehension skills) is a good direction. However, the difficulty of the reading comprehension test was pushed up a bit too much, causing difficulties for TS.
Ms. Am Thuy Linh, an English teacher at Luong The Vinh High School (Hanoi), commented that the test was good, highly differentiated and would have a positive impact on foreign language teaching in schools because the way the test was designed was similar to the way the IELTS test was designed, but she said that the test was too difficult for students taking the test this year and given the nature of the high school graduation exam.
Like Ms. Huong, Ms. Linh said that many excellent students who registered for the English subject group shared that they cried when reading the exam questions. Teachers were also shocked when they saw the official exam questions. Ms. Linh said that an experienced teacher like her had to work for more than 40 minutes to complete the exam.
GOOD TOPIC BUT MUST BE APPROPRIATE
Ms. Linh said that it is undeniable that this year's exam is good, but we must take into account the suitability of the exam's purpose, teaching conditions and the students taking the exam. This year is the first year that students take the exam under the new generaleducation program, but in reality, the students entering grade 10 are students studying under the old program. They only have 3 years of studying under the new program at high school level and only 1 year of approaching the completely new way of making questions through the illustrative questions. Not to mention, the official questions are much more difficult than the illustrative questions; much more difficult than what students have learned in the current English textbooks while the textbooks are illustrations for the program.
Candidates discuss after the final exam of the 2025 high school graduation exam with some subjects being assessed as "too difficult"
PHOTO: TUAN MINH
Many opinions say that the difficulty of the math and English exams like this year's high school graduation exam is "relatively difficult to understand" because this is the first year of innovation, it should not shock students, teachers and public opinion. Moreover, many opinions also point out that the quality of teaching, especially foreign languages, is still uneven, not only between regions but also in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the inner city and the suburbs have very different conditions. Such an exam will be suitable for students who have completed 10-12 years of the new program.
TEACHING AND INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION MUST BE CHANGED
However, Ms. Am Thuy Linh also believes that this way of setting questions will stimulate practical and serious English learning. The new type of questions trains students in reading and understanding documents, communication situations, writing short paragraphs, writing flyers, advertisements, and announcements. However, according to many teachers, not only students and teachers need to change, but education management agencies also need to change in preparing enough quality teachers, providing equal learning conditions, and textbooks must also better support the innovative spirit of the program and the way questions are set.
Associate Professor Chu Cam Tho (Vietnam Institute of Educational Sciences) said that innovation requires determination and overcoming initial obstacles. According to Ms. Tho, in the math teaching community, many teachers are disappointed because the official math test is not the same as the sample test. Students who have only been exposed to the new program for 3 years will not have a habit of reading comprehension and mathematical modeling, and they are still more accustomed to practicing the test types.
Although pointing out certain difficulties, Ms. Tho said that objectively, the 2018 General Education Program exam assesses mathematical component competencies, and the exam increases problem-solving questions more than before, which will be beneficial for teaching and learning, forcing teaching to change in a positive direction rather than practicing according to the types of exercises.
Parents at an exam site in Ho Chi Minh City congratulate their children on completing the exam regardless of the results.
PHOTO: NGOC LONG
Associate Professor Chu Cam Tho said that if determined, the change from teaching to testing and evaluation can be implemented. Like many literature teachers, when receiving information that there would be no language materials in textbooks when creating exam questions, they also felt pressured, but when they started to change, they clearly saw many more benefits.
This year's exam is applied to the first batch of high school students who still follow the old program, so according to Ms. Tho, this can be considered the first cycle of innovation. However, the next cycle of innovation will go into depth and thus the innovation of the exam will also be accepted with a more ready mindset.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING "RECOGNIZES AND REVIEWS"
At the press conference to conclude the high school graduation exam on the afternoon of June 27, the representative of the Ministry of Education and Training, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management, Head of the exam committee, said that the 2025 exam is the first exam for students studying under the 2018 General Education Program according to the new exam plan. Therefore, this year's exam work will certainly have many innovations. Initially, the exam committee has raised the issue of assessing capacity and this is the most important factor in this year's exam work.
In addition, the structure and format of this year's exam have also changed completely compared to previous years. The change in format structure is also similar to the new points.
Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong speaks at the press conference on the afternoon of June 27.
Photo: Tuan Minh
According to Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, the difficulty of the exam is another issue, not related to the changes in the structure and format of the exam mentioned above, but related to the content of the exam. To deal with the problem of the difficulty of the exam, before the exam council started working, the Ministry of Education and Training organized a large-scale test trial in all three regions. The purpose of the test trial was essentially to assess the students' ability to respond in order to appropriately adjust the difficulty of the exam. When the council started working on the exam, all the data on the test trial and the score distribution had been thoroughly discussed among the exam committees.
Thus, with this year's exam, the Ministry of Education and Training has set two points that the exam council needs to thoroughly understand. The first is the requirement to closely follow the published reference exam. The second is that the difficulty level must be based on the actual test results in all three regions across the country.
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha said: "In the face of information that some subjects, specifically math and English, are highly difficult, and there are even opinions that they are different from the published reference questions, we would like to take note at this time. We will then have a specific review and evaluate this when the exam marking process is completed."
Meanwhile, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong said: "Evaluation of the difficulty of the exam requires full information. The Ministry of Education and Training accepts and assimilates all opinions related to professional issues to do better in the following years, on the principle of ensuring the rights of candidates."
"If many students get 8s, 9s, and 10s, but not because of their real abilities but because the questions were easy, would we be happy? If they get 6s, 7s, but because of their real abilities, then they still have the ability to take the next steps in their journey to adulthood, still be able to enter university, college, and do many other useful things, then we would be happier," said Mr. Thuong.
Candidates talk about the exam
"Some math questions only require memorizing the formulas to calculate, but there are many questions that I can't figure out right away. For me, the hardest part is the short answer, the second is true or false, and the last is the multiple choice. I probably only got 5 points."
Pham Huynh Hoang Kim , student of Le Thi Hong Gam High School (HCMC)
"We found the English test to be very difficult, more difficult than what we had done and practiced. There were some words we read but did not understand, some other words were quite abstract. We did not expect this level of difficulty because English is usually the subject that people expect to get the highest score."
Tran Hai My (IELTS 7.5), student at Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School (HCMC)
Ngoc Long (written)
Expected score range from 5 - 6
Master Nguyen Minh Tri, Director of the English Language Program at Hoa Sen University, commented: "The English exam has a high level of differentiation. With the difficulty level of this year's English exam, only very good candidates can get 9 or 10 points, and the average score is around 5 or 6 points."
Regarding the math questions of this year's high school graduation exam, teacher Lam Vu Cong Chinh, Nguyen Du High School (District 10, Ho Chi Minh City), affirmed that the difficulty and the score range of this exam will be concentrated at the level of 5.5 - 6.
Bich Thanh - My Quyen (written)
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/thi-tot-nghiep-thpt-2025-de-thi-mot-so-mon-qua-kho-vi-sao-185250627230417484.htm
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