Ho Chi Minh City 10th grade entrance exam: Adjusting the literature essay section

Grade 10 students take the 2023 exam in Ho Chi Minh City - Photo: MY DUNG

The structure of the 10th grade entrance exam for the 2024-2025 school year in all three subjects, including literature, math, and English, remains the same as in 2023.

However, this year the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City has adjusted the literary essay format in the literature exam.

Make it easier for students

In Part 3 - Literary Essay , students choose 1 of 2 topics to write the essay.

Topic 1: The topic requires students to analyze and perceive a specific work or excerpt from a work in the textbook.

From there, point out the influence and impact of the work on yourself or relate it to other works, relate it to real life to draw a literary or life issue.

Topic 2: The test poses a specific situation and requires students to use their knowledge and experience from reading (choose a work/excerpt) to solve that situation.

According to Mr. Tran Tien Thanh (literature specialist of the Department of Education and Training), in the literary essay section of last year's exam, in both exams, students were allowed to choose a work to present.

However, in 2023, when topic 1 required students to choose a poem, many students mistakenly chose a story. Therefore, this year there will be an adjustment in this part of the exam. Instead of both topics of the literary argument section asking students to choose a work to express, topic 1 will pre-determine a specific work in the textbook to make it more convenient for students.

The choice of works to be performed will be entirely in topic 2, including the selection of poems and stories. Students will not be forced to choose poems or stories. This creates more opportunities for students to express and develop their abilities, strengths and advantages in the subject.

Mr. Thanh also said that to do well in literary argumentative essays, students need to practice in the following directions: Mastering the skills of writing literary argumentative essays; Practicing the skills of analyzing and perceiving literary works according to the genres of poetry and stories; Reading more works outside of textbooks with the same genre and theme as the works in textbooks; Using knowledge and experience of reading works to solve a specific situation.

He noted that in the literary essay section, students often have limitations such as paraphrasing the work; writing lacking emotion due to little reading and thinking; not clearly understanding the requirements of the topic, and mechanically rewriting learned content.

Students listen to 10th grade admissions counseling at Le Quy Don High School, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City - Photo: MY DUNG

The exam structure remains the same.

Apart from minor changes to adjust the questions in the literature essay section (4 points) in a direction that is beneficial to students, the structure of the 10th grade literature exam for the 2024-2025 school year will remain the same as in 2023.

The structure of the literature exam includes 3 parts: Reading comprehension (3 points), social commentary (3 points) and literary commentary (4 points). Time limit: 120 minutes.

Therefore, in addition to reviewing the "literary argument" section as adjusted in the above instructions, students need to review the literature subject in the 10th grade exam with 2 additional parts, as follows:

Part 1 - Reading comprehension : Selected texts can be argumentative texts, informational texts, literary texts, scientific texts... Questions are organized according to levels of thinking from easy to difficult, from recognition, understanding to analysis, inference and evaluation, application. In the reading comprehension questions, there is 1 question about Vietnamese.

Students should choose texts (newspapers, commentaries, scientific books, etc.) related to current events, etc. to practice reading comprehension skills: detecting, identifying, decoding words, details, images; finding Vietnamese issues in the text; summarizing the text; connecting the text being read with other related texts, connecting with real life, giving personal opinions on the issues raised in the text; creating other ways of expression, proposing solutions, giving new titles, etc.

When answering reading comprehension questions, you need to read the entire text to grasp the content. Answer briefly and clearly according to the requirements of the question. Avoid unnecessary rambling and lengthiness.

Part 2 - About writing a social argumentative essay (about 500 words): Students need to ensure three requirements. First, students need to ensure that the essay structure has three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. The introduction states the problem, the body develops the problem, and the conclusion concludes the problem.

Second, students need to analyze and correctly identify the problem to be discussed; develop the discussion into arguments; apply well the argumentative operations; closely combine reasoning and evidence; draw lessons from perception and action. Third, in the writing, there must be argumentative operations and effective application of argumentative operations.

To do well in writing social argumentative essays, students need to practice argumentative operations, especially argumentative operations of explanation, proof, and commentary. It is necessary to avoid lacking argumentative operations (for example, lacking explanation of the discussed issue); applying argumentative operations ineffectively (evidence not relevant to the issue, lacking analysis of evidence to clarify the issue, etc.) or not drawing lessons for oneself through discussing the issue, the discussion ideas are not rich, not profound, and are sketchy.

According to Mr. Thanh, when taking the literature test, students need to pay attention to overcoming the following reasons to get better test results. These are students who do not allocate time properly for each section and each question; do not read the questions carefully, leading to answers that are not focused on the main points, or answers that are long and redundant; presentation and writing are sloppy and difficult to read; the work is not complete (due to being too absorbed in writing about one idea, leading to forgetting to conclude or concluding too hastily). On the other hand, some students are too worried and stressed, which affects their work.

Math: Same difficulty level as 2023

The test consists of 8 questions, of which questions 1 and 2 are problems about graphs, Viet's theorem, and equations. Questions 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are practical problems. Question 8 is a problem about plane geometry. Time limit is 120 minutes.

Knowledge content : 70% of the knowledge in the test is at the level of recognition and understanding. 30% of the knowledge is application and high application. The application content is in 2 practical problems and 1 small problem in the spatial geometry section. The high application section is calculated to suit the student's ability, not to be confusing.

Mr. Duong Buu Loc - a math specialist at the Department of Education and Training - said that the structure of this year's exam remains the same as in 2023 and has remained the same for the past 4 years. The review content is the same as in previous years, with no changes. Therefore, the difficulty level of the math exam for grade 10 admission this year is the same as in 2023.

English: 70% of questions are at the level of recognition and comprehension

Exam structure : The exam will consist of 40 questions, 70% of which are at the recognition and comprehension level, 30% of which are at the application and high application level. Of which, the number of high application questions is about 10%. The exam structure remains the same as in 2023.

The test content still has 2 reading passages to test the candidate's ability to read quickly and understand correctly. The differentiation questions focus mainly on reading comprehension and sentence rewriting. The test does not focus on grammar, but leans more towards skills and vocabulary. The knowledge, topics, main points, and vocabulary in the test are all familiar to students, within the curriculum that has been studied, focusing on grade 9.

"The structure of the English exam and the differentiation of the exam this year will be similar to last year. The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training has informed teachers to reinforce and review for students" - Mr. Tran Dinh Nguyen Lu, English specialist - Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, said.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/thi-vao-lop-10-tp-hcm-dieu-chinh-phan-nghi-luan-van-hoc-2024022910211312.htm