Hanoi 10th grade valedictorian "skipped level" to register for the national team

(Dan Tri) - Pham Hong Luong, one of three male 10th graders registered in Hanoi's 2025 national excellent student team, is the valedictorian of the Japanese 10th grade at Hanoi - Amsterdam High School this year.

The more pressure, the more effort

Among the 247 members participating in this year's Hanoi national excellent student team, there are 3 students in grade 10. Of these, two are in the math team, one is in the Japanese team.

The two members of the math team are Vu Quang Dung, class 10 Math 1, Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, and Nguyen Dang Khanh, class 10G0, Newton Middle School - High School. The third member is Pham Hong Luong, class 10 Nhat, Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted.

Pham Hong Luong, one of three 10th grade male students registered in the 2025 national excellent student team of Hanoi (Photo: NVCC).

According to some experts, the exam to select the national excellent student team covers the high school program, especially grades 11 and 12, but the fact that grade 10 students "skipped a level" and were enrolled in the team is very excellent. If they do not proactively expand their knowledge and have the qualities, it will be very difficult to compete with their seniors in grades 11 and 12.

Sharing with Dan Tri reporter, Pham Hong Luong, a member of the national Japanese language competition team this year, said that his team has 8 people, and in terms of scores, he ranked 4th out of 8 in the whole team.

Along with that, Luong possesses an impressive record of achievements: First prize in the city-level Japanese language competition for excellent students in the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years; First prize in the Japanese language competition for excellent students in Dong Da district in the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years.

In addition to being the first valedictorian of the Japanese 10th grade entrance exam at Hanoi - Amsterdam High School this year, Luong also has the N1 JLPT certificate - the highest certificate of Japanese.

Sharing his feelings about being named in the national team, Luong said that every time he faces an exam, he feels quite pressured.

Being able to participate in the national team, I feel more pressure because many of my seniors in grades 11 and 12 are very good and have a lot of experience in exams.

"Like the saying goes, 'pressure creates diamonds', perhaps each time like this, I have more motivation to study and try harder," Luong shared.

Hong Luong and mother (Photo: NVCC).

3 years old went to Japan, 15 years old set goal to win national prize

Born in Vietnam, at the age of 3, Luong followed his family to Japan to live for 8 years. Returning to Vietnam, during the time the whole country was fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, the student went online to find documents and self-study, passing the N1 JLPT certificate.

The male student said that, besides studying with teachers at school and participating in training for the team, he did not take any extra classes outside.

I don’t have any special study tips, I just look for old questions from previous years, watch Japanese videos online to develop my listening skills. Every day I set a goal to do 3 reading comprehension questions and 2 listening passages.

However, to participate in this national exam, the young student set a higher learning goal, doing more questions every day and learning about 50 Chinese characters every day, instead of only learning about 20 words like before.

Outside of school hours, the male student mainly studies Japanese on his own (Photo: NVCC).

According to Hong Luong, she does not study too late every day, she goes to bed around 11pm. In addition, she is passionate about sports , likes to play soccer and spend time exercising.

"In the future, I hope to win a full scholarship to study abroad in Japan," Hong Luong said.

Commenting on her young student, Ms. Dang Nhu Hoa, Hong Luong's Japanese teacher, said that he is a student with outstanding talent in this language, always showing deep understanding, standard pronunciation and natural expression ability.

Not only that, Luong was also the valedictorian of the first Japanese class at Hanoi – Amsterdam High School for the Gifted. This is a proud achievement, demonstrating his constant efforts and sincere passion for Japanese language and culture.

“Luong is also the pride of Nhat's 10th grade class as he is one of three 10th grade students who won the city-level prize this year, and was also honored to be on the Hanoi city team to participate in the national excellent student competition.

As his teacher, I am truly impressed with his serious learning spirit, modesty and willingness to help friends, qualities that make him a well-rounded and valuable student,” said Ms. Nhu Hoa.

This year, Hanoi's 12th grade excellent student exam has more than 4,900 candidates, divided into two groups A and B. In addition to the award consideration, the Department of Education and Training selected 13 national competition teams, including: Math, physics, chemistry, biology, information technology, literature, history, geography, English, French, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese.

Except for the Japanese team with 8 students and the Russian team with 19 students, the remaining teams all have 20 students.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/thu-khoa-dau-vao-lop-10-ha-noi-vuot-cap-ghi-danh-doi-tuyen-quoc-gia-20251018221521781.htm