HCMC: Reducing competitive pressure to enter public 10th grade

This year, the 10th grade entrance exam in Ho Chi Minh City has reduced pressure, as the total enrollment target for 115 public high schools is more than 70,070 students, accounting for more than 90% of the number of candidates registered for the exam.

The 2024-2025 public grade 10 entrance exam in Ho Chi Minh City will take place on June 6-7, with three subjects: Literature, Math, and Foreign Language. Candidates wishing to enter specialized or integrated grade 10 will take the corresponding additional subject.

This year, out of more than 88,200 ninth graders, over 76,400 students registered to take the entrance exam to public grade 10. Meanwhile, the total enrollment target for 115 public high schools in the city is more than 70,070 students (accounting for about 79% of ninth graders, up from 65% last year, accounting for more than 90% of the number of candidates registered to take the exam). Comparing the target and the number of candidates registered to take the exam shows that the competitive pressure to enter public grade 10 in the city this year has been somewhat reduced compared to previous years.

At this stage, the review at schools focuses on systematizing knowledge and practicing test-taking skills for students. Mr. Pham Thai Ho, Principal of Truong Cong Dinh Secondary School (Binh Thanh District) said that the school organizes review sessions for 3 subjects: Literature, Math, and English for 9th grade students in the 2 weeks before the exam, each subject will have 2 more periods per week.

Review activities at school only take place in the morning and afternoon, students review at home. Besides reviewing and preparing knowledge for students, the school focuses on career guidance and psychological counseling to help students reduce exam pressure.

Mr. Cao Duc Khoa, Principal of Huynh Khuong Ninh Secondary School (District 1) shared that throughout the admissions consulting work for grade 9 students from the beginning of the school year, the school always reminds students to choose their grade 10 wishes in a way that is suitable for their learning ability, avoiding too much pressure before the exam.

At this stage, in addition to studying and consolidating, students need to practice more with practical lessons, because the orientation of the exam questions will increase practical application. This year, the school does not organize review classes for 3 subjects (Math, Literature, English) like every year, the review is integrated by teachers right in the learning process.

The school organizes classes according to the normal schedule, without increasing class hours to ensure the health of students.

This year's 10th grade entrance exam is also the first exam to be implemented according to the 2018 GeneralEducation Program. According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, this year's exam will increase application, follow the orientation of assessing students' abilities, closely follow the requirements and goals of assessing students' abilities of the new program.

Mr. Vo Kim Bao, a Literature teacher at Nguyen Du Secondary School (District 1) shared that during the exam preparation process, students are given practice tests to somewhat know their own abilities, from which they can adjust their wishes appropriately as well as come up with their own personal review roadmap.

With the direction of innovation in the exam according to the new general education program, students need to note that the language materials in this year's Literature exam are completely new and not included in the three current textbooks.

This makes learning and teaching literature more practical, and at the same time, tests reflect more accurately the abilities and qualities of learners. Students need to proactively read more texts of the same genre as they have studied to gain more practical experience. This year's exam has 2 texts, so the "coverage" of the questions is quite high. Students avoid guessing questions and memorizing during the learning process, thereby building a more suitable study plan.

The literary essay section is now worth only 2 points, requiring a paragraph (previously worth 4 points, requiring a complete essay). Students need to be equipped with the skills to do the test carefully, the question does not require analysis of the entire work, but only requires discussion of a certain aspect.

Candidates taking the exam. (Photo: Quy Trung/VNA)

The most important part of the exam is writing a social argumentative essay with 2 types of essays: Argumentative essay on a life issue or argumentative essay on a problem that needs to be solved. Students can refer to the ideas of essays written in 2 types of essays from previous years' exams (argumentative essay on an ideology, morality and argumentative essay on an event, phenomenon of life) but need to know how to choose because the skills, techniques, and requirements of the essays are very different.

Although the rate of students entering grade 10 has increased this year, students should not be complacent, especially for students aiming to enter specialized schools or top schools, the pressure is still quite great.

Student Nguyen Tuan Lam (District 1) placed his first choice at Tran Dai Nghia Middle School - High School (the school with the highest enrollment rate this year), his second choice was Le Quy Don High School, and his third choice was Nam Sai Gon School.

Regarding my specialization, I registered for the Chemistry specialized class of Le Hong Phong and Tran Dai Nghia High Schools; and took an additional exam to enter the Chemistry specialized class of Ho Chi Minh City National University High School for the Gifted.

To achieve this goal, in addition to studying at school, Lam takes extra classes in 4 subjects: Math, Literature, English and Chemistry with 8 sessions/week. Although the study schedule is quite tight, he spends time on weekends and evenings to have fun, relax, balance his studies, and keep his spirit comfortable. Although he is a bit worried, he believes that if he tries hard, he will achieve good exam results.

There is only a week left until the 10th grade public exam in Ho Chi Minh City. Up to now, the city's Education Department has coordinated with relevant agencies to fully prepare for the exam.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training said that the exam is expected to have 158 examination councils, with 4,424 examination rooms. The department mobilized 13,272 teachers to invigilate the exam and 2,070 staff to serve the exam.

The implementation of the exam regulations has been fully implemented to schools, parents and students. The Department has directed schools to complete the program and organize effective review sessions for students; at the same time, the Department has closely coordinated with the City Police to ensure security and safety for important stages such as storage, printing, transporting exam papers/test papers, grading, and installing surveillance cameras.

Relevant departments and branches closely coordinate to ensure security, safety; health , food safety; technical infrastructure, electricity; traffic and communications for the exam.

Careful preparation and close coordination of relevant agencies and units ensure that the entrance exam takes place seriously, safely and in accordance with regulations.

Source: VNP

Source: https://phunuvietnam.vn/tphcm-giam-ap-luc-canh-tranh-vao-lop-10-cong-lap-2025052720444992.htm