The secret of a teacher in rural Nghe An province that helped her students achieve 30 perfect scores (10/10) in Geography on the high school graduation exam.
At Yen Thanh 2 High School (Nghe An province), where the majority of students had modest entrance exam scores, teacher Dang Thi Hien helped her students achieve a remarkable feat with 30 perfect scores (10/10) in Geography. This achievement propelled the rural school to the top of the province in the recent high school graduation exam.
The teacher behind the achievement of 30 perfect scores (10/10)
With a score of 29 (Literature 9, History 10, Geography 10), Hoang Thi Tuyet – a student in class 12A5 of Yen Thanh 2 High School – has been admitted to the Literature Education program at Hanoi University of Education. For a student from a rural school, entering one of the country's leading teacher training universities is truly a dream come true.
In the same class as Tuyet, the poor student Phan Phuc Loc also received his acceptance letter to the Geography Education program at Quy Nhon University. Previously, due to difficult circumstances and a single-parent family (just him and his mother), Loc had considered working after graduation. But upon receiving his high school graduation exam results with 26.75 points, Loc decided to pursue his dream at university.
With over 90% of the students in class 12A5 passing the university entrance exams, including one student who received commendation from the Provincial People's Committee, teacher Dang Thi Hien could not hide her emotion.
The joy was doubled when, in the two classes she taught Geography, 30 students achieved a perfect score of 10. Specifically, class 12A8, which leaned towards the humanities stream (Block C), achieved an average score of 9.32, while class 12A5, despite being in the humanities stream (Block D), had 99% of its students choose Geography as an elective subject, with an average score of 9.47.
With this result, Ms. Hien was honored to receive a commendation from the Nghe An Department of Education and Training in the emulation movement "90 days and nights of determination to achieve high results in the 2025 High School Graduation Examination".
During her 20 years of teaching, Ms. Hien (born in 1982) has been repeatedly recognized as an excellent teacher of Geography at the provincial level and an excellent homeroom teacher at the provincial level.
The secret to making students love "minor" subjects.
Sharing her thoughts on the success, Ms. Hien said that she herself was "very surprised" because for a long time, for many students in the humanities and social sciences, Geography was just a "minor subject".
"If students only read and copy from textbooks, they will get bored quickly. I choose to teach by connecting theory with practice, illustrating with real-life examples, guiding students to use mind maps and memorize important keywords instead of rote memorization," she said.
Before the exam, Ms. Hien divided the class into groups: the "hopeful" group (those likely to score above 9 points), the 8-point group, the 9-point group, and so on. Each group had its own study tasks, tailored to their abilities. She also regularly organized mock exams and directly corrected the questions so that students could learn from their mistakes.
In particular, she organized online study groups, promptly answering questions, providing encouragement, and guiding students on test-taking skills such as identifying keywords and eliminating incorrect answers. At the same time, she actively participated in online professional groups to exchange materials, exam questions, and teaching experiences.
"Seeing my students develop a passion for it motivates me even more to support them. My greatest joy is witnessing them grow and confidently enter university," Ms. Hien shared.
This year, Yen Thanh 2 High School had two students who received commendations, and the school as a whole rose to the top 5 in the province in terms of graduation exam results with an average score of 7.33 – ranking only behind top schools such as Phan Boi Chau Specialized High School, Vinh University Specialized High School, and Do Luong 1 High School… Notably, the school's ranking increased by 13 places compared to the previous year.
Few people know that, three years ago, the entrance exam score for this cohort of students was only 11.5 points, nearly half below average, placing the school among those with the lowest entrance quality in the former Yen Thanh district. Therefore, today's achievement is all the more meaningful, marking the extraordinary efforts of both teachers and students.
