Teachers and students change to approach the 'new' 2025 graduation exam

The test must differentiate students.

Closing the 2024 High School Graduation Exam, the story about the exam questions still receives attention from students and teachers. This year, although the exam questions are considered more difficult than previous years, many opinions say that this is suitable for a "2 in 1" exam, both to recognize graduation and to consider university admission.

Besides, if the test differentiates well, the differentiation between good and excellent candidates will be clearer, avoiding the situation where there are candidates with 27 or 28 points who still fail to pass the university entrance exam.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Giang - a Math teacher at Lovemuch Skills Training Center said: I think this year's exam has a fairly high level of differentiation, from question 39 onwards, it is more differentiated than the 2023 exam. With this exam, if candidates take the graduation exam and have a solid grasp of basic knowledge, they can achieve 6.5 - 7 points. Better students can achieve 8 points or more. But if you want to get 9 or 10 points, you must have a solid grasp of the knowledge and calculate very quickly. This will benefit universities in the admission process to make it easier to select candidates for top schools.

After the end of the 2024 High School Graduation Exam, based on the opinions of candidates, teachers and public opinion, the Ministry of Education and Training also determined that this year's exam questions are part of the high school program, with appropriate differentiation, ensuring accurate and objective exam results, used to consider recognition of high school graduation and provide data for universities and vocational education institutions to enroll students in a spirit of autonomy.

This is also the orientation of the high school graduation exam from 2025. Accordingly, the high school graduation exam will increasingly aim to have high applicability and differentiation to facilitate university enrollment.

Step by step approach to new exam format

The 2024 high school graduation exam is the last exam to be implemented according to the 2006 General Education Program. From 2025, the high school graduation exam will be implemented according to the 2018 General Education Program. Accordingly, the exam will have many changes such as changing from 6 subjects to 4 subjects, from 3 compulsory subjects: Literature - Math - Foreign Language will be reduced to 2 subjects: Math - Literature.

Candidates will no longer take combined tests, but will instead take independent tests. In addition to Literature, which is an essay test, the remaining subjects will be tested in an objective test format. However, the structure of the multiple-choice tests will be adjusted, in addition to multiple-choice questions, there will be true-false questions and short-answer multiple-choice questions (essay questions).

With so many changes, students born in 2006 who fail the 2024 exam will have difficulty taking the 2025 exam, because this will be the first year students take the exam according to the 2018 General Education Program.

Sharing about this, teacher Phan Van Thuan - teacher of the provincial Ethnic Boarding High School said: "I think it will be very difficult for 12th grade students in 2024 to take the exam according to the new program from 2025. Because, from now on, the new textbooks have changed the structure of the lesson content quite a lot. The old Physics knowledge of grade 10 is now changed to the grade 12 program. The final graduation Physics program will cover all the knowledge of 3 years of high school.

The way the questions are set in the new program is still the same in terms of knowledge with 4 levels of recognition, understanding, application and high application. However, the probability of answering the questions is no longer 50/50 as before but only 25%, and some questions require students to explain to find the correct answer. This new way of setting questions will assess many different levels of students, requiring them to have comprehensive knowledge and ability to do well on the test."

The core of the change in exam format and exam structure is largely due to the fact that the 2018 General Education Program has undergone major changes after the education sector implemented a complete change in textbooks. Moreover, Vietnam applies a program with many different sets of textbooks, and the choice of textbooks also varies between schools.

High school students studying under the new program, in addition to some compulsory subjects, will be able to choose elective subjects, depending on their abilities, interests and career orientation.

Previously, after the Ministry of Education and Training announced the sample exam structure, many teachers said that the new way of making questions requires students to have solid knowledge and abilities, and randomly circling answers or guessing will not be applicable, especially with exercises at a high application level.

As a teacher with many years of experience reviewing History for 12th graders, Ms. Tran Thi Lan Anh - teacher at Nguyen Si Sach High School (Thanh Chuong) said that the 2024 high school graduation exam in History has many new points to orient the 2025 high school graduation exam according to the 2018 General Education Program. The exam has a new approach of providing materials for candidates to have more scientific basis to choose the correct answer. Thereby, orienting the approach to creating high school graduation exam questions from 2025 for teachers and students to refer to.

Objectively speaking, although this year's History exam has had many changes, teacher Lan Anh affirmed that this approach does not confuse candidates, does not increase the difficulty, but helps candidates have more favorable bases when doing the test.

On the teachers' side, in the face of this change, from 2025, teaching and learning also need to be adjusted.

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"We will continue to adhere to the structure and scope of knowledge in accordance with the required objectives and orientations of the Ministry of Education and Training to solve part 1 of the exam. In addition, the teaching process requires students to have a firm grasp of basic knowledge according to the requirements of the program. Teachers must increase their research on original materials for exploitation. Based on the knowledge standards, teachers will expand and apply knowledge and understanding of life to choose answers. Teachers must also train students in processing skills, knowing how to exploit and read and understand information."

Teacher Tran Thi Lan Anh - History teacher at Nguyen Si Sach High School

This change is also a trend in the 2025 High School Graduation Exam. Speaking at a press conference after the 2024 High School Graduation Exam, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong emphasized: In 2025, with the regulation of "one program, many textbooks", the exam materials will come from many textbooks or from outside with the goal of forming students' qualities and abilities, not just memorizing lessons or books.

To approach the new learning method and test setting method, Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung - Head of Secondary Education Department, Nghe An Department of Education and Training also said: "Since the school year, we have had a document instructing schools and professional groups to carefully study the Ministry's sample test questions. By the end of the school year, in the year-end survey instructions, the Department has asked schools to compile similar questions during the test so that students can get used to the new test setting method. The current trend is that changing the teaching method, learning method, and test setting method is inevitable and that limits the situation of rote learning, biased learning or guessing questions..."./.