Grade 9 students in Nghe An rush to review for grade 10 entrance exam

Kick-off for the 10th Grade Entrance Exam

Last weekend, about 500 9th grade students of Ha Huy Tap Secondary School - Vinh city participated in the 10th grade entrance exam with three subjects: Literature - Math and Foreign Language. The exam questions and organization were basically carried out like the official exam.

Although this is just a trial exam, before the exam, the homeroom teachers all reminded the students to review the lessons thoroughly and create a comfortable mindset to achieve the best results. Talking about this exam, teacher Ha Le Hoa Binh - Principal of the school said: This is the first trial exam organized this school year for final year students with two purposes, the first is to evaluate the quality of students and from there to orient effective review. The second is to gradually divide the stream to have a high school orientation for students.

Class time of 9th grade students - Ha Huy Tap Secondary School. Photo: MH

The mock exam is also one of the forms that Ha Huy Tap Secondary School has implemented for many years before the 10th grade entrance exam. However, depending on each year and each student group, the number of mock exams will be organized more or less.

Through the mock exams, the school will also divide students into 4 groups, in which group 1 is for students who are capable of taking the entrance exam to top schools including specialized schools and Huynh Thuc Khang High School. Group 2 will be students who are capable of passing the entrance exam to public schools such as Ha Huy Tap High School and Le Viet Thuat High School. Groups 3 and 4 are the remaining students. These students, starting from April, after the afternoon extra classes, teachers will stay to tutor and enrich their knowledge so that they can complete the entrance exam to grade 10.

In the last two months of the school year, senior students are under a lot of pressure due to the 10th grade entrance exam. Photo: MH

Before organizing the trial exam, the board of directors of Ha Huy Tap Secondary School also asked the professional groups to meet and analyze the structure of the sample exam questions that the Department of Education and Training had just issued. On that basis, the exam questions were built closely following the Department's exam policy according to the 4 levels of recognition, understanding, application, and high application.

Le Hong Phong Secondary School (Hung Nguyen) is also speeding up the review in the afternoons to plan to organize the first round of mock exams for grade 9 students at the end of this month. According to teacher Nguyen Thi Hong - Vice Principal of the school, due to the characteristics of Le Hong Phong Secondary School as a gifted school of the district, the entrance targetgrade 10of students in the school is quite high: In addition to registering for the entrance exam to the top public school in the district, many students of our school will register for the entrance exam to specialized schools and some public schools in Vinh. Therefore, currently, every afternoon we have given students practice questions and asked the subject groups to create exam questions close to the sample exam structure of the Department. If any student takes the specialized exam, in addition to advanced questions, we will give advanced questions to help students get familiar with many types of exercises.

In addition to the mock exams organized by schools, it is expected that from now until the end of May, the Departments of Education and Training will also organize inter-school mock exams with questions created by the Departments of Education and Training.

Previously, from the end of March, the Department of Education and Training of Thai Hoa town was one of the first units to organize a mock test for all 900 grade 9 students of the town. Through marking the students' papers, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy Mai - Deputy Head of the Department of Education and Training of the town said:In the first exam, because the students did not have much time to prepare for the exam, the results were not high. However, from now until the 10th grade exam is held, we plan to hold 2 more times and according to the exams in previous years, the score of the last trial exam will be close to the real exam.

Final year students are practicing English. Photo: MH

To prepare for the mock exams and build a test bank for the district, the Town Department of Education and Training invited a core team of experts in the three subjects of Math, Literature and English to build a test matrix, closely following the Department's test structure. In addition, after the exam results were available, the core teachers also coordinated with teachers from schools to build a review plan, close to the subject, close to the program and share experiences in the teaching and review process. The Department also suggested that schools coordinate with parents to accompany their children in the final exams.

Development testing service

In addition to the mock test at school, students can also take the mock test at many centers that organize extra classes and tutoring. At a math skills training center for students on Nguyen Xi Street - Vinh City, the mock test was held in early April, with the participation of nearly 200 students studying at the center and some students from other schools, completely free of charge.

Through this test, the center will also re-evaluate the ability of each student and promptly supplement the knowledge that they lack or have gaps in. Teacher Pham Thi Lien - Director of the Center said: In the first trial test of Math, we created test questions according to the test structure of the previous school year. In the second trial test, the test questions closely followed the test structure that the Department of Education and Training had just announced. The center paid great attention to the test questions to make them both close to the program and close to the scoring scale so that students and parents could evaluate their abilities.

Vinh City students participate in the 10th grade entrance exam. Photo: MH

As a person with many years of experience in training final year students, teacher Pham Thi Lien also said that the structure of the Math exam has new features, such as adding questions on spatial geometry (0.5 points), knowledge about functions is limited to first and second order, so it is easier for students to review. In the Math questions, teachers also pay more attention to practical questions and find exercises that students often do wrong to practice their test-taking skills. In English, many teachers also said that the illustrative exam structure has an additional reading comprehension. However, what teachers hope is that this lesson will not be too difficult for students to easily get points, overcoming the current situation of low English scores.

Regarding the implementation of mock exams, many teachers believe that this is necessary because this is a practice to help students with many basic skills when taking the test, especially in terms of psychology, systematizing knowledge and getting used to the exam space. Moreover, when students take the exam with their friends, classmates, and school, parents and students will have an objective view, instead of just seeing their own abilities.

Understanding this psychology, recently, many centers in Vinh city and some centers in districts have also organized trial exams for students with fees ranging from 30,000 - 50,000 VND./test and there are too many students registering.

Class time of 9th grade students - Le Hong Phong Secondary School - Hung Nguyen. Photo: MH

However, through research, many experienced teachers believe that students need to find reputable centers that create responsible questions, closely follow the program, and closely follow the exam structure. On the contrary, if the questions are easy, or not fully in line with the industry's policy, it will make the assessment of students' abilities inaccurate, creating a subjective mentality.

Previously, since the end of the first semester, the LMS system of the Department of Education and Training has also been opened for 9th grade students to try their hand at dozens of exam questions built by the core teachers of the industry and schools. Currently, the Department is continuing to build a test bank based on the newly issued structure and it is expected that around the beginning of May, the system will continue to open for students to practice questions and self-assess their abilities.

This is also the time when 9th grade students complete the program and the results achieved will be the basis for them to register for admission to 10th grade according to their abilities and wishes.