The school in the rice district has 3 students winning first prize in the excellent student competition in Nghe An province.

When teachers and students try together

Phan Tat Tuan, a 9A student at Bach Lieu Secondary School, is one of the five students who won first prize in Math this year with a very high score of 18 points. Before that, after completing the exam, although he was quite confident in his results, Tuan did not think he would win first prize.

Tuan said: "Math is the strength of many schools and is one of the three subjects with the largest number of candidates. Therefore, I think there will be many students who are better than me and I am very happy with the results I have achieved" - this male student shared.

Tuan is not a child of a traditional family, his mother is a freelancer and his father is an overseas laborer. When Tuan first passed the entrance exam to Bach Lieu Secondary School, he knew he was not the best student. Tuan's only advantage was that he especially liked numbers, so later in a specialized environment he had the opportunity to develop. Therefore, continuously in grades 7, 8, and 9, Tuan won high prizes in the school's and district's excellent student competitions.

Notably, in addition to the first prize in Math for grades 8 and 9, Tuan also won 1 first prize and 1 second prize in Physics in the district's excellent student competition. Because he studied all subjects well, Tuan was one of the few students invited by many teachers to join the team, including English. Later, Tuan decided to choose Math partly because it was his passion, partly because he liked the teaching style of teacher Trinh Ba Huyen (homeroom teacher and direct trainer).

During the process of leading the Math team, Mr. Huyen was also particularly impressed with Tuan because this student always exuded passion, had a very intelligent and thoughtful way of solving problems. Tuan's advantage is that his handwriting is quite beautiful, so he presents clearly and confidently, and his test results are often stable. In fact, not only in the Provincial Excellent Student Exam but also in the qualifying round tests, Tuan's cluster tests all achieved scores of 16 - 18 points and were in the group of few candidates with the highest test scores.

Talking about this year's exam, teacher Trinh Ba Huyen also shared his own difficulties, because this is the first exam in which the questions are made according to the 2018 General Education Program. Therefore, despite having 23 years of experience and many years of training excellent students, with many students achieving high scores, teacher Trinh Ba Huyen still encounters difficulties.

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This year, the Provincial Excellent Student Exam was held early, but in early September, the Department of Education and Training announced the sample exam with a structure and types of exercises that were much different from before. Previously, an exercise only required solving the problem and getting the result, but the new exercises require knowing how to apply the knowledge learned to solve real problems.

Teacher Trinh Ba Huyen

With the new way of setting questions, according to Mr. Huyen, one of the obstacles for the teams is that there are not many sources of documents and questions to refer to according to the new program. Therefore, to aim for the Provincial Excellent Student Competition, not only students must make efforts but also teachers must persevere and overcome difficulties.

As soon as the structure of the exam was available, the Math team of Bach Lieu Secondary School held a professional meeting to study the exam and on that basis assigned each teacher to research and create practical math problems on their own. In addition, connect with teachers at other schools to share and exchange experiences. Teachers also have to regularly update information, read many practical math problems from international sources, in Math and Youth magazines, Math and Childhood Magazine, Pi Magazine to find more materials.

In addition to preparing the source of questions, before the Provincial Excellent Student Exam 9 was officially held, teacher Trinh Ba Huyen and his students also had a thorough preparation process, lasting continuously from July until now. During that time, although there were review sessions that lasted up to 5 hours, teachers and students never felt tired. On the contrary, the new exam with many challenges became the motivation for teachers and students to try together.

With this effort, the Math team of Yen Thanh district this year (in which the main force is Bach Lieu Secondary School) had 10 students winning prizes, including 1 First prize, 3 Second prizes, 3 Third prizes and 3 Encouragement prizes.

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I think that although the exam is difficult and highly competitive, when we came to this exam, we were mentally prepared very well. Moreover, the teachers also reviewed us very carefully, covering all the knowledge, so even though this year's exam was "strange" and had many new features, we were not surprised when doing the test.

Student Phan Tat Tuan

Conquer the new exam

This year’s exam season is also the first time the Education sector has implemented new exam subjects, including Natural Science and History - Geography. In the first round, beyond expectations, students from Bach Lieu Secondary School won 2 First Prizes in Natural Science 1 (Physics) and Natural Science 2 (Chemistry). These are also the 2 runner-up students in the whole province.

Winning first prize in Natural Science 1 (Physics), Nguyen Trong Phi Hoang, a 9A student, said that this result was beyond his expectations. The exam was also a challenge for him, because the new exam required candidates to not only do well in the Physics specialized exam (for the essay part of 14 points), but also do well in the multiple choice test of general knowledge (6 points), including Chemistry - Biology - which were not his strengths.

What is special is that even though he only did the multiple choice part for more than 30 minutes, Hoang still got 6 points. In the essay part, the new way of writing questions with questions related to application and practical connection allowed Hoang to fully demonstrate his ability, because Hoang likes Physics because of its high applicability.

Adding to this, Hoang said: Compared to previous exams, to take the Natural Science exam, students have to study all 3 subjects and the amount of knowledge is also much heavier. To review properly, I built a timetable corresponding to the training schedule at school. In addition to studying in class, I did a lot of comprehensive multiple choice questions to practice my test-taking skills.

When the teachers review general knowledge, I will also practice the comprehensive multiple choice questions at home. The rest of the time is still spent on Physics. The review process is thorough, so when entering the exam, I feel secure and confident in my knowledge," Phi Hoang said about his review time.

Meanwhile, to win first prize in Natural Science 2 (Chemistry), Bui Danh Hoang (grade 9A) also said that he had tried very hard to pass the 150 minutes of the test: “The test was quite long, so after receiving the test, I was engrossed in doing the test and had almost no time to observe my surroundings. In my opinion, the multiple choice part of general knowledge was not too difficult. But in the essay part of Chemistry, the test had many practice questions, requiring a solid grasp of knowledge, precise calculations, and being sure to complete each step, otherwise I would not be able to make it on time.

The success of two students Nguyen Trong Phi Hoang and Bui Danh Hoang is also the success of teacher Vu Thi Nga - Chemistry tutor and teacher Phan Thi Duyen - Physics tutor.

Talking about the work of training excellent students in the province for these new subjects, teachers of the Natural Science Department of Bach Lieu Secondary School admitted that there were many difficulties. However, thanks to their initiative, teaching and learning still brought good results.

Teacher Vu Thi Nga shared: This is the first provincial excellent student exam of the new General Education Program. Therefore, during the previous 3 school years, schools and teachers have not yet determined how to organize the exam, whether the subjects will be traditional or integrated.

Selecting excellent students is therefore also difficult, although teachers have "seen" the seeds and nurtured them early. At the beginning of grade 9, when there was an official announcement from the Department of Education and Training, the Department of Education and Training of Yen Thanh district organized the district excellent student competition and selected the provincial competition team. To avoid being passive, the school anticipated the review plan according to the new program, changing the way students were tested and evaluated.

With 3 First prizes, 17 Second prizes, 10 Third prizes and 12 Encouragement prizes, Bach Lieu Secondary School had a successful competition season.

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We always consider the provincial excellent student exam as a “measure” to evaluate the quality of teaching at the school. Therefore, although this year is the first exam organized according to the new General Education Program, the school has required professional groups to research, closely follow the instructions of the department, and innovate the testing and evaluation methods. The school has policies to encourage and motivate teachers and students to strive together.
During the implementation process, the school always received attention from the Department of Education and Training and the district, which encouraged us to complete our tasks well and exceed the set goals.

Teacher Nguyen Phuc Loc - Principal of Bach Lieu Secondary School