Candidates' attitudes towards China's illegal placement of drilling rig 981

As expected by candidates and many teachers, along with the change in structure, the content of the Literature exam of this year's High School Graduation Exam is linked to the hot current issue of China illegally placing the Haiyang 981 drilling rig in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone and jurisdiction.

In the Reading Comprehension section (3 points) of the Literature exam, a passage was given that mentioned a current issue of the country: “In the early days of May 2014, China brazenly invaded and illegally placed the Haiyang 981 drilling rig in Vietnam's exclusive economic zone and jurisdiction, taking aggressive actions to obstruct Vietnamese law enforcement forces, seriously violating Vietnam's sovereignty under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). In that situation, the hearts of more than 90 million Vietnamese people in the country, more than four million overseas Vietnamese, and progressive, peace-loving people around the world are always burning toward the East Sea, toward Hoang Sa and Truong Sa, following every news transmitted from the scene of the incident.

In the past few days, we have once again witnessed the patriotic spirit in every Vietnamese citizen and overseas Vietnamese, demonstrating solidarity in the determination to protect the sea, islands, and sacred sovereignty of the Fatherland, and strongly condemning China's wrongful and unreasonable actions. However, in the current situation, we must remain calm and clearly assess the events taking place in the East Sea in order to take appropriate actions."

Literature exam

With the above text, candidates are asked to state the main idea and identify the language style of the text. In addition, they are also asked to write a short paragraph expressing their attitude about the above event.

In the writing section (7 points), candidates analyze the aspirations of the character Hon Truong Ba in an excerpt, thereby expressing their thoughts on the issue of people needing to live as themselves.

The hot and humid weather somewhat made the candidates’ faces less cheerful when leaving the first exam room. The candidates who were asked all said that this year’s Literature exam did not cause any surprises or puzzles. However, despite having thoroughly reviewed and prepared mentally, many candidates still said that the graduation exam was not as “easy” as expected.

Nguyen Huu Trung (Tran Phu High School) said that for the reading comprehension part, he completed a whole page of the test, emphasizing that China's actions in placing the Haiyang 981 oil rig were illegal. He also expressed his thoughts on the situation, saying that every citizen should show patriotism at the right time and place, and should not be too extreme. However, Trung did not do well in the second part of the test and expected to only get enough points to pass.

Phuong Nhi (Tran Phu High School) was one of the first candidates to leave the exam room. She said she did well on the test but did not expect a high score.

“I did quite well. Because I regularly follow the press and pay attention to this event, I had no difficulty doing the test,” shared Vu Duy Vuong (taking the test at Hoan Kiem Secondary School Examination Council). Although the questions on this year’s test all used the knowledge I had learned, Vuong thought he would only get above 5 points.

Vuong commented that the invigilation in the exam room was very strict, causing students in his exam room to "only be able to focus on doing the test."

According to NDĐT