The structure of the 2025 high school graduation exam limits 'random circling' and 'guessing'

2025 is the first year that the High School Graduation Exam is organized according to the 2018 General Education Program with 4 subjects, including 2 compulsory subjects: Math, Literature and 2 elective subjects to be chosen from 9 subjects including Foreign Language, History, Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economic and Legal Education, Information Technology, Technology.

In these exams, Literature will be tested in the form of essays on paper, other subjects will be tested in the form of objective multiple choice questions on paper.

Regarding the sample exam according to the new exam plan in 2025, many teachers in Nghe An expressed their agreement.

Teacher Tran Thi Thuy - Math teacher - Nam Dan 2 High School: It's not easy to get full marks in Math

After receiving the sample test from the Ministry of Education and Training, our school teachers promptly grasped, researched and realized that the sample test for Math of the new program had many changes compared to the old program.

The highlight is that in the sample test, there are 3 types of questions instead of just 1 type of question like before. With type 1, multiple choice test, I find it quite similar to the old program's questions. The new point is in the 2nd and 3rd multiple choice question methods. With type 2, true or false test, I think that to do well, students need to have the ability, basic knowledge and necessary skills to get the maximum score. Therefore, it limits students from learning tricks and guessing.

For type 3, the short answer multiple choice question format is an essay question format. For this format, students must have the ability and knowledge to answer the questions. Although this part does not evaluate the student's presentation ability in the essay, it helps students not to randomly circle answers or guess with high-level application exercises. This is also a new point in this part of the test.

In general, the sample test of the 2025 High School Graduation Exam has the ability to classify and evaluate the ability and thinking level of each student. With this test, the graduation exam scores can be used by universities as a basis for comments and evaluation of students' admission to universities. Currently, to approach this test, our school's professional team and Math team have held meetings, analyzed, evaluated and assigned teachers in the team to approach and create the test. We expect to apply it in the orientation of the upcoming mid-term and final assessment exams for the second semester. In addition, during class hours, we also interweave questions to approach the new direction of the test.

Teacher Nguyen Van Tien - Physics teacher - Do Luong 1 High School: The exam questions approach the general trend of countries around the world.

In my opinion, the 2025 graduation illustration exam has approached the general trend of exam questions in advanced countries in the world, and reflects the spirit and goals of the 2018 General Education Program of the Ministry of Education and Training. For Physics alone, the exam has been designed in the direction of developing capacity and thinking, mainly focusing on testing students' ability to apply it in practice. The exam consists of 3 parts:

Part 1: includes 18 familiar multiple-choice questions that students have encountered and practiced a lot during their studies and assessment at school.

Part 2: includes 4 true or false questions. Each question will have 4 ideas and each idea must be chosen true or false. This method will assess many different levels of students, requiring them to have comprehensive knowledge and ability to determine to do well.

Part 3: includes 4 short answer questions that are structured almost like an essay. Students are not given pre-set choices or answers, but must think for themselves and come up with the final answer.

Both types of questions in part 2 and 3 will avoid the situation of "random circling" and "tricks" to help promote the thinking and application capacity of students. Developing thinking and practical application capacity is also the right and long-term goal of the 2018 General Education Program.

After the sample test, at Do Luong 1 High School, the approach has been initially implemented in the exam to select excellent students at the school level for grade 11 in Physics. In my personal opinion, to do the graduation exam according to the new program, students need to study more practically and closely follow the Ministry's education program and the teachers' instructions to complete their exam well.

Teacher Nguyen Minh Chien - Geography teacher - Kim Lien High School: The Geography exam has many new and strange points.

Compared to the current Geography high school graduation exam, the illustrative high school graduation exam from 2025 has some new points. Specifically, the number of questions includes 28 questions with 40 questions and the test time is still 50 minutes.

There have also been many changes in the question format and scoring. In terms of question format, in format 1 - Multiple choice questions, (this format has been applied for many years in Vietnam). In particular, Geography has been tested in this format since 2016. In the illustrative test part I - Multiple choice questions, there are 18 questions, with a score of 4.5/10 points.

In form 2 - True/False multiple choice questions, each question has 4 ideas, candidates must answer True/False for each idea of ​​the question. This form requires candidates to have comprehensive capacity, knowledge and skills to achieve maximum score, limiting the use of "tricks" to choose answers from noisy options like the multiple choice test form. The probability of randomly scoring the maximum score is 1/16, 4 times smaller than the current multiple choice test form. In part II - true/false multiple choice test, there are 16 questions, each question has 4 ideas, with a score of 4.0/10 points.

In form 3 - Short answer multiple choice questions. This form is similar to the essay question form, assessed through the final result that the candidate must fill in the answer sheet. This form requires candidates to have solid capacity, knowledge and skills, limiting the use of "tricks" to choose answers from confusing options like in the multiple choice test form. In Part III - multiple choice test requires short answers including 6 questions with 1.5/10 points.

Regarding the thinking level, in my opinion, the structure of the exam format is oriented towards assessing capacity, in accordance with the 2018 General Education Program and the capacity - thinking level is shown as follows: With 21 questions with Geography cognitive content accounting for 52.50%, 10 questions on Geography understanding accounting for 25%, there are 9 questions requiring the application of knowledge and skills learned, accounting for 22.50%.

Some questions in the Geography sample exam are closely related to production life and natural practices. Focus on differentiating, assessing, and classifying candidates' abilities.

The new and strange point in the exam is that there are no questions on the candidates' Atlas and chart skills. These are very necessary skills in Geography.

Through the practice of teaching the new General Education Program, I personally find it appropriate and agree with the design of the Geography exam according to the orientation of assessing capacity, while improving the ability to classify candidates.

In the coming time, departments need to train on how to create questions and create a rich question bank for teachers to refer to or use. High schools need to urgently apply the Ministry of Education and Training's sample questions to periodic tests and quality surveys so that students can get familiar with the new question structure and question types. Innovation in teaching methods must come before innovation in testing and assessment to bring about high quality and results. /.

My Ha