New regulations on how priority points are calculated.

The Ministry of Education and Training has issued regulations on the official calculation of priority points for schools and majors that apply a weighting factor to the main exam subjects according to the new regulations for this year's admissions process.

On the afternoon of August 9th, the Ministry of Education and Training announced the conclusions of the Council for determining the criteria for ensuring the quality of entrance examination scores for regular university and college programs in 2014. These conclusions include the method for calculating priority points for schools and majors that apply a weighting factor to the main examination subjects according to the new regulations of this year's exam.

According to this regulation, for schools and majors that have announced the main examination subjects: Determine and publicly announce the basic admission score and the admission score taking into account the weighting factor of 2 of the main subject as stipulated in Official Letter No. 2241/BGDĐT-KTKĐCLGD dated May 5, 2014, on guiding the determination of criteria for ensuring the quality of input. Priority points are determined according to the formula:

In this system, DTT is the actual priority score; DQc is the priority score determined according to regulations (the average score is rounded to two decimal places).

This regulation is a way to ensure fairness for candidates.

Mr. Tran Van Nghia, Deputy Director of the Department of Examination and Quality Assurance of Education, Ministry of Education and Training, explained the calculation method: “For example, a candidate taking the A-block exam, entitled to a 3-point priority, has a score of 5 in Math, 3 in Chemistry, and 4 in Biology. The school chooses a basic admission score of 15. If no main subject is specified, the student will receive a total of 15 points (5 + 3 + 4 + 3 priority points), equal to the basic admission score.”

However, if Biology is designated as a core subject, then the basic admission score for the school, with the core subject weighted, would be: 15 x 4/3 = 20.

If the candidate's priority points are not multiplied by a coefficient, their total score, including the coefficient for the main subject, would be 5 + 3 + 8 + 3 (priority points) = 19.

Therefore, if the priority coefficient is not applied, after applying the coefficient to the main subject, the candidate will have a result below the basic admission score.

Meanwhile, if we multiply the priority points by a coefficient, the candidate's score would be: 5 + 3 + 8 + 3 x 4/3 = 20. This score is exactly equal to the basic admission score, taking into account the coefficient of the main subject.

Therefore, if priority points are not multiplied by a coefficient, in some cases candidates will be at a disadvantage when applying to majors that require a specific main exam subject.

Mr. Nghia noted that the Ministry had considered the case where the candidate's score in the main subject equals the average score of the three subjects to eliminate the influence of the main subject's result. According to the calculations, if the main subject score equals the average score, then any method of evaluation will yield the same result.

Conversely, if the score in the main subject is higher than the average of the three subjects, the candidate will have an advantage – meaning that without considering the main subject, the exam score would be below the minimum threshold, but including the main subject would put it above it.

Conversely, if the score in the core subject is low, it's possible that the overall exam result might be above the minimum passing mark when the core subject's weighting isn't considered, but below it when the core subject's weighting is applied.

The list of majors and schools that have announced their main exam subjects is included in the attached file.

According to Vietnam.net