Will build the 10th grade combination exam matrix in December 2017

(Baonghean) - As reported, the People's Committee of Nghe An province has just announced the decision to implement a combined test in the 10th grade entrance exam; accordingly, in next year's exam, students will have to take 5 subjects, instead of 3 subjects as before.

According to Decision No. 4345 dated September 22, 2017 of the Provincial People's Committee on "Approval of the plan for admission to grade 10 high school in Nghe An province for the 2018-2019 school year", the entrance exam to grade 10 will be organized in the form of an entrance exam and selection with 3 subjects. In which, in addition to the 2 subjects of Literature and Math, which are still essay-based as in previous years, the 3rd subject will be multiple-choice.

In particular, if in previous years, the third exam only included one subject, this year it will be a combined exam with three components: Foreign Language, one subject in the field of Natural Sciences and one subject in the field of Social Sciences.

According to the plan, the combined exam subjects will be decided by the Director of the Department of Education and Training and announced in early April 2018. The subjects of the combined exam will be randomly selected, including one of three subjects: Physics, Chemistry, Biology (under Natural Sciences) and History, Geography, Civic Education (under Social Sciences).

Candidates taking the 2017 Grade 10 Entrance Exam. Photo: My Ha

Thus, with this format, the entrance exam for grade 10 in Nghe An next year will be organized similar to the National High School Exam. The difference is that, in the National High School Exam, the combined exam will be graded separately for each subject, while the entrance exam for grade 10 will be arranged into a complete exam, graded with a unified score for the entire exam.

Previously, according to Mr. Nguyen Trong Hoan - Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training: The implementation of the combined test is not "temporary" but has been prepared for 3 years. The main purpose is to implement the innovation trend of integrated teaching, towards comprehensive education for students, avoiding biased learning and rote learning. On the part of the Department of Education and Training, before submitting to the Provincial People's Committee for official approval, meetings and discussions were held to seek opinions from schools and the Department of Education and Training.

The representative of the Department of Education and Training also said: Since this is the first year of implementing the combined exam, immediately after the policy was approved, the Department of Education and Training assigned specific responsibilities to the departments and divisions of the department, implementing the province's decision. In particular, it is required to soon issue directive documents, implement communication work and plan teaching and learning according to the new exam method. At the same time, draft multiple choice questions, build a question bank and soon release the exam matrix before December 2017.

According to regulations, the combined exam will be given a coefficient score of 1 to consider admission to the 2018-2019 public 10th grade entrance exam. Therefore, the biggest concern of parents and students when implementing the new exam format will be the impact on the entrance score. Regarding this issue, teacher Cao Thanh Bao - Principal of Huynh Thuc Khang High School, said: As a parent with a child studying in grade 9, I think the parents' concerns are well-founded. However, if analyzed thoroughly, the combined exam will have certain advantages.

Specifically, if before, with the form of randomly selecting the third exam subject, students would not know the exam subject until mid-May, causing the review to be rushed. On the contrary, with this new form, students are at least sure of one subject, which is Foreign Language (with a total of 20/50 questions of the combined exam).

For the remaining two subjects, students usually have an inclination towards one subject, so if they prepare carefully, they will have an advantage of 70% (35/50 questions). For the remaining 30% of the combined exam, if they work hard, they will not encounter many difficulties and the opportunity to get a high score is not difficult.

The important thing is to make the exam questions classify students. In fact, in the National High School Exam, with two purposes of "graduation and admission to universities and colleges", the pressure on the graduation "rate" is quite large and it is easy to understand why in the first year of implementation, the situation of "raining 10 points" suddenly occurred.

However, in the 10th grade entrance exam, the main goal is to select students for public schools, so classification is necessary. To do this, according to the opinion of teacher Nguyen Thi Dieu Huong - Vice Principal of Hung Binh Secondary School (Vinh City), "At present, the combination exam is correct and students will gradually get used to the new exam method. But we should not put too much pressure on students. The questions should not be difficult, but easy because it is already difficult for students to fully understand the knowledge in the textbooks.

Candidates from Thai Hoa town attend the 10th grade entrance exam. Photo: My Ha

As for classification, there can be “tricks” because students are often subjective, only focusing on difficult lessons and ignoring simple knowledge. In my opinion, to have a good test, the person who creates the test must be someone who is close to the teaching process, practicing and practicing a lot with students, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of students, where students often get stuck, through which they can classify students.

With the same spirit, the Provincial People's Committee directed that in the entrance exam for grade 10, "the content of the exam questions must be within the scope of the secondary school curriculum issued by the Ministry of Education and Training, mainly within the grade 9 curriculum. The exam questions must be accurate, clear, error-free, differentiate the students' levels, and be suitable for the prescribed time for each subject."

The current difficulty is that there are not many reference materials, teachers are passive in building test banks because there is no precedent, especially with multiple choice tests. The biggest wish now is that the Department of Education and Training soon issue specific regulations and provide professional support, publish test banks and test matrices so that teaching and learning in schools can be highly effective./.

My Ha