The top student in Nghe An is a male student specializing in Chemistry, but he still easily scored a perfect 10 in Mathematics.

Finishing… smoothly

The small house of the top-scoring student in the 2025 high school graduation exam in Nghe An province, located in Kim Lien commune, was as quiet as usual on the morning of July 16th. Although the results were announced at 8 am, her father, who works at the Nam Dan Vocational Training and Continuing Education Center, didn't return home until nearly 11 am, overjoyed to hear the news of his daughter's high score. Her mother, a literature teacher at a secondary school, was still busy with work and only managed to congratulate her daughter over the phone.

At home, Thinh and his older brother – a student at a university in Hanoi – were cleaning the house and preparing lunch for the whole family. Sharing about his recent exam results, Thinh said: "Right after the exam, I calculated my exact score. However, I was a little surprised to be the top scorer in Nghe An province and the second-highest scorer nationwide. Moreover, I'm very happy that I got 9.25 in Literature because it's not my strong point."

Le Nguyen Thinh is a chemistry major student.Phan Boi Chau Specialized High School.However, in this year's high school graduation exam, I achieved a perfect score of 10 in Mathematics. In the other two subjects, Physics and Chemistry, I scored 9.75 points each.

Despite achieving very high scores, Thinh said he regretted not taking Physics and Chemistry because this year's exam was quite easy, and he only took a little over 15 minutes to complete it: "I had more than half the time to review my answers and read them three times. However, I still made mistakes on one Physics question in the theory section and one Chemistry question in the simple problem section, both within my capabilities. Perhaps, at the beginning, I was afraid the exam would be long, so I tried to quickly answer the simple questions and was overconfident with the easy ones."

Regarding the Math exam, although this year's exam was considered difficult, Le Nguyen Thinh said that the questions had good differentiation and that students who studied carefully could do well. "I finished the Math exam in 60 minutes and only encountered a few difficulties with the probability-based differentiation question. Actually, I had seen this question before when studying at home, but I didn't attempt it then because I was focusing on other advanced problems. After the exam, I felt a little regretful but not too worried because as long as you read the questions carefully and understand the rules, you can complete the exercises," Thinh said.

'If you lose this round, try again next time.'

Le Nguyen Thinh is a former student of Dang Chanh Ky Junior High School. In 9th grade, he won second prize in Chemistry at the provincial level and was among the top 13 students admitted to the specialized Chemistry class at Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted.

With the dream of joining the national team, Thinh dedicated most of his time to Chemistry during his first two years of high school. This year, he won first prize in Chemistry at the provincial-level excellent student competition. However, he missed out on the national team, ranking 11th out of the 10 selected students. Despite feeling disappointed, Thinh didn't allow himself to be sad for long, as the high school graduation exam and university entrance exam were just around the corner.

Sharing about his preparation for the exam, Thinh said that he initially faced difficulties because his studies in Math, Physics, and Literature had been interrupted for quite a long time. To catch up with the curriculum, Thinh had to reorganize his studies, with the most important thing being mastering the knowledge in the textbooks. During the final push, Thinh said he was lucky because even though he didn't enroll in extra classes, he still received a lot of support from his teachers at school through free afternoon review sessions. He spent the rest of his time studying on his own to improve his test-taking skills.

Before the graduation exam, Thinh and his classmates had a lot of practice in mock exams organized by the school and the Department of Education and Training. He even came first once, and in the top 10 in all the others.

Regarding the high school graduation exam, this male student shared that he aims to be among the top-scoring students commended by the Provincial People's Committee. Therefore, despite being far from home and living alone in rented accommodation, he has created a fairly strict schedule for himself. Thinh himself enjoys playing games and using social media, but he has voluntarily "quit" using his phone and set up notifications to limit his internet usage time so as not to get engrossed in games and to dedicate time to studying.

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Nguyen Thinh is an intelligent, well-behaved, diligent, meticulous, and highly determined student. He is also always disciplined and follows his teachers' instructions in his studies.

Before graduating, Thinh was a member of the Chemistry team that competed in the National Excellent Student Competition; he won a Gold medal in the 2023-2024 Natural Science Olympiad. In 12th grade, he won first prize in Chemistry at the provincial level and repeatedly ranked in the top 10 at both the school and provincial levels in the graduation mock exams, so his teachers had high hopes and confidence in his achievements.

Teacher Phan Thieu Hoa - Homeroom teacher of class 12A4 - Phan Boi Chau Specialized High School

During his studies, besides his teachers at school, this male student shared that he was greatly influenced by his parents – his first two teachers. Mr. Le Truong Son – Thinh's father – also said: "I don't put pressure on my children to achieve high grades, but I always encourage them to try their best and set their own goals. From a young age, I also encouraged them to study in a way that develops their thinking skills, so they are very proactive in their studies. With this result, besides my son's efforts, I also thank the teachers and the school for imparting knowledge, nurturing dreams, and accompanying them to have a successful exam season."

Besides being the top scorer in Nghe An province, Le Nguyen Thinh is also the second-highest scorer nationwide in this year's exam and is among the top 3 candidates with the highest scores in Block A in the country. He has now registered for the talent-based admissions program at the University of Technology and hopes that with these exam scores he will be admitted to his favorite Computer Science major.