Very few candidates will score 9 points or more.
According to teacher Le Thi Thu Huong, English teacher at Huynh Thuc Khang High School (Vinh City, Nghe An ), most of her students complained that the English test for the 2025 high school graduation exam was too difficult and too long.
Candidates taking the 2025 high school graduation exam at the exam site of Trung Vuong Secondary School, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi
PHOTO: TUAN MINH
Ms. Huong shared: "The students said that it was very difficult to complete this year's English exam in 50 minutes. There were many new words in the exam. In addition, the exam was presented in a font format other than the usual Times New Roman, and the letters were very close together, making it difficult to read. Some students even said that this was an "anti-university exam" exam! Most of my students are confident in English, so they chose to take this exam."
After sitting down to do each question of test number 1128, Ms. Huong realized why students complained like that even though overall the test was not too difficult.
Ms. Huong analyzed: "The most difficult part of the exam is mainly the reading passage with 10 questions (from question 26 to question 35). This passage is both long and has many new words. Among the 10 accompanying questions, there is a very annoying question. This question requires candidates to fill in words in appropriate positions in the paragraph. Up to now (including the sample questions of the Ministry of Education and Training as well as the questions of high schools), similar questions are usually with a paragraph of 6 - 8 lines. But in the graduation exam, this question is asked on a very long paragraph (22 lines - PV), candidates have to spend a lot of time reading and understanding, to do the test".
According to Ms. Huong, in terms of difficulty, the test focuses on one passage with about 10 questions out of 40. The remaining questions also have many difficult questions, but the good thing is that they can be deduced. If candidates can find the logic of the question, they can deduce to get the correct answer.
However, one of Ms. Huong's best students (who won third prize in the provincial English competition) said that he only dared to hope for a score of 9. The other students, those who did very well, only hoped for an 8.5, the rest were only at 7 to 8. "In my opinion, this exam will have a common score of 6 to 7.5. There will not be many students with low scores, because this year, students who are weak in English will not choose to take the English exam. There are not many scores of 9 and 10," Ms. Huong said.
Candidates do not have enough time to think.
According to Ms. Huong, overall, this year's English exam was not too difficult. But even good students said it was difficult. So where is the problem?
Ms. Huong continued to analyze: "Last year's test had 50 questions to be done in 60 minutes, an average of 1.2 minutes/question. This year's test has 40 questions to be done in 50 minutes, an average of 1.25 minutes/question. It seems like candidates have an advantage in terms of time. But last year's test had many independent, single questions, and each question could be answered right away (because it was not related to another question). But this year's test is structured in clusters of questions, one question is related to another, and related to the entire text, so candidates need more time to answer the questions."
Ms. Huong said: "I imagine it like this, at first when students see a long test paper with dense text, they are "shocked". Then when they read the text and see that there are some difficult questions, many new words, while they only have 50 minutes to do the test, many students continue to panic. If they stay calm, and importantly, they have time to apply their reasoning and logical analysis skills, they will be able to do the test. But the reality is that they do not have enough time to do it. For students, once they do not have enough time to think, and have to do it blindly, it means that the test paper is difficult".
Mr. Pham Gia Bao, an IELTS test prep teacher in Hoan Kiem District (Hanoi), also said that this year's English test was really "difficult" even for students with an English level of 7.0 IELTS. The change in the direction of the Ministry of Education and Training's test (previously focused on testing grammar and vocabulary, this year focused on testing reading comprehension skills) is a good direction. However, the difficulty of the reading comprehension test was pushed up a bit too much, causing difficulties for candidates.
On the other hand, the question asks candidates to rearrange the paragraph into a logical story. But what is logical is another question. Is it logical according to the logic of the writer of the paragraph, or is it logical according to the reader's perception? Many times, candidates arrange the paragraph differently from the original paragraph, but the story is still logical according to their perspective. Meanwhile, readers still accept the logic of both the original paragraph and its version (the candidate's answer).
It is known that, according to the requirements of the Ministry of Education and Training, high school graduates must have English proficiency at level B1. But Mr. Bao said: "The reading passage has very good content but is really difficult, requiring candidates to have a "hard" B2 level, even up to the top of C1 (according to the 6-level foreign language proficiency framework for Vietnamese students prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training), meaning around 6.5 - 7.0 IELTS to be able to do it".
Source: https://thanhnien.vn/vi-sao-de-thi-tieng-anh-bi-than-la-de-chong-do-dai-hoc-185250627144714819.htm
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