The exam questions are no longer 'familiar': What should students do to solve the new Literature questions?

Ms. Pham Thi Phuong Nhung, a Literature teacher at Kim Lien High School (Hanoi), said that this year's high school graduation exam is a special year because it is the first time students will take the exam under the new curriculum. Students are worried that the exam questions may not use materials from textbooks, requiring students to have test-taking skills.

Right from the beginning of the school year, the Literature Department of Kim Lien High School has built a framework for teaching and reviewing the curriculum for students early so that they can get acquainted with and practice the types of questions, and grasp the characteristics of the types of questions. After the Ministry of Education and Training had sample questions, the professional department also proceeded to build sample sets of questions according to the Ministry's format for students of all classes to review together.

Students of Kim Lien High School (Hanoi), one of the schools with top high school graduation exam results in Hanoi and the whole country every year.

In the first year of taking the exam according to the new program, students are inevitably worried and to support students as much as possible, teachers also continuously discuss expertise, share experiences, and new types of questions for students to try and correct their work. When students practice a lot, they gradually get used to the new method and are not passive or unfamiliar when encountering difficult situations.

According to Ms. Phuong Nhung, the results of the quality survey of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training will be the basis for teachers to adjust teaching methods and classify students to continue to have support solutions. In particular, students at the good level will be motivated to achieve the best test scores and students with less than desired scores will also be supplemented to confidently enter the graduation exam.

With the new way of setting questions, it is possible to completely not use the language in textbooks as it is now, Ms. Nhung advises students on how to do the test to avoid losing points. First, students must have a firm grasp of the characteristics of the genre and test-taking skills. In addition, they also need to practice the skill of expressing themselves concisely and accurately, and to the point, avoiding rambling and long-windedness.

“The new program changes the teaching method, questions, and assessment methods. "Review literature, practice martial arts", so from now until the exam, in addition to mastering the basic knowledge of the genre's characteristics, students need to practice many questions, increase the opportunity to rub against each other, study the lesson and the teacher will correct them so that they will be confident in responding to the situations in the questions", said Ms. Pham Thi Phuong Nhung.

Practice analyzing questions

Ms. Pham Thi Thu, a Literature teacher for grade 12 at Kim Lien High School, shared that the school is fortunate that the admission scores for grade 10 are high, so the students have good abilities. However, to best develop each student's abilities, teachers often divide them into 3 groups: excellent, good and average to guide and support them to achieve the expected scores.

By grade 12, students have clear and different orientations. For example, some students only need to pass the graduation exam to be able to study abroad, so the level of requirements is only at the basic level, but there are also students who choose Literature as an admission test for related majors, the requirements are set at a higher level. Teachers will have a classification, orientation and set requirements for students according to the goals.

According to Ms. Thu, the Literature exam under the new program requires students to have literary ability based on their solid knowledge foundation. At this time, even if students have low scores, they should not lose confidence because there are still more than 2 months until the exam, so they should focus on reviewing "last minute" to have a solid foundation of knowledge.

In addition, when holding the topic in hand, the first and most important thing is that students must have the skills to read and analyze the topic, in which note the command statement that sets out which requirements need to be underlined to have a direction for implementation. To identify the problem correctly, students must have the knowledge to analyze, evaluate, then expand and apply, and relate to reality. In the writing section, students are required to grasp writing skills to ensure requirements on content, form, and writing style with tight arguments, and clean writing.

Regarding study methods, Ms. Thu said that before the exam, students need to review all knowledge from grades 10 to 12, focusing mainly on the knowledge in grade 12.

In addition, students also need to practice question types and exam formats to be able to approach and not be surprised by the ways of asking. Regardless of the direction of the questions in the exam, they all revolve around basic knowledge, then expand and improve. Therefore, when mastering the knowledge in textbooks, students also need to spend time reading more information and knowledge about current events, society, new and hot issues to be able to incorporate them into enriching their writing. With that way, the writing both demonstrates literary ability and brings a lively breath of life.

During the teaching and grading process, Ms. Thu pointed out that students often make mistakes and lose points due to incorrect analysis of the test requirements.

“Some students have not analyzed the topic clearly, have not grasped the requirements of form and content, so they read quickly and do it based on their feelings. Therefore, their writing lacks ideas, or is even incorrect,” said Ms. Thu.

Before each exam, she often advises students to keep a relaxed mind and prepare themselves for good health. Because at this final stage, sometimes students are too stressed or study too hard, not paying attention to their health when entering the exam room, they will be exhausted or lose alertness, and do the exam ineffectively.

With the new program, the Ministry of Education and Training hopes that the innovation in teaching and learning methods of Literature will help students develop their initiative and creativity and ensure fairness for students. There will no longer be the situation where students memorize and copy exactly and still get high scores like in previous years.

After 3 years of teaching under the new program, Literature teachers assessed that students have changed greatly. The first thing that was noted was that students could approach, feel and analyze new, previously unknown works.

Second, learning according to the new program does not create students who write according to a formula. In the past, when grading papers, teachers encountered many similar sample essays, but now the writings are diverse, each student has a different writing style and arguments, very lively.

According to Literature teachers at Kim Lien High School, in reality, not all students love Literature. One of the difficulties and challenges for students is to determine the orientation and output goals for the subject, which reflects their attitude and the level of investment of time and effort.

In addition, the transformation of teachers and students when learning the new program is also very important, otherwise it will still be "old wine in new bottles", new books, old learning methods will not be effective. Teachers who are dedicated, innovative and students who are passionate and love the subject will be more favorable.

The 2025 high school graduation exam is the first year that students will take the exam according to the 2018 general education program. The results of a survey of 12th grade students in Hanoi right before the exam showed that the Literature subject fell into an alarming state when nearly 40,000 Literature exams achieved below average scores (below 5 points).

Of these, 58 exams scored 0 points; nearly 4,600 exams scored below 2 points; 6,800 exams scored 2-3 points. The Hanoi Department of Education and Training warned of the risk of failing graduation for students whose exams scored below 3 points.

Ha Linh

Source: https://tienphong.vn/de-thi-khong-con-quen-mat-hoc-sinh-can-lam-gi-de-hoa-giai-de-ngu-van-moi-post1732822.tpo