Mistakes that can easily "unfairly" cost you points in Literature

Regarding Literature, Ms. Pham Thi Hoang Lan, a teacher at Dich Vong Hau Secondary School (Hanoi) pointed out some common mistakes students make when practicing and taking exams.

For the reading comprehension section: Students often skim the questions, skip keywords, forget to underline key words, and incorrectly identify the requirements of the question. For example, the question asks: "Identify the main method of expression (PTBĐ) of the text". If students do not read carefully, they may get confused and list all the PTBĐs in the text.

For the writing part: Question 1 (literary argumentative paragraph), students may make mistakes in developing paragraphs because they do not have a firm grasp of paragraph writing skills or write instinctively, cannot distinguish the types of essays, and write whatever comes to mind.

In question 2, students still confuse different types of social argumentation, lack practical knowledge when writing, and have limited evidence.

With the exam structure according to the 2018 general education program, the most important thing for students to do well on the exam is to consolidate knowledge and practice skills. When they have good skills, they can solve questions and requirements with completely new materials.

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Mastering strategies and knowledge for the 10th grade exam helps students achieve good exam results. Photo: PV Group

According to Ms. Lan, to overcome common errors in the reading comprehension section, students need to read the questions carefully, underline the keywords in the questions to identify the correct requirements... Students should practice answering different types of questions (reading comprehension questions about poems, stories...) to avoid being off track/missing ideas.

For example: With the question of identifying reduplicated words in a poem and stating the function of those reduplicated words, students not only need to identify reduplicated words, but also need to state the general functions, evocative functions, emotional functions... of those reduplicated words.

In the writing section: With literary essays about poetry and paragraphs, students need to know how to express their feelings about a poem/paragraph; a paragraph about feelings about a character or an image.

For social argumentative essays, you need to grasp the outline of each type of essay, learn about life by watching/listening to news, current events; reading books, newspapers... to gain understanding of reality.

Need to understand the structure and try the new type of English test

Regarding English, Ms. Bui Ngoc Ha, English teacher at Thai Thinh Secondary School (Hanoi) pointed out some things to keep in mind during the review process.

First, students need to carefully study the exam structure and get familiar with the new types of questions. Students can refer to the capacity and thinking level table of the illustrative exam for admission to grade 10 of high school according to the 2018 general education program and try the English exam to understand the structure (including the number of questions, types of questions and time to complete the test).

Students should review all the grammar content they have learned such as verb tenses, compound sentences, complex sentences, conditional sentences, and wishful thinking sentences. For vocabulary, students can study by topic. They should learn aspects related to words including word types (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), Vietnamese meanings, pronunciation (very useful when doing pronunciation and stress exercises), word structure, synonyms, antonyms, and word-related structures. Learning vocabulary well plays a very important role in successfully doing the English test.

In addition, it is important to focus on practicing reading comprehension and writing skills. Students need to practice reading for main ideas and reading for details, writing a presentation paragraph, or when telling a story, pay attention to the grammatical and semantic connections in the text.

Test-taking skills also need to be practiced: Regularly take practice tests with time limits to get used to time pressure and improve test-taking speed. After each practice test, you should self-evaluate the results, identify strengths and weaknesses to adjust your review method.

According to Ms. Bui Ngoc Ha, reviewing for the new exam format requires quick updating and adaptation. With a scientific review plan and determination, 9th grade students can absolutely achieve high results in the upcoming 10th grade English exam.

Regarding the review plan for final year students, a representative of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training said that schools continue to implement synchronous solutions to implement the 2018 general education program to ensure quality. Schools prioritize appropriate assignments for final year teachers to have maximum time to support students in reviewing for the 10th grade entrance exam and high school graduation exam.

The Hanoi Department of Education and Training recommends that schools review and classify students' levels to have plans to organize review and training as well as create conditions for students to study in groups; good and excellent students should support students who have difficulty in studying to supplement basic knowledge and skills.