Why did Hanoi's 12th grade exam scores drop sharply?

The appearance of new exam formats such as true/false multiple choice questions, short answer multiple choice questions, practical questions, and new scoring methods are believed to be the main reasons for the sharp decrease in Hanoi's 11th and 12th grade exam scores compared to last year.

The exam requires thinking and the exam results accurately assess students' abilities, according to many teachers and students. Accordingly, schools also requested the Ministry of Education and Training to pay attention to the fact that this year's exam has increased in difficulty compared to previous years in order to ensure fairness in the admission process for candidates.

Easy to lose points with true/false tests

Evaluating the exam, Mr. Doan Minh Chau, Principal of Xuan Phuong High School, said that this year's exam had a very high level of differentiation, especially in the form of true/false multiple choice questions and short answer multiple choice questions.

With true/false multiple choice questions, each question will have 4 options, for each option, the candidate must choose true or false. Students who answer 1 option correctly will get 0.1 point; the second option correctly will get 0.25 point; 3 options correctly will get half a point; all 4 options correctly will get 1 point.

“Only good and excellent students can get the maximum score, so students lose a lot of points in this section. The multiple choice questions with short answers are also very difficult,” said Mr. Chau.

Achieving 7 points in all three subjects, Tran Tien Long, class 12A4, Xuan Phuong High School, said that the way the points are calculated in the progressive scoring of true/false questions makes it easy for candidates to lose points and they have to be careful. Sharing the same opinion, Nguyen Manh Khang, class 12D3 student, Tan Lap High School, said: "Just one wrong answer will cost you 0.5 points, so if your knowledge is not solid, you can easily drop from 8 points to 4-5 points and this is the part where you lose the most points."

According to Khang, another difficult point is in the Literature subject when the material is completely new. “In the past, students only needed to memorize and take the test, but now they have to take the test with new material, and have to think to do the test, so it is confusing,” Khang said.

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Binh, Principal of Luong The Vinh Secondary and High School, also said that one of the reasons why the survey results were not as expected was that 12th graders studied 3 years of high school according to the new 2018 general education program, but 9 years in primary and secondary school still studied the old program, so they still had old ways of learning and thinking and had limitations when taking exams that required assessment of capacity.

According to Mr. Ly Duc Kim, Principal of Tan Lap High School, this is the first time taking the exam according to the new program with new types of questions, so not only students but also schools and teachers do not have much experience in organizing review according to the new exam method. Although schools have planned to study and review since the beginning of the year, have studied the sample exam matrix of the Ministry of Education and Training and have familiarized students with the tests and semester exams, they still need to practice more.

Reflects student ability

Xuan Phuong High School ranked 72nd out of more than 200 educational institutions in Hanoi that participated in the survey. Mr. Doan Minh Chau, Principal of Xuan Phuong High School, said that with the average input level of the city, this survey result accurately assessed the school's students' abilities.

This year's exam has a high level of differentiation, with completely new exam formats, tested according to the new general education program with new requirements aimed at assessing students' abilities, while the application of Circular 29 on extra teaching and learning, which includes the regulation that students can only review 2 periods per week, is less than in previous years.

According to Mr. Chau, with these exam results, universities can completely rest assured to use them for admission.

This is also the opinion of Professor Nguyen Dinh Duc, Chairman of the Council of the University of Technology, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Mr. Duc said that the results of the survey exam in Hanoi have correctly assessed the students' abilities, showing that the differentiation in the exam has met the requirements very well, meeting the differentiation requirements for university admission.

Also according to Professor Nguyen Dinh Duc, this year, the Ministry of Education and Training requires that scores from other admission methods, exams such as the SAT, and competency assessment exams must be converted to the same scale as the High School Graduation Exam, while these are much more difficult exams.

“This makes us very concerned, but with good differentiation like Hanoi's survey exam, we are more confident in selecting candidates and ensuring more fairness for candidates between the methods,” said Professor Nguyen Dinh Duc.

Score conversion is also a concern of Mr. Doan Minh Chau, Principal of Xuan Phuong High School. Mr. Chau believes that with more difficult test questions and higher differentiation as clearly shown in the Hanoi survey exam, it is very difficult for students to get 9 and 10 points. It is predicted that this year's High School Graduation Exam will no longer have the phenomenon of "raining" 9 and 10 points like the high school graduation exams of previous years.

"Therefore, the conversion of scores must be calculated to minimize disadvantages for candidates, especially for candidates who only use their graduation exam results for university admission," said Mr. Chau.

Source: VNP

Source: https://phunuvietnam.vn/vi-sao-diem-khao-sat-lop-12-cua-ha-noi-giam-manh-20250413111905332.htm