High school exam is too difficult: Candidates "couldn't handle it", parents worried

(NLDO) - The 2025 high school graduation exam has ended, this should be a time to relax, but many candidates are immersed in anxiety and disappointment.

In social media groups, there are many posts defending and reassuring the candidates. They are educators , teachers, and parents whose children are candidates in this year’s high school graduation exam.

Is the high school graduation exam "easy" for candidates?

In 2025, the high school graduation exam will have many new features, especially this is the first year to organize the exam according to the 2018 General Education Program. The generation of students born in 2007 is the first group of candidates to "test" this program.

At the end of the exam, many students were filled with anxiety. They thought that the difficulty level between the previous practice test and the real test was so different that they "couldn't handle it in time".

Of all the subjects, the math and English exams are receiving the most mixed opinions.

Many opinions say that the math and English exams are too difficult, not suitable for the high school graduation exam.

Parent Dang Thi Ninh expressed: "My child went to school during the most difficult years: the pandemic, online learning, education reform without extra classes. From then on, my child's studies got much worse, but he did not give up. He researched and registered for online classes on various platforms to study, studying day and night. As a mother, I felt heartbroken when I saw my child try so hard and then end up failing the exam."

Teacher Phan Thi Huong said that although she teaches in a poor province with poor learning conditions, the students still try very hard to study. "The students' levels are not equal, so teachers sweat to teach them the basic knowledge. High school graduation is an exam for the whole country, not for specialized schools" - Ms. Huong shared.

As an English teacher and also a mother whose child took the exam, Ms. Trang Thuy said that her child got about 70-85% in 3 subjects, her child used the IELTS certificate and the ability assessment test score to consider university admission. "I do not agree with the way the exam is set up. The English exam has small letters, long questions, and a lot of knowledge and vocabulary. If my hand is still cold when holding the exam, how can the children do it?" - Ms. Trang Thuy expressed.

Yen Nhi's parent said that the time to do math is 90 minutes, English is 50 minutes, with such a long test paper, it takes half the time for candidates to read and understand. "Not only that, the knowledge is all outside the textbook, so do the children need to try to study according to the general education program for 12 years of school?" - Ms. Nhi frankly shared.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Xuan Huong, Principal of Le Quy Don High School ( Dak Lak ), said that the exam was not fair to candidates nationwide, because the conditions, qualifications and learning needs in each province/region were different. While candidates in big cities "race" to get into top universities, most candidates from far away provinces only wanted to graduate from high school, be admitted to a university within their ability or go to secondary school or college.

Dak Lak province students burst into tears after high school graduation exam

"Innovative education is to make students feel happy when going to school. If they feel pressured when going to school and are still worried after 12 years of studying, will this innovation be effective?" - Ms. Huong expressed.

Giving meaningless materials, test questions "puzzle" candidates?

After the exam, a candidate wrote a letter to the Minister of Education and Training because he thought the physics exam was difficult to understand and puzzled the candidates. The letter read as follows:

"I am a student who has just passed the 2025 graduation exam, the first graduation exam of the 2018 general education program. As a student from a mountainous province with many difficulties, but in order not to let down the upbringing of my parents and the teachings of my teachers, I have tried my best in the past 3 years of study with the hope of achieving my dream of passing the university entrance exam to study public security.

I was really shocked by the content of the physics exam. Compared with the reference exam published more than 6 months ago, the content between the two exams has many differences.

I am not an excellent student but I finished the test in less than 40 minutes. In my class, there are 30 students who chose to take the physics test and 50% of them got 9 points or higher.

What makes me and many other students at my school most upset is that there is a question in the exam that is a trick question, confusing the students in the exam room. Specifically, question number 6, part III in the exam of all exam codes, after applying the formula in the textbook, the correct answer is a round number. However, the exam has an additional requirement to "round the result to the unit digit"???

With the addition of this content to the exam, I and many of my friends were very confused, because up until now, the requirement to "round the result to the nearest digit" only appeared for questions where the answer was not a round number.

The 2025 high school graduation exam is an exam to assess the candidates' abilities, of course the exam cannot provide meaningless materials. This is no different from tricking and trapping candidates. I still remember what a leader once said: "The high school graduation exam must be a festival for students". However, with such questions, many candidates are sinking into disappointment"...

Source: https://nld.com.vn/de-thi-thpt-qua-kho-thi-sinh-tro-tay-khong-kip-phu-huynh-lo-lang-196250629081955945.htm