New scores for the 2025 high school graduation exam: One exam room has up to 5 subjects, 48 ​​exam codes

On the afternoon of March 28, at the Conference on deploying primary school enrollment, organizing high school graduation exams and evaluating the implementation of Circular No. 29, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha, Deputy Director of the Department of Quality Management (Ministry of Education and Training) informed and noted some new points surrounding the high school graduation exam in 2025.

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha said that this year's exam questions still closely follow the content of the current high school general education program, mainly the 12th grade program.

“The test questions are not outside the curriculum, the thinking level is 40% at the knowledge level, 30% at the understanding level and 30% at the application level. In addition, the test questions also increase the connection and application of knowledge and skills with reality, especially with differentiated content to properly assess students' abilities. With these new points, teachers need to increase guidance for students to read and study proactively,” said Mr. Ha.

Mr. Ha said that an important new point in the high school graduation exam this year is that the exam score only accounts for 50%, the remaining 50% is taken from the results of the 3 years of high school. This change is consistent with the 2018 General Education Program, emphasizing the development of students' abilities and qualities throughout the learning process.

Regarding the organization of the high school graduation exam, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha shared that this year's exam will only be held in 3 sessions and the 3rd session will test both elective subjects at different times. Candidates will be arranged in a single exam room during the exam sessions and will not have to move around.

"An exam can be held in two different time slots, and to ensure security, instead of only 24 exam codes, the Ministry of Education and Training increased it to 48 exam codes. The Ministry requires that exams be collected by exam room, not by exam subject. We have tested and simulated up to 5 different exams in 1 exam room at two time slots and found that it can still be handled," said Mr. Ha.

This year, the high school graduation exam will be held simultaneously for two groups of students: the group following the 2006 General Education Program (for candidates who have not graduated or are taking the exam for university admission) and the group following the 2018 General Education Program. To avoid errors, the Ministry of Education and Training proposes to arrange a number of separate exam sites for candidates following the 2006 Program.

In addition, the printing of exam papers must be different from before, and must be specified according to the number of subjects in each exam room.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, many localities have organized mock exams, which have basically gone smoothly, but the organization model is different from the real exam, such as taking more than 3 sessions. Therefore, the Ministry requires localities to organize mock exams to be as similar as possible to the real exam model. The Ministry of Education and Training will support the exam marking software, send staff and experts to provide technical support, answer questions about the marking process, and ensure compliance with the regulations of the exam regulations.

Emphasizing the need to develop a response scenario for unusual situations, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Ha summarized a number of situations that have occurred to prepare a scenario if encountered: Errors in printing exam papers (only discovered when opening the exam papers); Students and teachers writing the wrong information on the multiple-choice answer sheet, exam paper; Unusual bad weather affecting travel, ensuring security and safety at the exam site; Traffic jams; Power outages in the exam area...