On February 29, after a meeting of the Literature Council for middle and high school levels, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training agreed with teachers from the district network on the review orientation for grade 9 students to take the upcoming grade 10 entrance exam.

Adjusting the requirements for materials in literary argumentation

Master Tran Tien Thanh, a literature specialist at the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, said that the structure of the 10th grade entrance exam has not changed compared to 2023 and the Department has provided specific guidance for students to review for the literature essay section.

Specifically, the structure of the 10th grade entrance exam for literature includes 3 parts: Reading comprehension (3 points), Social essay (3 points) and Literary essay (4 points) and the test time is 120 minutes.

To prepare for the 10th grade exam this year, students need to practice reading comprehension skills by choosing texts (newspapers, commentaries, science books, etc.) with age-appropriate content, related to current events, etc. to practice reading comprehension skills: discovering, identifying, decoding words, details, images; finding Vietnamese issues in the text; summarizing the text; linking the text being read with other related texts, linking to real life, giving personal opinions on the issues raised in the text; creating different ways of expression, proposing solutions, giving new titles, etc.

In the section on writing social argumentative essays (about 500 words), the Department of Education and Training specialist guides students to practice argumentative operations including: explaining, proving, and commenting. During the practice process, students need to avoid mistakes such as: lacking argumentative operations (for example, lacking explanation of the issue being discussed); ineffective application of argumentative operations (evidence not close to the issue, lack of analysis of evidence to clarify the issue...) or not drawing lessons for themselves through discussing the issue, the discussion ideas are not rich, not profound, and are sketchy.

In the literature essay section, students can choose 1 of 2 topics to write the essay.

• Topic 1 requires students to analyze and perceive a specific work or excerpt from a work in the textbook, instead of last year, which required candidates to choose a work (or excerpt) according to the topic's requirements. From there, candidates point out the influence and impact of the work on themselves or relate it to another work, relate it to real life to draw a literary or life issue.
• Topic 2 will pose a specific situation and require candidates to use their knowledge and experience from reading (choosing a work/excerpt) to solve that situation.

To prepare for the literary essay section, Master Thanh noted that students must master the skills of writing literary essays. Practice the skills of analyzing and perceiving literary works according to the genres of poetry and stories.

In addition, students need to read more works outside the textbook with the same genre and topic as the work in the book; use knowledge and experience from reading the work to solve a specific situation.

Maths and English focus on skills and practicality

Regarding math, Master Duong Buu Loc, math specialist of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, said that the exam structure remains the same as in previous school years, with knowledge levels: 70% recognition and understanding; 30% application and high-level application.

Specifically, the math exam consists of 8 questions, of which 7 are basic knowledge and one is about plane geometry.

• Questions 1 and 2 test familiar knowledge about graphs, Viet's theorem, and conditions for the existence of solutions to equations.
• Questions 3 to 7 are problems applying knowledge learned in the program (solving problems related to reality); of which there will be 1-2 questions at an advanced level.
• Question 8 is a plane geometry problem consisting of 3 small problems. Of which, 2 are at a basic level, the remaining problem is highly differentiated.

Similarly, Master Tran Dinh Nguyen Lu, an English specialist at the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, also said that the structure of the 10th grade entrance exam for English this year has not changed.

The English test consists of 40 questions (0.25 points/question) with a test time of 90 minutes. The main questions are recognition and understanding, with advanced requirements accounting for only 10-15%.

Mr. Lu noted that the 10th grade English entrance exam will not focus on grammar but rather on skills and vocabulary. Therefore, students should not focus on too much grammar but should practice different types of exercises to develop skills and refer to many reading passages to memorize vocabulary.