Worried about Literature

After the Literature exam, lecturer Tran Hinh (Faculty of Literature) commented: this year's Literature exam was easy and the average score would fall between 5 and 7 points. He also shared some of his concerns about the way this year's Literature exam was designed.

- What is your general assessment of the Literature exam for groups C and D?I think the exam questions are still normal like the past few years, nothing too special. However, from this exam question, I understand and share with Professor Huynh Nhu Phuong (Faculty of Literature and Language - University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City) when he "complained" in Thanh Nien Newspaper in the past few years, that "it seems that our source of Literature questions has been exhausted". The entire Literature program (for both grades 11 and 12) in the Ministry's restricted section has nearly 40 categories of works, but over and over again, the exam questions every year only point out the same problems, the same works. To be honest, with this type of exam questions, if I were to teach students to review for exams, I would only need to teach them 5 to 10 lessons to pass the exam. There is no need to guess anything "by heart".- Question 1 of the C block essay asks about a detail, a typical image in the work and requires candidates to comment on its meaning. This is a fairly common way of asking questions in recent years. Do you think this way of asking questions is beneficial for testing candidates' knowledge?If compared with the criteria of the question type that reproduces the author's knowledge and literary works (type of question worth 2 points), I think this question is okay. However, I still have the feeling that the question is still inclined towards memorization. Literary ability, in my opinion, needs to create something higher than that, not just going into "trivial" questions, such as How many times did Chi Pheo go to Ba Kien's house? Why did the author name the short story "The Picked-up Wife"?... In my opinion, the Literature exam must be different from History and Geography, so questions that are too "trivial" should be avoided.

- With question two of the Literature exam for group C, many candidates said that even though they had been trained in how to write a social argumentative essay, they still could not do it because they did not understand the content of the issue they needed to discuss. From the above situation, what do you think we should pay attention to when writing a social argumentative essay?I do not oppose this type of question but never have too much “expectation” about it. After all, it is just a type of question that tests students’ social knowledge, but to say that it is true literature is not true. I firmly believe that if this type of test is given to many adults who are “poor in literature”, they can still write very well, even better than students. Returning to the specific question, there are students who have been thoroughly trained for this type of question, but because the problem posed is “beyond” their level, they still cannot do it. I agree with that thought. I have always believed that, for students, even high school seniors, when giving them test questions, we should try to choose pure issues and works, how to make them think about something good for humanity, do not force that age group to “fall” into the “fight against negativity” that a part of adults are “forced” to face. In the past three years, when this question was used in the university entrance exam, I felt that the expectations of public opinion were too high, while the exam questions mainly focused on the "bad and evil" in society, such as 'deceit, dishonesty, hypocrisy, irresponsibility, idolatry, achievement disease...'. Don't make innocent souls become "cloudy" by having to discuss too much about those issues.- Some people say that the Literature exam for group D is more difficult than group C, both exams help classify candidates, what do you think about this statement?Public opinion generally assesses that the D block exam is “harder” than the C block. Personally, I think that, “comparison” with each other, no block is more difficult than the other. Specifically, question 1, both blocks are equally difficult; question 2 (social argumentation), block C is more difficult than D; but question 3, block C is easier than D. Regarding whether the exam is capable of classifying candidates or not, to be honest, I do not like this kind of talk, because I have almost heard this “argument” repeatedly before the exam, during the exam and after the exam for many years. In response to the press, those responsible for the Ministry affirmed that; right after each exam, students and the press wrote that; and now you ask me that. Honestly, I still cannot think of a test that is capable of classifying better than any other test? Is it true that if a difficult test is given, it will be better classified than an easy test? I don't think so. For me, just asking students to write a paragraph on exactly one page with a very easy question, we can immediately know which students are better than which students. I don't know about other subjects, but with Literature, I can confirm that what I said is true. And so, we can completely organize a university entrance exam in just one day like the initiative of someone published in an online newspaper that I read a few days ago.- Question 3a in the standard program of the Literature exam for group D requires expressing feelings about the meaning of the two endings in two short stories. This way of asking the question has caused many different opinions. Could you please tell us your opinion?This is only worth a 2-point exam question as Mr. Thien (University of Education) answered in the press. I think Mr. Thien is right. Expressing feelings about the two endings in two works, more precisely two details in two works, it is difficult to consider this as a 5-point question. I am sure that students will have a hard time if they choose to do this question. And therefore, they will choose to do this question.The Riverbelongs to the Advanced section (which is actually a lesson in the Standard section). Personally, I think this is a “bad” exam. If I were allowed to do the exam, I would never “dare” to ask such a “sensitive” question. How can we compare the two details “the old abandoned brick kiln” that Thi No imagined when running to Ba Kien’s house with the detail “the red flag with a yellow star fluttering” that Trang recalled in the workPicked up wifeOK? I still feel "hesitant" somehow. It seems that the people who make the questions are "pressured" to choose the works, so they have to "try" to re-create "old" works and put them in the form of a review question, a very popular type of question in the university entrance exam for Literature for many years. They seem to be "confused". Even the C block exam is the same. I still don't find it very convincing when the exam "forces" students to review two poems in two works.lovesickby Nguyen Binh andThis is Vi Da villageby Han Mac Tu. Actually, putting these two poems next to each other is so "awkward". I don't see any connection between the image of "areca" in these two poems. The sentence in Han Mac Tu's poem is nature, the scenery of Vi Da, Hue; areca inlovesickNguyen Binh's question is about love, love, and longing. Or did the person who wrote the question intend for students to clarify this characteristic?- Can you predict the score distribution of Literature for groups C and D, even if it's only relative?The C and D exams this year were generally easy. I also personally supervised the exams, so I saw that the students did relatively well. Of course, the exact score distribution will only be known after the grading is completed. If I were allowed to guess, I think the average score for the Literature exam in the C and D groups would range from 5 to 7. If the D group scores were a little better, it could be because the D group students were better than the C group students.