Before many controversial opinions about whether this year's university entrance exam for Literature group C is easy or difficult,Mr. Tran Hinh(Lecturer of the Faculty of Literature - University of Social Sciences and Humanities) shared his views.
- Could you please tell me your opinion about this year's university entrance exam for Literature group C?
In my opinion, this year's exam is good. The most basic good thing is that the exam is not focused on memorization, but on understanding. I believe that with this way of making the exam, students will learn how to study for the exam, that if they only study passively, study by reading and copying, study without understanding the lesson, then it will be difficult for them to do well. As for assessing the difficulty of the exam, it depends on each student's learning style. If they study actively, this is an easy exam, but if they only study passively, study by reading and copying, it will probably be difficult. I have also read a series of feedback from students on the internet, most of them said it was difficult. That's right, because most of them study passively. Otherwise, I have never seen the exam questions outside the curriculum. They are all in the textbooks.
- Although the social issue essay format has become familiar to candidates over the years, the content of the social issues mentioned in the exam is still often debated about whether it is suitable or not for the candidates' cognitive ability. So what do you think about this year's essay?
Yessocial essay formathas been familiar to students for many years now. But every year, the issues used as questions are within the understanding of high school students, such as honesty in exams, admiration and infatuation with idols, knowledge in books, hypocrisy, human indifference...
This year, the exam touched on a very big issue: the character and soul of the Vietnamese people. In the perception of high school students, in my opinion, this is a challenge for them. I admit, this is a difficult problem for high school students to understand.
However, from another perspective, I think that if our way of teaching and learning Literature changes, we should not maintain one-way learning, rote learning, passive learning, then students will easily solve the problems that we consider difficult. For example, if in the classroom, teachers teach students using the dialogue method, ask questions and let students answer the problems drawn from the lesson, and even allow students to debate the problems, do not let it happen one-way, and also expand the lessons in books to real life, then the problem is not difficult at all!
In short, in my opinion, we need to be decisive in the method of teaching Literature, which is to learn proactively and understand, and not to be allowed to read and copy, or learn "memorizing" as mentioned in the online newspapers recently. Then I think all the exam questions like this year are within the reach of students.
- Many candidates shared that even though they could do the optional questions 3a and 3b (which took up the most points in the exam), they were not confident because the question was "strange" and different from previous years. What do you think about the way these two questions were asked?
I would like to reaffirm this: it is true that this year's exam is not for poor students, those who only know how to learn passively, even for teachers who have long taught students but only scratched the surface, the shallowness of the language, without digging deep inside to find "the mineral veins hidden under the words".
Specifically, in question 3a, the request is to state one's feelings about the image of the soldier in the poem "Tay Tien" by Quang Dung, combining comments on two statements ("the soldier has the beauty of a soldier during the resistance war against the French" and "the soldier has the appearance of a warrior of the past"), then I think that students mainly only analyze the image of the soldier in the first statement (the beauty of hardship and heroism, the beauty of romance and gallantry, the beauty of the correct concept of sacrifice and loss, and the beauty of immortal death), and combine comments on the second opinion (the soldier has the appearance of a warrior of the past). Because Quang Dung wrote this poem in a very special style: using many ancient words, evoking the atmosphere of the old battlefield such as frontier, robe, traveling alone, far away, the soldier who considers death as light as a feather, somewhat reminiscent of the soldier in Chinh Phu Ngam... so it easily reminds people to some extent of the soldiers of the past, then there is nothing wrong with that. Above all, it is still a modern soldier.
Question 3b requires an analysis of the two characters Tu and the fisherman's wife in the two works, but inserts two opinions, which are meant to "trap" students: Tu's patience is "not blameworthy, only pitiful", while the patience of the fisherman's wife is "both blameworthy and pitiful". This question is really difficult for a student who lacks courage. It requires not only knowledge in the lesson, but also real-life knowledge. I confess that I still do not understand the meaning of the person who wrote the question here, but if allowed to answer immediately, I am ready to affirm: with Tu, there is both - blameworthy and pitiful, but with the fisherman's wife, there is only pity, not blameworthy. Of course, to fully explain this idea, it is necessary to talk longer and deeper into the work. And in my opinion, since it is a literary image, readers should be allowed to express different thoughts, as long as they are reasonable, and should not be imposed, and should not be limited to one way of understanding.
- With this test, how do you predict the candidate's score?
In my opinion, this year's exam scores will not be high, at least not higher than last year's.
- With the improvement in the way of making university Literature exams in recent years in a more "open" direction, "forcing" candidates to think, reflect and give their opinions more, do you think it has a positive meaning in evaluating the teaching and learning of general literature?
In my opinion, if we maintain the same viewpoint of setting exam questions as this year, I don’t think that in the past years – because some years ago the exam questions were still outdated – it will have a positive impact on teaching and learning Literature at high school. But I think setting exam questions for students to rely on model essays is terrible, it will gradually kill the subject of Literature!
- What is your personal opinion on creating a university entrance exam for Literature to accurately assess candidates' abilities?
As for this year’s exam, don’t repeat the same old things, don’t ask questions based solely on memorization. Of course, it all depends on the marking. I also don’t really believe that hundreds of teachers, marking tens of thousands of exams in 2 to 3 weeks, can give fair and objective assessments to students. A long-time teacher of mine, every year, repeats to me the same sentence: “Dear, why do my students have so many risks in taking literature exams? Sometimes the good ones fail, but the not so good ones pass.”. And I could never answer my teacher about this question!