The Literature exam will be less bookish and more practical.

- As someone who has followed the exams for many years, can you give a general comment on the university entrance exam in Literature, from the first year of the exam until 2013?

The Ministry's three-year general exam started in 2002, which is now 12 years old. After 12 years, I have noticed some stable common features and also some changes as follows:

About stability: The structure of the exam questions up to 2013 still consisted of 3 questions (2 points, 3 points and 5 points). The limited content of the exam questions was mainly within the framework of the lessons in the program (including grades 11 and 12). According to statistics in both programs, I see that there are about 40 units of lessons to learn. That is also "overloaded".

About change: Before 2009, in the 3 exam questions, question 1 often asked about reading comprehension (mainly memorization, such as summarizing the writer's career, writer's style, writing context, etc.); question 2 was an essay (usually analyzing or commenting on one or several verses); question 3 was an essay (usually prose works). But starting in 2009, with the 2-point question, people began to pay more attention to testing reading comprehension, such as the meaning of details and images in literary works, or the meaning of metaphors and comparisons in literary works; with the 3-point question, people replaced the essay question with a social argument question. This is the most controversial change. Because some people think that social argument is somewhat far from literary works. But the majority agreed to support it because they thought that this was an open test, which could help test the knowledge of literature learned in school and its application in real life. Overall, up to now, I still think that this issue is not yet settled, because there are still people who object to excessive application, but the majority agree. Personally, I agree, but I think there could still be another way to evaluate students more accurately.

Mr. Tran Hinh (Faculty of Literature - University of Social Sciences and Humanities). (Photo: Thanh Long/USSH)

- Starting from the graduation exam last year, following the spirit of the Ministry, the Literature exam has had a new revolution: the exam has been shortened to 2 questions and the time to complete the exam is only 120 minutes. What do you think about this initiative? Will the university entrance exam method this year follow that direction?

The responsible people of the Ministry who responded to the media confirmed that this year's university entrance exam will also be tested in that direction. They want to shape the direction of the exam questions for the following years through a few exams, and the Ministry wants that from 2017, the whole country will have only one national exam.

As for the content and format of the questions, like the recent graduation exam, I strongly support it. In terms of structure, the recent graduation exam only had 2 questions, but if you look closely, it still included reading comprehension and social discussion questions. The only regrettable thing is that with such a large amount of time, this question should have been worth 5 points, and question 2 on writing should have only been worth 5 points (the graduation exam was worth 7 points). Second, in terms of content, I think the Ministry has been very bold, expanding the questions outside and relying less on textbooks. For example, the 3-point question, they quoted a passage from the newspaper and asked students about the style of the text, summarizing the passage (reading comprehension); then asked to write a short essay about the current situation of the sea and islands (social discussion); in question 2 (7 points), it was still an essay as usual. The only difference is that they chose and directed the writer to a more practical issue. I think this year's university entrance exam will be in that direction, but since the test time is still 180 minutes, the test structure can still include 3 questions.

- So, according to you, in terms of how to make the Literature exam questions, between the two options: literary argumentation and social argumentation, which one should be given more priority?

To be honest, although I strongly support the social argumentation question in the Literature exam, I still do not think that choosing the social argumentation direction is better. I think it is better to have harmony between life and literature. In the past, from the 70s to the 80s, we saw that the university Literature exam used to have questions with only one social argumentation question or a mixture of social argumentation and literature. With such questions, people still chose good students, so what's the problem?

I have noticed that over the years we have pushed the Literature exam too far, even at times it was very anti-literary. For example, in the years 85 or 90, the Ministry had an “initiative to produce” a set of Literature entrance exams with available sample questions. The examination schools at that time just randomly selected the available exam questions in this book. Since then, exam preparation centers have sprung up everywhere. Some of them just read for students to copy.

And I think the Ministry's direction of reforming the exam questions is good but not yet radical. We must reform from the root, which means changing the way literature is taught and learned in high schools today.

Candidates take the 2013 university entrance exam. (Photo: Jackie Chan/USSH)

- Please give candidates the most practical advice before they take this year's university entrance exam with Literature?

You should pay attention to the lessons learned from the recent graduation exam. The exam may be less textbook and more practical. To achieve the highest possible score, you should also pay attention to the presentation: before doing the test, you should spend the first 15 minutes thinking and analyzing the exam carefully, then you should have a concise outline to avoid rambling when writing. The essay should be written in sharp, clear ink, without erasure, the arguments should start from the beginning of the line, correct as much as possible all spelling and sentence errors, the expression should be smooth, clear, clear, you should try to do all the questions of the exam, do not leave any question unfinished. I wish you all the best results in the exam.