Dr. Nguyen Quang Lieu (Lecturer of the Faculty of History - University of Social Sciences and Humanities) commented on the 2012 university entrance exam for History: "This year's university entrance exam for History is highly general, covering basic knowledge of Vietnamese history 1919-2000 and world history 1945-2000. The questions are clear and do not puzzle students."
2012 University Entrance Exam HistoryQuestion 1 (2 points): How did the second colonial exploitation of the French colonialists affect the Vietnamese economy? Question 2 (2 points): From 1919 to 2000, what periods did Vietnam's history go through? Summarize the main content of the period in which our army and people destroyed the strongest stronghold group of French colonialists in Indochina? Question 3 (3 points): At the end of March 1975, what decision did the Party's Central Politburo make to soon complete its determination to liberate the South? On what basis was that decision made? Summarize the developments of the Ho Chi Minh campaign (April 1975)? Question 4 (choose one of the two questions): - Summarize Japan's foreign policy during the Cold War? - From 1950 to 2000, how was India's increasingly enhanced position in the international arena reflected in the fields of economics, science and technology and foreign policy?
With question 1, according to Dr. Nguyen Quang Lieu, this is a simple question, asking basic knowledge so students will easily be able to do this question. With question 2, candidates need to differentiate 5 main stages: - Stage of campaigning to establish the Communist Party of Vietnam 1919-1930. - Stage of fighting for power 1930-1945. - Stage of conducting resistance war against French colonialism 1945-1954. - Stage of simultaneously carrying out two strategic revolutionary tasks for the goal of liberating the South and unifying the country 1954-1975. - Stage 1975-2000: transition to socialism and successfully implementing the cause of renovation. This is a very good question and clearly classifies candidates. This is also the first time the exam requires students to have an overview of Vietnamese history and have the ability to differentiate historical stages. According to experienced lecturers, this is also a very weak knowledge and skill of students when studying History today, so it will not be easy to get a score for this question. There will be few candidates who can do this question, but most of them easily get carried away with recounting events and years, resulting in answers that are still not correct and take a lot of time. This question requires comprehensive knowledge, whoever does this question well proves that they are very knowledgeable about Vietnamese history and have good test-taking skills.
Regarding the second idea of question 2, students must read the question carefully and understand: the strongest stronghold group that the test question mentions is the Dien Bien Phu stronghold that the French colonialists once considered an impregnable fortress. Therefore, the period that the test question requires a general overview of is the period after the Winter-Spring of 1953-1954 until the Dien Bien Phu campaign. If you understand the question, this question is not difficult, but candidates can easily get carried away with long-winded recounting of unnecessary information. Question 3 was assessed by Dr. Nguyen Quang Lieu as being relatively clear when it gave a suggested time frame of late March 1975 when the Tay Nguyen campaign was completely victorious and opened a new phase from the strategic offensive in the Tay Nguyen to the general strategic offensive in the entire South. After the victory of the Tay Nguyen and Hue - Da Nang campaigns, the Party Central Committee assessed: the strategic opportunity had come, we had the conditions to soon complete the determination to liberate the South. From there, the Party Central Committee came to the decision to "concentrate the fastest forces, weapons, technology and materials to liberate the South before the rainy season of 1975". For question 4a, candidates must first determine which year the Cold War took place from, and then present Japan's foreign policy during that time through the periods 1947-1952, 1952-1973, 1973-1989. Regarding question 4b, this is the clearest and easiest question for candidates. Candidates only need to grasp the nation-building process of India from the time the Indian State was founded in 1950 until 2000. Candidates need to present India's great achievements in 3 main areas: economy, science and technology and foreign policy - this part is presented very clearly in the History textbook for grade 12. With the above analysis, Dr. Nguyen Quang Lieu said: In general, the questions are not difficult, the content is very clear. The exam also emphasized the important events of each historical period. In which, questions 1 and 4b are the easiest to answer; questions 2, 3 and 4a each have one idea that candidates must deduce further to be able to answer correctly. In particular, the first idea of question 2 is the key question to be able to classify good and excellent students. Predicting the score range, Dr. Nguyen Quang Lieu said: "In my opinion, scores from 4.5 to 5.5 will be the majority, the score range from 0-2 will be very small but there will definitely be very high scores in History of 9 or 9.5".
