The 12th-grade student from An Thi High School achieved perfect scores in math and physics, along with 9.75 in English. This performance made him one of two top scorers for the A01 block, according to data from the high school graduation exam. Minh stated he received the results calmly, having maintained a stable mindset during the exam and accurately estimated his performance.
"I regret missing a basic English verb conjugation question; I was confident in the other two subjects," Minh shared.
Despite holding an IELTS 8.0 certificate, Minh admitted English was the subject he found hardest to achieve a perfect score in. His English foundation primarily came from watching entertainment videos, playing games, and listening to movie subtitles, rather than formal, structured grammar study. "Because of frequent exposure, I can quickly react and apply it, but when asked deeply about grammatical rules, I am not overly confident," Minh explained.
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Hoang Quang Minh. Photo: Provided by subject |
The new top scorer also achieved 88.25 out of 100 points in the second round of Hanoi University of Science and Technology's Thinking Assessment Exam (TSA), ranking among the top 3 out of approximately 20,000 candidates. Out of more than 60,000 test-takers this year, only 175 candidates scored above 80 points.
Regarding the graduation exam, Minh found the physics paper heavily theoretical, yet it still required candidates to understand fundamental principles. His secret to excelling in this subject was connecting textbook knowledge with real-world phenomena. For math, he considered the spatial geometry reasoning section the most challenging.
Minh rarely attended extra classes, spending most of his time self-studying and grinding through practice problems assigned by teachers. The volume of practice tests he completed for each subject was immense. "The stack of practice exams I completed during preparation couldn't be carried with two hands; it was almost as tall as a bookshelf," Minh recounted.
During the exam, Minh's strategy involved multiple passes. In the first pass, he tackled most questions, immediately skipping any difficult ones to address them in the second and third passes. After completion, he reviewed his entire work to avoid errors.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Hoa, Minh's homeroom teacher and physics instructor, stated that the student's strongest and most outstanding subject was math. In the 10th-grade entrance exam, he also easily achieved a perfect score in this subject. Throughout his three years of high school, Quang Minh didn't limit himself, continuously challenging various subjects. In 10th grade, he won second prize in the provincial informatics competition for gifted students. In 11th grade, he secured another second prize in physics. By 12th grade, Minh added a third prize in math.
"Minh has excellent self-study abilities; he is intelligent and learns quickly. He pays close attention in class, is eager to learn from books, news, the internet, and from teachers and friends," she remarked.
The student stated his intention to apply for the Computer Science (IT1) program at Hanoi University of Science and Technology. "I've been passionate about informatics for a long time; I started competing in coding in 4th grade," Minh shared.
Doan Hung
