Students rejoice over 'too easy' Ho Chi Minh City 10th-grade English exam

The 40-question, 90-minute English entrance exam for 10th grade in Ho Chi Minh City was completed by many students in just about 30 minutes, with many confident of scoring 9 or higher.

Upon completing the English exam at Trung Vuong High School, many students enthusiastically rushed out, telling their parents they performed well.

Quynh Anh, from Nguyen Du Secondary School in Ben Thanh ward, stated that the exam paper comprised 7 sections with 40 questions, covering: phonetics, reading comprehension and fill-in-the-blanks, reading comprehension with question answering, word form, and sentence rewriting.

She considered the sentence rewriting and word form sections the most challenging, but noted their difficulty was significantly reduced compared to last year's exam. These two sections typically serve to differentiate students in the English subject.

"The exam was much easier than last year, with no content outside the curriculum", Quynh Anh said, adding that she only needed 30 minutes to complete it. She spent the remaining time checking her answers and nearly fully transcribing the entire exam paper.

Quynh Anh is confident of scoring 9,5 points. Combined with her performance in the morning Literature exam, she hopes to secure a spot in the specialized biology class at Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted.

"The exam was too easy, not even as difficult as my school's end-of-semester English test", said Gia Bao, from Doan Thi Diem Secondary School in Nhieu Loc ward.

Similar to Quynh Anh, Gia Bao also completed the English exam in 20-30 minutes. He noted that the paper was similar to previous years, with only one new section: reading a passage to select appropriate words for blanks. The male student hopes to achieve a perfect score, providing an advantage for the second exam day, which includes both regular and specialized mathematics.

Ho Chi Minh City 10th-grade English exam paper as transcribed by a student at Trung Vuong High School, afternoon 1/6. *Le Nguyen*

50 meters away, at Vo Truong Toan Secondary School exam center, Bao Ngoc was also pleased because "the official exam was even easier than the sample paper released earlier this year". She found the question types familiar, the vocabulary simple, and there were no trick questions. Ngoc estimated she answered about 80% correctly, regretting a few careless errors due to rushing.

At Vung Tau High School exam center in the Ba Ria - Vung Tau area, Tran Quoc Bao mentioned he performed well even on some sections he had recently encountered and practiced, such as word form.

"The exam was suitable for my ability; I expect to score 7-8 points", Bao stated.

Tomorrow, students will take the mathematics exam, which is 120 minutes long. Those aspiring to specialized classes will take an additional corresponding subject exam, lasting 150 minutes.

Last year, approximately 31,5% of English exam papers from Ho Chi Minh City students were below average. The common score range for students was around 5,75-8,25 points, with 488 perfect scores recorded.