Since the high school graduation exam and the university entrance exam were merged into the national high school exam in 2015, the failing score has been changed to 1 or lower instead of 0 points as before. The national high school exam with most subjects tested in multiple choice format but still keeping the failing score of 1 or lower is considered to be unable to filter out weak students.

Multiple choice test, best score is 3 to be suitable

Mr. Quach Tuan Ngoc, former Director of the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Education and Training, listed the number of candidates who failed each subject in 2015 as follows:

• Math: 20,667
• History: 1,083
• Literature: 973
• Geography: 550
• Physics: 260
• Chemistry: 300
• Biology: 300
• Foreign language: 175

This data shows that for the same natural sciences, with similar levels of difficulty, the percentage of candidates who fail multiple-choice exams is lower than that of essay exams. This is especially true for subjects in the natural sciences.

2017 National High School Exam: Multiple choice test, failing score is 3 to be appropriate.

Similarly, from the results of the 2016 national high school exam in natural subjects, Dr. Le Truong Tung, Chairman of the Board of Directors of FPT University, analyzed that with more than 850,000 candidates taking the Math exam, about 350,000 taking the Chemistry exam, 350,000 candidates taking the Physics exam and about 150,000 candidates taking the Biology exam, the results showed that only about 1% of candidates had a score below 2.5 in the 3 multiple-choice subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Biology). Up to 17% of candidates had a score below 2.5 when taking the Math exam in essay format.

From this result, Mr. Tung concluded that the ability to get a high score between multiple choice and essay tests is the same. In order to avoid a low score, the essay Math test is 17 times more difficult than the multiple choice subjects.

From these results, Mr. Quach Tuan Ngoc suggested that for multiple-choice exams, the failing score should be greater than or equal to 2.5 or preferably 3 to be appropriate.

Mr. Tung also said that when taking multiple-choice tests, students who score below 2.5 not only do not have the professional knowledge to solve the problems but also do not know the test-taking techniques, which is why they get this score. Because the Ministry of Education and Training creates multiple-choice tests with each question having 4 options and to avoid bias towards any option, the Ministry sets the number of questions with correct answers A, B, C, or D to be the same. Thus, candidates can choose randomly or answer the entire test according to option A or B, C, D, and be assured of getting 2.5 points.

The possibility of failing graduation is very rare.

This year, the Ministry of Education and Training stipulates that the graduation score is calculated as the total score of 4 exams plus the total incentive points (if any) divided by 4 plus the average score of the entire 12th grade year divided by 2, then adding all of that together with the priority points.

According to Dr. Tran Nam Dung, lecturer of the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Technology at the University of Natural Sciences, Ho Chi Minh City, with such a liberal graduation policy and the way teachers in high schools give grades in a way that is beneficial to students as it is now, the average score of students will certainly be pushed up very high.

At that time, only the failing score was the most important factor to evaluate whether very weak students passed or failed to graduate. However, with the current regulation of failing score of 1, it only serves to filter out candidates who violated the regulations, did not know how to fill in the answers, and did not want to graduate. As for very weak students who still wanted to pass, the possibility of failure is rare.

According to Mr. Dung, with the rule of failing the exam still being 1 as this year, it is really difficult for candidates to fail the graduation exam unless they refuse to do the test or intentionally make mistakes. Thus, 99% of candidates who would have failed the exam if they took the essay test will be able to escape failure thanks to the multiple choice test.