Suggested answers for Literature subject of high school graduation exam 2021

On the morning of July 7, candidates took the Literature exam. The exam required candidates to analyze the lyrical beauty of the girl in the poem "Waves" by Xuan Quynh. Dai Nam University updated the exam questions and suggested answers for the Literature subject of the 2021 high school graduation exam, candidates and parents can compare and refer to.

Part I: Reading comprehension

Sentence 1: The birth of a river takes place as follows: “From the cracks in the ground, cool and clear water wells up. From a small stream, the water mixes with fresh water falling from the sky and the water seeps into the ground to create a small stream that flows down until a river is born.”

Sentence 2: "The last gift" water gives to mankind before it merges into the ocean: "The greatest agricultural regions in the world".

Sentence 3: The flow of water and human life have a close relationship with each other:

- The flow of water has many changes just like human life has many ups and downs, fluctuations.

- The flow of water is closely associated with human life: Witnessing children playing in the park, witnessing a father and his little son playing catch.

- Suggests thinking about the relationship between the constant and the unchanging, between the eternal and the temporary.

Sentence 4: Lesson: The journey of water from river to sea is a long and arduous journey, from which we can draw lessons about the meaning of life:

- Lesson 1: Life must know how to contribute

- Lesson 2: Life must have aspirations, dreams, ambitions, and noble ideals.

- Lesson 3: Life requires experience, so people need to bravely face difficulties and challenges to grow up.

Part II: Writing

Question 1: Social argumentative essay on dedication

- Dedication is the noble contribution of an individual/individual to the common cause of the community and society. Dedication can be expressed through material and spiritual contributions. Dedication is not only expressed in great things, but also in small, simple things in life.

- Living a life of dedication is essential, because:

+ Help each person become altruistic and tolerant. People who contribute to society will be respected and appreciated by those around them. Dedication is the driving force and support to urge people to overcome difficulties, obstacles, challenges and ups and downs in life to serve the community and society.

+ Living a life of dedication helps society progress and develop more

+ Living a life of dedication contributes to healing and connecting relationships in family and society.

- Criticize selfish, trivial lifestyles that emphasize personal interests while ignoring collective and community interests.

- Students relate to themselves, draw lessons about perception and action: To be able to contribute, each person needs to establish for themselves ideals, goals, healthy, noble, correct, civilized lifestyles, need to cultivate a spiritual life, pure, carefree, sincere emotions, and also need to have life skills so that the contribution is truly meaningful, becoming a noble gesture. However, people need to know how to handle harmoniously the relationship between the individual and the common, between personal interests and collective interests.

Question 2: Make sure to correctly identify the issue to be discussed:

- Feelings about the poem

- From there, comment on the feminine beauty in Xuan Quynh's poetry

Developing the discussion topic:

- Introduce the author, work, and origin of the excerpt.

+ Author Xuan Quynh: A typical poet of the generation of young poets during the anti-American resistance war. Her poetry is the voice of a woman's soul, full of compassion, always yearning for love and everyday happiness.

+ Work: Circumstances of creation: "Waves" was composed in 1967, during a field trip to the sea of Diem Dien, Thai Binh, when the resistance war against the US was taking place arduously and fiercely. The poem was printed in the poetry collection "Flowers along the trenches".

+ Location of origin of the poem

Content analysis:

+ Verse: "Before the vast ocean waves/ I think of you, I/ I think of the ocean/ Since when did the waves rise?"

+ Content: The lyrical character "you" thinks about the origin of "Waves" and is also looking for the origin of love.

+ "Waves start from the wind/ Where does the wind start? I don't know either/ When will we fall in love?"

+ Origin of "Waves": Starting from the wind

+ The origin of love: Unexplainable

+ "The wave under the deep/ The wave on the water surface/ Oh the wave misses the shore/ Day and night can't sleep/ My heart misses you/ Even in my dreams I'm awake".

Express your memories

+ The nostalgia covers all space and time: "deep heart - water surface, day - night".

+ The feeling of missing someone is constant, not only when awake but also when asleep, seeping into dreams and the subconscious ("even in dreams while awake").

+ Exaggerated but true and sincere way of speaking expressing the longing for a strong love (“Day and night can't sleep”).

+ Borrowing the image of waves to express the longing is still not enough, not satisfying, the poet directly expresses his longing ("My heart misses you")

Thus, through the image of waves, the lyrical character expresses nostalgia: poignant, haunting; pervading space and time; existing in both consciousness and subconsciousness.

Comments on feminine beauty in Xuan Quynh's poetry:

+ It is the beauty of a woman's soul that combines tradition and modernity.

+ From the emotional levels of love, the poet himself explains, defines, and learns about love to thereby reveal the beauty of the soul: The voice of a compassionate, sincere soul, always yearning for love and everyday happiness.

Overall rating:

+ The poem has a pair of parallel, mutually transforming images, “waves” and “you”. “Waves” is both an image and a symbol for the soul and love of a woman.

+ The five-word verse form, the way of pausing and arranging sounds create a rhythm that is sometimes gentle and sometimes intense; the poetic language is simple, natural, rich in emotion and organized in a responsive, parallel way, creating associations with endless, overlapping waves; the tone is both passionate and profound, ...

+ The devices of metaphor, personification, contrast, rhetorical questions, and repetition of words and syntax contribute to creating a passionate, intense rhythm, suitable for expressing anxiety and intense longing: "I think of the ocean/ I think of you, I", "waves" (three times), "under the depths - on the surface of the water"...

+ The three stanzas above express the women's concerns and worries about the origin of love as well as their intense, passionate longing when in love, contributing to clarifying the unique features of Xuan Quynh's poetic style.