To satisfy demand, numerous exam preparatory centers have appeared.

Googling ‘luyen thi danh gia nang luc’ (preparing for competency tests) results in websites and addresses of preparatory classes with different choices for those who want to study for part of or all the test.

The Hocmai educational system website has comprehensive review courses, which equip students with specific skills to do competency tests for Hanoi National University and HCM City National University, and a thinking assessment exam for Hanoi University of Science and Technology. The tuition for the packages is VND2.9 million.

Meanwhile, courses which just practice solving exam questions cost VND1.9 million.

The website tuyensinh247.com offers courses on competency and thinking assessment, saying trainees will get high scores.

The organization’s ads say there are 15,000 questions and 70 sets of exam questions in its exam question bank. Students can study live with experienced teachers who give 24/7 support in closed groups.

The website onthidanhgianangluc.vn offers training courses with tuition of VND149,000 per subject at minimum. The mentor is Bui Van Cong who has researched aptitude tests since 2018. In 2019, he set up groups on Facebook to discuss exam questions and opened training courses to help students prepare for the tests.

He has taught thousands of students over the last four years and guided thousands of other students to prepare for the tests.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Tien Thao, director of the Examination Center belonging to Hanoi National University, said the school, which organizes the tests, does not offer preparatory classes or publish publications for exam preparation. 

He said that students don’t need to attend classes to be able to solve the questions on aptitude tests.

Thao said aptitude tests are different from tests that examine students’ knowledge. The tests are designed to discover students’ ability to use knowledge and develop mentally. Therefore, it will be of no use for students to practice solving questions.

In general, mentors at test preparation centers practice with questions raised by prestigious universities, which makes students think that real exam questions will be similar to the mock questions.

However, in fact, the bank of questions is large and questions are not repeated.

Nguyen Van Minh, rector of the Hanoi University of Education, said there was no need to take extra classes to prepare for the tests and no one can predict exam questions.

According to Minh, with the current way of compiling questions, people who design questions cannot work with exam centers to organize preparatory classes.

Test questions are designed by teachers. After that, other teachers will examine the questions to create a question matrix. So, the questions at the exams will be combinations of questions, not questions raised by one person.

He said that with this method, no teacher can control or predict exam questions.

Nguyen Thu Thuy, director of the Higher Education Department, said universities now use different methods to choose students, including student records at high schools, high school final exam results and aptitude tests.

As schools set different purposes and requirements for different exams, the structure and format of exam questions, the way of organizing tests, time and venues are different.

Therefore, students need to thoroughly consider schools’ enrollment plans so as to choose the enrollment methods suitable to their health and capabilities.

The Hanoi University of Science and Technology’s tests aim to choose the best students in the field of techniques and technology, while the Hanoi University of Education’s tests aim to find potential candidates to become teachers.

Thanh Hung