On May 29, Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM) officially announced information related to feedback on the logical part question in the second phase of the 2026 competency assessment (ES) exam.
According to VNU-HCM, in the past time, the unit received some opinions that there is a similarity between some logical questions in the exam questions and questions from international exams. Some opinions also expressed concern about the ability of exam preparation centers to approach and exploit these types of questions in the process of reviewing for candidates.
VNU-HCM said that it has reviewed, appraised and evaluated the logical questions in the second phase of the ĐGNL exam in 2026 according to professional procedures.
The review work includes the establishment of an exam question review council; checking the dossiers for building and thẩm định questions; reviewing the process of compiling, refuting, testing questions; requesting experts to build questions to explain in writing and report directly to the council; and at the same time, organizing professional comparisons with some types of logical questions of international exams that are reflected.
According to the review results, VNU-HCM affirmed that the logical questions in the exam ensure scientific accuracy, are clearly expressed and meet the goal of assessing students' thinking abilities.
This unit also believes that the questions have differences in context, facts, characters, system of conditions, way of posing questions and answer choices compared to the international questions being compared.
However, VNU-HCM said that some questions have similarities in the form of reasoning or logical models with questions in international competency assessment tests.
This is a common characteristic in the field of testing, because competency assessment tests often use basic logical reasoning models such as ordering, grouping, conditional reasoning or elimination to assess the thinking ability of candidates," the announcement of VNU-HCM stated.
VNU-HCM assessed that the similarity in logical form is not the basis for concluding that a question is directly translated or copied from a question of another exam. In fact, in many international standardized exams, questions of the same logical form may have similar reasoning structures but differ in context, data and content deployment.
VNU-HCM also affirmed that it has not recorded any signs or evidence showing that the question bank or exam questions for the second phase of 2026 were leaked, illegally accessed or used improperly.
According to VNU-HCM, the questions bank management and exam question security procedures are strictly implemented at all stages to ensure the fairness and objectivity of the exam.
After the 2nd phase of the ĐGNL exam in 2026, VNU-HCM said it will continue to comprehensively review the question bank, especially with the logic part; strengthen professional training for the question compiler team and improve the quality control process to improve the independence, diversity and professional quality of the exam questions.
The second round of competency assessment exam takes place on May 24, 2026 with more than 170,000 candidates taking the exam. The exam is organized in 15 provinces and cities.
The competency assessment exam of Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City includes 120 objective multiple-choice questions with many choices, the exam time is 150 minutes, and is organized in the form of paper exams.
The exam structure includes three parts: Language use with 60 questions (30 Vietnamese questions and 30 English questions); Mathematics with 30 questions; Scientific thinking with 30 questions.
