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Taking a Vietnamese Language Proficiency Test in Vietnam

Chứng Chỉ A tiếng ViệtIf you want to take a test to prove your level or check your progress, look no further than the Vietnamese Language Proficiency Test run by the Vietnamese Department of the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Ho Chi Minh City.

Before I took the level A test (Chứng Chỉ A) in February 2013, I searched the internet for information but didn’t find anything. Now I’ve taken the test, here is my lowdown.

Background: Though I started learning Vietnamese elsewhere, I studied all of the second elementary book, VSL2, at the University. I did not take the school’s Test Preparation class.

Exam format

Let’s start with the facts. There are 5 sections: Listening, Grammar & Vocabulary, Reading, Writing and Speaking – in that order. Each is worth 20 marks so the whole test is out of 100. Each section has a different exam paper and will be collected in at the end of that time period (eg. they take all the question and answer papers for Listening before they distribute the Grammar & Vocab papers).

Listening

There are 20 questions divided up into three sections.

The first section has 10 questions. There is a pause between each question.

The second and third sections have 5 questions each. They have a single dialogue which contains all the answers.

On the exam paper you only have the options: a-d. There are no questions on the exam paper. Instead the recording is played once, then the questions are read out. The recording and question are then played a second time.

Grammar & Vocabulary

There are 60 questions to answer in 30 minutes.

The questions have a sentence with a missing word and you have to choose the correct word from options a-d.

Example question.
This is similar to the questions in the exam, except there will be 4 options. This question is from here. ‘ốm’ is the northern word for bệnh.

If you have studied at the university, this question format will be familiar from the end of course tests.

Reading

There are 4 short texts, each with 5 questions.

The questions range from choosing the best title, testing comprehension of the text and testing understanding of particular words or phrases. (Again there are some similarities with the Department’s end of course tests.) Again it’s multiple choice with options a-d.

The texts were varied in topic: from something about mangoes in Vietnam to a piece on learning English.

After this there was a 5 minute break. Then it was time for…

Writing

The writing paper consisted of two sections, each worth 10 marks.

The first section had three parts: 5 questions where you had to write a sentence using a particular grammar structure. 5 questions where you’re given the start of a sentence and you have to finish it. 5 questions where you are given the answer and you have to write the question to go with that answer.

The second section was free writing. You choose one of two topics and aim to write about 150 200 words (as of October 2014).

Speaking

Everyone then left the examination room and the invigilators called people in 4 at a time.

When your group gets called in you choose a slip of paper with a question on it. You then are given a short time to prepare, then one candidate is called to sit in front of the examiners and speak about their question and topic while the other students wait. You can leave after you’ve finished, you don’t need to wait for the rest of the group.

When you choose the paper with a question, you are allowed to change it – but only once! (Edit October 2014: This no longer seems to be the case.)

When you are called up, you read out your question then answer it. The examiners will have follow up questions on the same topic (eg. if you were asked to describe your job, the following questions will be related to work).

That’s it! Finally the test is over.

My personal thoughts on the test

Though I did well in the Elementary level courses I took at the University and would say I knew the content of those courses fairly well, I found this test a little difficult. Another learner I spoke to after the test said the same.

Listening is usually one of my best skills but not being provided the questions until after you’ve listened to the material was bizarre. How do can we know whether to choose a, b, c or d when we don’t know what the question is??

I felt time pressure in the Grammar & Vocabulary section. For the questions I wasn’t sure about, I didn’t have time to dwell on them and either quickly guessed an answer or, when I thought I might remember something useful later, made a note on my paper to come back to them if I had time later.

I had to wait a long time to be called in for the speaking test – be prepared to hang around for up to an hour.

Aside from the strange format of the listening section, this seemed like a fairly thorough test. When doing the test, I could feel the morning dragging on and I struggled to concentrate towards the end (it’s been a long time since I’ve done a 3-hour-long exam). I’m not sure if I’ll do another test there again.

For more info…

  • You can read the times, registration requirements and other basic details on VNU’s Vietnamese department website.
  • Some exercises at the ‘A’ level can be found here, though they are not necessarily the same style as the exam.

Over to you: Have you taken a language proficiency test? Got any tips to share? Are you studying for one now? Tell us in the comments!

14 replies on “Taking a Vietnamese Language Proficiency Test in Vietnam”

Chào bạn!
tôi mới tham gia thi tiếng Việt này(25/10/2014).
tôi cũng nghĩ rằng :trình độ A là sơ cấp,nhưng mà đối với người sơ cấp thi này hơi khó.

thi co lẽ thay đổi một chút rồi.
“viết” là trên 200 từ.
“nói”không được thay đổi chủ đề.

Cám ơn bạn! Mình sửa bài theo tin tức của bạn.

Giống như viết trên bài, mình cũng thấy thi này hơi khó đối với mực sơ cấp. Chúc bạn thành công!

chào bạn!
07/02/2015,tôi tham gia ky thi tieng Việt(trinh độ B).

đó không giống như kiem tra trinh do A thang 10 nam 2014 tôi đã tham gia.

trước khi nghe, có thoi gian đọc câu hỏi(5phut).
nghe 2lần.
không khó như trinh do A lam.
vì 5~6 câu hỏi gần giống tập luyên của sách giao khoa.

thi nói,cũng khac nhau.
nêu hoc sinh ko đc,đổi chủ đề 1 lần đc.

hình như kiem tra thi dùng PC ..
nhung ma luc đó,he thong PC co vấn đề,
nên chung tôi dung giay thôi.

The format of listening test is quite similar to Chinese, Japanese, and Korean proficiency tests. It is not too strange. Moreover, the waiting time for speaking test is not much different from an English proficiency test (IELTS).

Thanks so much for the sharing! It’s valuable especially when information about Vietnamese learning is relatively hard to find.

I’m interested in taking this test. I’m a heritage speaker and have been doing some serious self-studying. It looks like the only way for me to do this would be to actually go to VN? Bummer, cause I just got back from there, lol.

Hi Thảo. I was wondering about the textbooks you used during your Vietnamese study. Thank you so much!

Hi Elizabeth, I am wondering if there are any specific materials that we can buy to prepare for the exam c level similar to TOEFL? If you have any ideas, please let me know.

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