Vietnamese student writes 200 essays in a year, becomes top scorer in national English exam for the gifted

When Minh opened the results of the exam on the afternoon of Jan. 19, his hands were shaking. The Grade 12 student stared at the screen, convinced there had been a mistake in the score.

"I was shocked. I honestly thought my exam number had been mixed up," Minh recalled.

It was not a mistake. With a score of 16.8 out of 20, Minh became one of two national top scorers in English in the 2025-2026 academic year.

Minh, a student in the English-specialized class at Le Hong Phong High School for the Gifted in Ninh Binh Province, had waited for this moment for a long time. After placing second in the same competition last year, this was his final chance to aim for the highest prize.

His journey did not begin with confidence.

Although Minh discovered his aptitude for English as early as Grade 4, he spent years doubting himself. Entering high school, he felt at a disadvantage because he did not come from a top middle school in the province. That insecurity lingered until he saw a senior from his former school win first prize at the national level.

"That made me realize I could dream bigger," Minh said.

With encouragement from his teachers, Minh committed himself fully. In Grade 11, he won a gold medal at an English contest for specialized high schools in northern Vietnam and followed it with a second-place finish at the national level. From that point on, he set his sights firmly on first place.

For an entire year, Minh focused on sharpening all four language skills. He treated listening and speaking as inseparable, practicing them together. In class, he and his teammates agreed to speak only English, creating an environment where communication felt natural rather than forced.

Outside the classroom, Minh trained his listening skills by watching English-language videos across a wide range of topics, from physics and biology to technology and social issues. He deliberately chose materials that mirrored the structure and difficulty of specialized exam questions.

For reading, Minh relied on volume.

"Doing a lot of practice builds reflexes," he said. "That’s how you read faster and catch the main ideas accurately."

He also turned everyday scrolling into study time, regularly reading science and current affairs articles recommended on his phone. Interesting topics often sent him down deeper research paths, expanding both his vocabulary and his world knowledge.

The hardest skill, however, was writing.

Minh believes a strong essay requires three things: broad social understanding, flexible vocabulary and sentence structures, and tightly developed, logical arguments. To reach that level, he wrote more than 200 essays over the course of a year.

After finishing each one, he reread it carefully, looking for weak arguments or unclear expressions and revising them.

"Writing well doesn’t improve overnight," Minh said. "You have to write a lot to find your mistakes and fix them."

Even with all that preparation, this year’s exam nearly threw him off balance. The listening section was played only once instead of being repeated, the reading section introduced unfamiliar question types, and the writing format was changed.

For a brief moment, Minh was stunned. But experience from previous competitions kicked in. He steadied himself, scanned the paper carefully, and adjusted his strategy. After missing some listening questions due to surprise, he stayed calm and focused on securing points in the remaining sections, tackling easier questions first.

The most challenging parts were the true-or-false reading tasks and sentence-ordering questions. The section he enjoyed most was writing. After hundreds of essays, it was the skill he trusted the most.

Looking back, Minh said the exam was difficult but fair for a national-level competition.

"I like hard questions," he said. "They push your brain and force you to go beyond your limits."

Tran Xuan Binh, Minh’s homeroom teacher and the coach of the English team, said he was proud not just of the result but of Minh’s character.

"Minh has a rare passion for English," Binh said. "He is serious, persistent, and always sets higher goals for himself."

The teacher added that Minh frequently helped teammates who struggled in certain areas, showing a strong sense of responsibility and teamwork.

For Minh, English is more than an exam subject. He sees it as a gateway to global culture, knowledge and ideas. He plans to pursue English linguistics, with the long-term goal of earning a doctorate and contributing to the field in Vietnam.

"I know it will be a long journey," Minh said. "But I hope I can help turn English from a foreign language into a second language for more people."