Hoang Minh Hieu is the only candidate who got a 10 in advance subject in the 10th grade exam of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training this year.

Hieu is also the valedictorian in Mathematics at the HUS High school for the Gifted, where he got a perfect score on Advance Math. In addition, he is among the top 6 students with the highest scores in the Math class of the Hanoi National University High school for Gifted Students.

Hieu assessed that Hanoi's specialized math test this year was not too tricky. The types of problems appearing in the test such as inequality and geometry are quite familiar. Particularly, the last combination is more categorical, luckily, he did it completely and achieved a complete 10. In addition, in order not to lose points, Hieu also made an effort to attend the lesson attentively. 

Hoang Minh Hieu is the only student in Hanoi to get 10 in Advanced Math.

Despite achieving remarkable results in Mathematics, Hieu said that during the 9 years of elementary and middle school, he had never held any special titles related to this subject.

Instead, Hieu was better known as "The Chess Master". Since 1st grade, when participating in the national youth chess championship, although the teacher needed to record the match so that they could draw experiences from the match, Hieu could remember every move made by him and his opponent and rearrange the entire chessboard without looking at the note. 

Thanks to his ability to memorize and think quickly, Hieu has continuously achieved success in many domestic and international chess tournaments. Hieu won a gold medal at the National Youth Chess Championship U7, won 6 medals including 5 gold medals and one silver medal at the U8 Southeast Asian Youth Chess Championship, and also received the title of Chess Grandmaster in the same year.

In addition, Minh Hieu continuously won more than 20 national, Southeast Asian and Asian youth chess medals between 2017 and 2022.

Having traveled to 12 countries, often had to miss school to participate in tournaments, but in middle school, Hieu suddenly asked his mother to let him learn in a more competitive environment - Hanoi Amsterdam High School for the Gifted .

He had never studied advanced math forms before entering the school. Additionally, he was busy competing in tournaments for 2 weeks. As a result, the first Math test of the 6th grade, Hieu was almost at the bottom of the class.

“At that time, I was very scared because all of my friends studied very well and I was almost the weakest student in the class. I was afraid that I would not be able to keep up with my friends.” Hieu recalled.

But after that, things gradually became "easier" when Hieu received help from teachers. So by the 7th grade, Hieu began to realize that he was interested in Math and actively pursued it. 

In 8th grade, Hieu was one of 3 students who entered the school's Math team, studying with his upper classmates in grade 9. Although after that, he missed the district and city exams, but a year later, Hieu won First Prize for Excellent student in Mathematics of Cau Giay district and the Third Prize for Excellent students at the city level.

Not working day and night, nor is he a "nerd", Hieu believes that the results he has achieved are a combination of many factors, including the ability to think, remember, and his carefulness, thoughtfulness, and a little luck.

Hieu feels fortunate that both parents encourage him to follow his passion instead of forcing him.

“I know a lot of friends who have been invested in by their parents since they were young, even studying at many teachers and places. But on the contrary, my parents don’t force me to go to many teachers. Instead, they encouraged me to freely develop according to my interests and passions. There is no pressure, so studying with me is quite easy," Hieu said.

Source: Vietnamnet

Translator: Nguyen Khanh Linh - English 2 2023