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This article highlights the problems as well as the suggested solutions regarding the assessment of English writing skills at Vinh University. Students at the university are tested through grammar and vocabulary exercises, essays, and situational writings. It is important for the university to ensure a fair grading system. However, assessing writing skills in the form of exact numerical scores is a challenging task for many examiners due to various difficulties, such as: vague scoring rubrics, comparison of different candidates’ writings, and legibility of the candidates’ handwriting. These issues negatively affect the scoring reliability. Scoring reliability refers to the consistency which different people who score the same test agree. This article also provides suggestions to solve the aforementioned challenges: more detailed scoring rubrics, setting a marked model essay as a reference, cross-marking, and longer deadlines for teachers when grading. These problems and solutions are discovered in the context of Vinh university; nonetheless, it can be applied to any educational institution. This article can be useful in improving the accuracy and efficiency of assessing writing skills of students.