'Killer' CSAT questions require obscure knowledge

Social Affairs

Published: 26 Jun. 2023, 19:15 Updated: 27 Jun. 2023, 14:58

'Killer' CSAT questions require obscure knowledge

A customer picks a EBS CSAT book from Kyobo Bookstore in central Seoul on Monday. The goverment said it will not allow ″killer questions″ to be included in following CSAT. [NEWS1]

The Yoon Suk Yeol government has raised issues regarding the so-called “killer questions” on the annual College Scholastics Ability Test (CSAT).

The test results play a critical role for students applying to top colleges.

However, some of the questions are extremely difficult for an average high school students to solve and are blamed as a primary reason why many students are forced to take courses in private cram schools known as hagwon.

Especially, some suspect there is behind-the-doors collaboration between the question creators and the hagwon.

For example, one Korean language test question required students to have extensive knowledge of the history of monetary and macroeconomic policy since it asked about the Brent Wood Agreement, while others required deep understanding of math and science.

Critics said some of the English questions that were asked were too abstract and high-level for high school students to solve.

The following are some of the English questions that the Ministry of Education criticized as “killer questions” which actually appeared on the CSAT.

Q. Which is the right order that follows after this paragraph? (3 points)
Paragraph:

The most commonly known form of results-based pricing is a practice called contingency pricing, used by lawyers.

(A) Therefore, only an outcome in the client’s favor is compensated. From the client’s point of view, the pricing makes sense in part because most clients in these cases are unfamiliar with and possibly intimidated by law firms. Their biggest fears are high fees for a case that may take years to settle.

(B) By using contingency pricing, clients are ensured that they pay no fees until they receive a settlement. In these and other instances of contingency pricing, the economic value of the service is hard to determine before the service, and providers develop a price that allows them to share the risks and rewards of delivering value to the buyer.

(C) Contingency pricing is the major way that personal injury and certain consumer cases are billed. In this approach, lawyers do not receive fees or payment until the case is settled, when they are paid a percentage of the money that the client receives.

① (A) － (C) － (B)
② (B) － (A) － (C)
③ (B) － (C) － (A)
④ (C) － (A) － (B)
⑤ (C) － (B) － (A)

*The question was on the 2022 CSAT exam.

Q. Choose the sentence appropriate for the blank. (3 points)

We understand that the segregation of our consciousness into present, past, and future is both a fiction and an oddly self-referential framework; your present was part of your mother’s future, and your children’s past will be in part your present.
Nothing is generally wrong with structuring our consciousness of time in this conventional manner, and it often works well enough. In the case of climate change, however, the sharp division of time into past, present, and future has been desperately misleading and has, most importantly, hidden from view the extent of the responsibility of those of us alive now.
The narrowing of our consciousness of time smooths the way to divorcing ourselves from responsibility for developments in the past and the future with which our lives are in fact deeply intertwined. In the climate case, it is not that ________ .
It is that the realities are obscured from view by the partitioning of time, and so questions of responsibility toward the past and future do not arise naturally.

① all our efforts prove to be effective and are thus encouraged
② sufficient scientific evidence has been provided to us
③ future concerns are more urgent than present needs
④ our ancestors maintained a different frame of time
⑤ we face the facts but then deny our responsibility

*The question was on the 2022 CSAT exam.

Q. What does the underlined sentence “whether to make ready for the morning commute or not,” means in the following text? (3 points)

Scientists have no special purchase on moral or ethical decisions; a climate scientist is no more qualified to comme nt on health care reform than a physicist is to judge the causes of bee colony collapse.
The very features that create expertise in a specialized domain lead to ignorance in many others. In some cases lay people ― farmers, fishermen, patients, native peoples ― may have relevant experiences that scientists can learn from.
Indeed, in recent years, scientists have begun to recognize this: the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment includes observations gathered from local native groups.
So our trust needs to be limited, and focused. It needs to be very particular.
Blind trust will get us into at least as much trouble as no trust at all.
But without some degree of trust in our designated experts ― the men and women who have devoted their lives to sorting out tough questions about the natural world we live in ― we are paralyzed, in effect not knowing whether to make ready for the morning commute or not.

① questionable facts that have been popularized by non-experts
② readily applicable information offered by specialized experts
③ common knowledge that hardly influences crucial decisions
④ practical information produced by both specialists and lay people
⑤ biased knowledge that is widespread in the local community

*The question was on the 2021 CSAT exam.