'Killer questions' absent from this year's college entry exam, says lead test writer

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'Killer questions' absent from this year's college entry exam, says lead test writer

Published: 14 Nov. 2024, 13:56

Students prepare to take the 2025 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) at a high school in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Thursday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

“Killer questions” were left out of this year’s College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), according to the chief test writer.

Choe Joong-chul, a professor of Dongguk University’s College of Natural Science and this year's lead test writer, said questions outside the official school curriculum, called "killer questions" in Korea, were eliminated to “assess only the content taught in public education” during a briefing held at the government complex in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Thursday, the day of the CSAT.

The move follows President Yoon Suk Yeol’s 2023 directive to remove off-curriculum questions to lessen students’ need for expensive private education.

“We were committed to supporting the normalization of high school education by presenting questions that focus on the foundational and essential course content,” said Choe. “For core and fundamental topics that appeared on past exams, we presented them in new ways, with variations in format, sequence and approach.”

Choe added that the organizers also worked to balance the difficulty level across elective sections to ensure fairness, minimizing advantages or disadvantages based on students’ choice of test subjects.

Under the current CSAT system, all candidates must take both common and elective sections in Korean and mathematics and select two subjects from 17 options in the humanities and sciences or choose from five job skill subjects.

The 2025 CSAT commenced at 8:40 a.m. on Thursday at 1,282 testing sites across 85 districts nationwide. General test-takers are expected to finish by 5:45 p.m., while those with special needs can complete the exam by 9:48 p.m.

This year, 522,670 students are taking the exam, including 340,777 current students and 181,893 graduates and other candidates.

BY WOO JI-WON [[email protected]]