CSAT's new format caused confusion among students with limited vision on exam day
Published: 18 Nov. 2025, 10:31
Updated: 18 Nov. 2025, 10:41
![Students check their answers of this year's College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) on Nov. 14, a day after the test took place, at a high school in Daegu. [NEWS1]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2025/11/18/601a7171-a1ac-473f-9ce2-e346671347d7.jpg)
Students check their answers of this year's College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) on Nov. 14, a day after the test took place, at a high school in Daegu. [NEWS1]
A last-minute change to how test items were presented for students with limited vision taking this year’s College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) left test-takers, who had no prior notice about the modification, struggling to navigate the exam.
The change affected students with severely limited vision who rely on a screen reader — assistive software that reads text aloud from a computer screen. Thirteen students took this year’s CSAT using this method.
However, the standard hangul bracket labels used in reading passages were abruptly changed to special characters without any advance notice. These characters are not searchable using the 'Find' function, a tool many students with limited vision used to locate specific sections within a passage.
As a result, students were forced to listen to the entire passage again or copy and paste the new characters into a notepad for reference, losing valuable time during the exam.
A post on the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) website expressed frustration. One student wrote that time was wasted not solving problems but trying to adjust to the unfamiliar format, adding that the change created a significant disadvantage under the timed conditions of the test.
"It’s like a referee changing the rules mid-game and the players only finding out once it starts," the student told News1 in an interview. "When even minor changes happen for sighted students, they're announced and reported on, so why is no one talking about changes to the test for students with disabilities?"
KICE said in a statement that the change was based on feedback from experts on visual disabilities, explaining that while the previous characters were read simply, the special characters emphasized the brackets around the hangul, which they claimed offers greater clarity.
However, the institute did not explain why there had been no prior notice of the change.
“I’m not contesting my test results,” the student said. “I just hope future students can take the exam in a fairer and more stable environment where they can fully demonstrate their abilities.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY KIM CHUL-WOONG [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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