Global Courant
Although the standardized test subject was the Korean language, the students had to answer questions about equity and risk-weighted bank balances. Problems with the “society” portion of the exam challenged them to decipher three-dimensional hypothetical analyzes of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.
For years, high school students in South Korea who take the annual college entrance exam known as the College Scholastic Ability Test, or the CSAT, have been faced with what are commonly referred to as “killer questions” — extremely difficult problems seemingly inconsistent with the section titles. which they fall under and which are sometimes beyond the scope of the curriculum of the public education system.
The test, which is not only notorious for its strictness, has also long caused the private education sector to boom. So-called cram schools are usually packed with students well past midnight, and the commitment that comes with passing the CSAT has led to an intense rat race among students to get into the best universities in the country. Hundreds of thousands of students take the nine-hour exam, which is typically held in November each year.
But this week, after government officials complained about “killer questions,” the head of the organization that conducts the exam resigned.
“I decided to take my responsibility and resign,” Lee Gue-min, the president of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, said in a statement Monday. “We apologize for causing concern to the students and parents who have had difficulty preparing for the exam.”
Mr Lee, whose term was due to run until February 2025, resigned just days after government officials raised concerns about the test, which includes material not covered in the public school curriculum. Last week, President Yoon Suk Yeol asked that material not covered in the public school be removed from exams.
On Wednesday, the Department of Education announced it would drop the “killer questions” as a way to reduce families’ reliance on private education and the associated financial burden. The changes take effect with this year’s CSAT.
South Korea’s private education sector has flourished in recent decades thanks to prop schools. Last year, families spent a whopping 26 trillion won — about $20 billion — on private education, up 10 percent from the year before, according to government statistics.
The exam has also been openly criticized by academics, who endorse the government’s concerns. “I was stunned and angry,” said Kim Kwang-doo, an economics professor at Sogang University in Seoul, wrote on Facebook in response to a CSAT problem. “Is there a high school student who could solve such difficult problems without the help of top instructors in private academies?”
The government’s push to ease the burden of private education costs may be a welcome move for some, but those in the private academy sector say the effort may not make a difference.
Students go to private academies to prepare for test questions of all levels of complexity, not just the “killer” ones, said Kang Ho-nam, the executive vice president of a private math tutoring service in Seoul that uses artificial intelligence. .
“Changing the exam so close to the date will make students even more anxious, leading them to continue enrolling in private academies,” he said, adding that the CSAT was a comprehensive exam.
By eliminating the hardest questions that students typically get wrong, test takers will receive heavier demerits for making mistakes on easier questions, suggested Koo Yong-hyun, a former private tutor who has helped more than 50 students prepare in the past decade for the CSAT. “Killer questions ensure that the efforts of the best students are not wasted,” he said.
