South Korea drops ‘killer questions’ from 8-hour gruelling college entrance exam
Students in a class room in South Korea.
The government of South Korea, to decrease the pressure on the students who get scouted by elite private preschools only to go through the rigorous eight-hour national college entrance exam which is known as Suneung and win a seat in a prestigious university, has dropped some “killer questions” from the latter.
The step has been taken by the government with the aim of making college entrance exams easier for students. The so-called “killer questions” have been removed by the officials from the Suneung, which is also called the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), said Education Minister Lee Ju-ho in a press briefing.
Minister Lee said that these highly difficult questions sometimes tend to include material which is not covered in the curriculum of the public school and give an unfair advantage to studentswho have access to private tuition.
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He stated that while seeking private tuition classes is “a personal choice” for parents and children, many believe they are forced to sign for them because of intense competition to score good numbers in the exam. The ministry “seeks to break the vicious cycle of private education that increases the burden for parents and subsequently erodes fairness in education,” vowed Lee.
Life-changing exam and its mind-bending questions
The CSAT exam is seen as a life-changing pedestal which can make or break a student's future. The “killer questions”, which range from obscure literary excerpts to headache-inducing advanced calculus, carry a good reason to make students anxious.
This week several sample questions, which were taken from past CSAT tests and mock exams, were published by the ministry to illustrate the variety of problems which can be removed in future tests.
One question, which had combined math concepts like the differentiation of composite functions, was seen as “more complicated than those covered in public schools, which can cause a psychological burden on test takers,” wrote the ministry. Another sample question had a lengthy passage which was related to the philosophy of consciousness which the students needed to analyse.
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Because of such tough situations, most students in South Korea are forced to get enrolled in extra tutoring or classes at private cram schools which are called “hagwons.” For students, it is normal to attend their regular school classes and go straight to evening hagwon sessions, and then again continue studying by themselves in the early morning hours.
Because of this, South Korea's hagwon industry is massive and profitable. In 2022, a total of 26 trillion won (almost $20 billion) was spent by South Koreans on private education, as per the Ministry of Education.
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