The College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) Losing Killer Questions... Securing Discriminative Power May Not Be Easy

Concerns Over 'Mulsuneung' Grow... Examinees Focus on Semi-Killer Questions

As the Ministry of Education decided not to include so-called killer questions (ultra-high difficulty questions) in the 2024 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), attention is focused on whether the test can still secure its discriminatory power.

On the 26th, Minister of Education Lee Ju-ho announced measures to reduce private education and pointed out 26 killer questions that appeared in the past three years' CSATs and this year's June mock exam. Minister Lee described them as "questions not covered within public education and unfair from the perspective of students and parents," and stated, "We will secure minimum fairness and remove questions that are the peak cause of private education," announcing the elimination of killer questions.

Although the intention is to exclude killer questions that are outside the curriculum, there is widespread concern inside and outside the education community that the difficulty of the exam itself will inevitably decrease, resulting in a 'watered-down CSAT.' In response, Minister Lee firmly stated, "We will never weaken the important role of the CSAT in securing discriminatory power."

On the 26th, Oh Seung-geol, Director of the Responsible Education Policy Office at the Ministry of Education, is presenting examples of killer questions from the College Scholastic Ability Test at the Government Seoul Office in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Dongju Yoon doso7@

However, the scoring results of the June mock exam announced on the 27th suggest that securing the CSAT's discriminatory power will not be easy.

◆Ambiguous Impact of Killer Questions in June Mock Exam= In the Korean language section of the June mock exam, where killer questions were pointed out, the highest standard score (136 points) and the number of students who received the top grade increased significantly. This indicates that the killer questions identified by the Ministry of Education were not particularly difficult for the test takers.

Mathematics, which was evaluated as the most difficult ever, recorded the highest standard score of 151 points as expected, showing that killer questions exerted some discriminatory power. However, such ultra-high difficulty questions will disappear in the actual CSAT. The difference in the highest standard score for Korean is also as much as 15 points, so the difficulty of the actual CSAT is expected to be somewhat lower, which will likely reduce discriminatory power compared to the June mock exam.

◆Intensified Science Track Concentration... Dilemma of Discriminatory Power and Balance= In the June mock exam, the participation rate for 'Calculus,' mainly chosen by natural science students, was 48.5%, surpassing 'Probability and Statistics,' which is mostly taken by humanities students at 47.8%. This is the first time since the introduction of the integrated CSAT system in 2022. The proportion of students who only took science inquiry subjects also exceeded those who only took social inquiry subjects for the first time, at 48.5% versus 47.7%.

In this situation of intensified concentration in the science track, to narrow the imbalance between humanities and science tracks caused by differences in the highest standard scores, the difficulty of math elective subjects such as Calculus and Probability and Statistics, as well as science inquiry subjects, must be lowered. Regardless of the presence of killer questions, if the overall difficulty of the exam decreases, the announcement by Minister Lee Ju-ho to secure discriminatory power is likely not to be fulfilled.

◆Private Academies Already Focusing on 'Semi-Killer Questions'= After the government announcement, private academies quickly began analyzing this year's CSAT question trends. Since the definition of 'killer questions' mentioned by President Yoon Seok-yeol and the Ministry of Education was unclear from the start, and the government's criteria were ambiguous, confusion among students and parents is expected to continue. Lee Manki, director of Uway Education Evaluation Research Institute, said, "If many semi-killer questions appear instead of killer questions, students will spend more time solving problems, increasing psychological burden."

On the 28th, Minseok Ahn, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, appeared on the radio and said, "(With the exclusion of killer questions, etc.) only the Gangnam private academies will hit the jackpot," and such a trend has indeed begun to appear. Private academies in areas like Daechi-dong, Seoul, are showing movements to expand semi-killer question preparation classes for top-tier students. Lim Seong-ho, CEO of Jongro Academy, said, "If the correct answer rate of the existing high-difficulty killer questions is not secured, the feared problem of an easy CSAT will appear," adding, "In mathematics, the grade cut-off is expected to rise by about 4 points, making it difficult to distinguish between the top and upper-tier students."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.