CSAT to be held on November 16... Will it secure differentiation amid killer question controversy?

EBS Connection Rate Maintained at 50% Level... Application Period August 24 to September 8

The 2024 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), for which predicting the question trends and difficulty has become even more challenging due to the controversy over ‘killer questions,’ will be held on November 16.

The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation announced the detailed plan for the 2024 CSAT on the 2nd.

On the 17th, the day of the 2023 College Scholastic Ability Test, examinees are waiting for the exam to start at the test site set up at Gyeongbok High School in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jin-Hyung Kang aymsdream@

This year’s CSAT will feature questions of appropriate difficulty so that students who have faithfully received school education and supplemented it with EBS-linked textbooks and lectures can solve the problems.

The institute will apply the 2015 revised curriculum to all areas and subjects, and questions will be created according to the content and level of this curriculum. After the CSAT, the achievement standards for each question and other curriculum-based information will be disclosed.

The linkage rate with EBS CSAT textbooks will be maintained at about 50% based on the number of questions per area and subject. The connection between EBS CSAT textbooks and lectures and the CSAT questions will be indirect, and the plan is to enhance the sense of linkage by utilizing materials such as charts, pictures, and passages included in the linked textbooks.

As in the previous year, the Korean language and mathematics sections will be conducted under a ‘common subject + elective subject’ system without distinction between humanities and sciences. Test takers will take the common subjects and choose one subject from Speech and Writing or Language and Media for Korean, and one subject from Probability and Statistics, Calculus, or Geometry for mathematics.

The English, Korean History, and Second Foreign Language/Chinese Characters sections will be graded on an absolute evaluation basis. In the social and science inquiry sections, test takers can select up to two subjects from 17 elective subjects without distinction between social studies and science. In the vocational inquiry section, up to two subjects can be chosen from six subjects.

The Korean History section is mandatory; failure to take it will invalidate the entire CSAT application, and no scores will be provided.

The application period for the CSAT is 12 days, from August 24 to September 8, and score reports will be distributed to test takers on December 8.

Photos attached to the application must be recent, full-color, passport-style photos taken within six months from the start date of the application period, showing the upper body facing forward.

Score reports can be collected at the school currently attended by enrolled students, and for graduates or those who took the qualification exam, at the institution where the application was submitted. Test takers can also obtain score certificates online through the score certificate issuance site using their own joint authentication certificate.

The score report will indicate standard scores, percentiles, and grades for each area and subject. For the absolutely evaluated sections?English, Korean History, Second Foreign Language, and Chinese Characters?only grades will be shown.

Black computer-use sign pens, mechanical pencils, and white correction tape will be provided at the test site. Test takers may personally carry black computer-use sign pens, black pencils, white correction tape, erasers, and black mechanical pencil leads (0.5 mm).

The number of test takers per examination room is limited to 24.

However, quarantine guidelines related to COVID-19 and other factors have not yet been finalized.

The Ministry of Education and the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation plan to prepare and implement CSAT quarantine measures in cooperation with health authorities and will provide separate guidance to test takers before the exam.

Test takers who do not take the CSAT due to natural disasters, illness, final acceptance in early admission, military enlistment, or other reasons can apply for a refund from November 20 to 24 and receive 60% of the CSAT application fee back.

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