[2024 Suneung] EBS: "English harder than last year's Suneung, similar to September mock test... No killer questions"

The English section of the 2024 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), held on the 16th, was analyzed to be slightly more difficult than last year's test and was set at the level of this September's mock exam.

Kim Bora, a leading instructor from EBS and a teacher at Seoul Samgaksan High School, stated at the 2024 CSAT English section briefing held at the Government Sejong Complex, "It appears to be somewhat more difficult than last year's CSAT and similar to this September's mock exam."

Kim said, "So-called killer question elements were excluded," and evaluated, "Rather than questions requiring problem-solving skills, many questions required thoroughly reading and understanding the passages to secure overall discrimination."

The percentage of test-takers who scored 90 points or higher and received the top grade in the September mock exam was 4.37%. This was considered the lowest since the June 2019 mock exam (4.19%), indicating a high level of difficulty. EBS CSAT textbooks analyzed that 53.3% (24 questions) were linked to the materials.

This CSAT included many passages reflecting changes in modern society, such as secondhand trading, tourism, multiliteracy, and scientists' participation in media, as well as everyday and familiar topics. However, it was evaluated that discrimination was secured by requiring careful reading of the passages to find the correct answers.

On the 16th, when the 2024 College Scholastic Ability Test was held, examinees were preparing for the exam at Yongsan High School in Seoul. Photo by Joint Press Corps

When asked how discrimination was secured while dealing with familiar topics, Kim introduced an experiment recognizing emotions expressed by looking at facial photos and cited question 33, which required inferring the content of a blank, as an example.

Kim explained, "It deals with the familiar topic of understanding emotions, introducing the experiment at the beginning and leaving the experiment results as a blank, then explaining the reasons for the results afterward. One must grasp this logical flow, which is a type of question extensively trained within public education."

Besides question 33, questions with high discrimination included question 24, which required reading about 'overtourism' and inferring the title, and question 34, which required understanding a passage about how people perceive streets and inferring the content to fill in the blank.

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