Kim Moon-hee, president of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), said the institute is "doing its utmost to set appropriate difficulty levels" for the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), addressing the recurring controversy over exam difficulty. She pledged to overhaul the English section's question-setting system and significantly expand the participation of classroom teachers to restore confidence in the exam, which was shaken last year by the so-called "impossible English" debacle.
"The CSAT has been administered for 33 years since 1994, and KICE has amassed a sufficient pool of experts and accumulated data," Kim said at a press briefing held Tuesday in Sejong. "Based on our analysis over the years, we are making continuous efforts to calibrate difficulty."
"Given the English difficulty problems last year, we will examine that area more thoroughly this year," she stressed. In the 2026 CSAT, only 3.11 percent of test-takers earned the top grade in English — the lowest since the absolute grading system was introduced — sparking the "impossible English" controversy and leading to the resignation of the then-KICE president.
Accordingly, English question-setting improvements announced by the Ministry of Education in February will be applied starting with the June mock exam this year. "We are strengthening verification through the Question Review Committee and expanding the proportion of classroom teachers to around 50 percent in both question-setting and review processes," Kim said. "The experience and know-how of diverse experts who have been involved in question-setting at the high school level play a crucial role in CSAT question development."
Kim also addressed the concentration of students in certain elective subjects. On the so-called "satamrun" phenomenon — a surge of students switching to social studies electives — she said, "Changes in test-takers' subject choices appear consistently in our statistics. We are factoring in difficulty from the question-setting stage so that no subject choice creates an advantage or disadvantage." She added, "Through the June and September mock exams, we will identify the characteristics of the test-taker population and reflect those findings to minimize any disparities."
Kim cited restoring public trust in the CSAT as her top priority during her term. "As the institution responsible for setting and administering the CSAT, securing public trust is paramount," she said. "We feel the burden of having to administer an error-free exam with appropriate difficulty in a stable manner." She also said she plans to strengthen communication with policy stakeholders and expand the dissemination of research findings to respond to the rapidly changing education environment.
On the potential shift to absolute grading across the CSAT, Kim maintained a cautious stance. "Absolute grading has the educational advantage of reducing excessive competition," she said. "But since the CSAT is one component of the college admissions system, whether to reform it must be discussed within the overall college admissions policy framework based on social consensus." She added, "Once the National Education Commission reaches its conclusions, we will prepare accordingly."
Regarding reliance on private tutoring, she emphasized, "It is important to ensure that the exam can be adequately prepared for through school education alone. We will minimize the link to private tutoring by setting questions within the scope of the national curriculum."
