More on testing problems

• Published Jul 12, 2016 4:24 PM KST
• Updated Oct 25, 2018 3:10 PM KST

By Mark Peterson

In my last column I wrote about the college entry exam. I criticized the movement in the US and Korea to rely too much on the test for admission to college. I argued that “bubble sheet” exams, “multiple choice” exams, were not as good a measure of student competence as so-called essay exams.

I pointed out that Korea could use the method of grading that is used by American testers for the “AP” courses – courses that are “advanced placement” whereby high school students can actually get college credit for advanced coursework in a number of subjects. I described a method of reading essay exams that is both fair and efficient.

There is a mistaken idea on the part of many educators and much of the public that an essay exam is “subjective” and open to the whims of the grader and bias or preferential treatment in cases where the grader knows the student and judges the student on the basis of classroom performance, demeanor, or other extraneous factors. But nothing could be further from the truth ― essay tests can be “objective,” that is, graded in a fair way that evaluates the student’s knowledge and mastery of a given subject at the college level.

The graders create a set of standards, criteria that they look for in the essay. The writing style or quality of the essay itself is also important ― students who can write well do better than students who can’t. Therefore, it is not a set of facts that the student is tested on, but how one deals with the set of facts. It matters in real life and in an essay exam how one interacts with the facts.

As a result of the movement toward the bubble sheet exam under “no child left behind” I have noticed in my classrooms a striking loss of writing skills among about 40% of my students. Our university has very high admission standards and the SAT and ACT scores are very important, but unfortunately writing skills are not. In fact, their writing skills are not even evaluated. A student might know a percentage of the “rules” for writing, sufficient to pass the exam, but that doesn’t mean the student knows how to write. In fact, a large percentage ― I think it’s around 40% ― do not write well at all.

There have been reports of Korean students at Ivy League schools who got admitted on the basis of standardized tests, who flunked out of school because they couldn’t write good essays for the exams at top tier universities in America where bubble sheet exams are non-existent.

I would like to suggest to Korean educators that they look not so much to follow the American model, where it has clearly been shown that there is an objective way to grade essay exams, but look at the examination system of pre-modern Korea.

In traditional Korea, the examination system was of primary importance. There were in fact several exams ― the highest was the civil service exam, and secondary to it was the same exam, a secondary level of civil service exam. Below that was the military officers’ exam that had a practical part ― hands-on war skills like horseback archery, and swordsmanship ― as well as a written part. And finally, there were five exams for specialized skills, including law, medicine, accounting, science, and translation.

There were safeguards in grading the essay exams in the Goryeo and Joseon kingdoms. For example, the tests were re-written into a neutral hand so that a grader would not be able to recognize the handwriting (calligraphy) of an applicant who might be a student or colleague of the grader.

Is it possible to have a college entrance exam that is not only administered on a bubble sheet, but also includes an essay component? Yes. It is done for American students today who get AP credit in multiple areas. And yes. It was done for over a thousand years in Korea.

These are both stirring examples that might stimulate Korean educators to look at their exam system. It would take a lot of effort. But when one considers the importance of the exam, the all-importance of the exam, maybe it would be worth it. The importance of the exam in determining the course of a student for the remainder of their life, the exam is so important that airplanes are grounded on test day, that construction workers are asked to eliminate the noise of machinery on that day ― if the exam is so important, maybe it should be graded by real people, and not just a computer program.

Do I hold out any hope that there will be any changes based on my recommendations? No. The exam is so important and there is long-held experience and satisfaction with doing what is being done now. But maybe, just maybe, one or two schools will be interested in experimenting with an ancillary essay exam that could be used to select truly excellent students. Maybe.

Mark Peterson works as professor at the

Korean department at Brigham Young University

and can be reached at markpeterson@

byu.edu.