Does Suneung English exam gauge real-world proficiency?

A test taker prays as she waits for the College Scholastic Aptitude Test to start at Inhwa Girls' High School in Incheon, Thursday. Joint Press Corps

Forget the SAT.

Korea’s College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), or Suneung, includes an English section so notoriously difficult that some students have likened it to deciphering an ancient script. Far from being a routine exam, it features dense passages and difficult vocabulary that even fluent English speakers say they are left second-guessing themselves — turning a test intended to measure proficiency into something closer to a national exercise in linguistic frustration.

But despite recurring criticism that the exam’s complexity goes far beyond what high school students can reasonably handle, experts argue that the test is designed not to measure simple language proficiency but to gauge students’ analytical and learning potential once they enter university.

Still, they warn that the extreme competitiveness surrounding the exam may be producing negative side effects, including excessive stress and an unhealthy test-driven learning culture.

“In general, I find the difficulty level of the questions ridiculous — I’d wager that a high percentage of native speakers would struggle with them,” said Anjee DiSanto from the U.S., who works as an assistant professor at Wonkwang University, after reviewing Thursday’s English test.

“These exams push students to engage with a type of complex, often antiquated language that has little to do with real-world communication,” she added.

Native English speakers who reviewed the test shared similar views, saying the questions were unnecessarily convoluted and far removed from natural language use.

“The test deliberately uses overly complex vocabulary and sentence structures to confuse readers,” said an American elementary school teacher based in Sejong City, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Even native speakers would have trouble understanding some of these passages.”

An answer from ChatGPT when asked about question 39 of this year's College Scholastic Aptitude Test English section / Captured from ChatGPT

When asked about question 39 — one of the questions designed to raise this year’s English-section difficulty — both native speakers and the generative artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT selected a different choice from the official answer.

While the correct answer was listed as No. 3, many native speakers, as well as ChatGPT, identified No. 1 as the most appropriate response.

The CSAT English section has increasingly relied on trickier answer choices and mid-to-high-level questions in recent years to maintain score differentiation. This year’s exam is already being assessed as even more difficult than last year’s test, according to Daesung Academy, one of the country’s largest college prep institutes.

This trend has fueled debate over whether the exam genuinely supports students’ English development.

Samuel Denny, a retired associate professor of English education at Sangmyung University who is also from U.S., said the exam may test advanced reading skills but fails to measure the kind of English students actually need.

“These questions don’t reflect real-world communication or practical ability,” he said.

Test takers walk into Ewha Girls' Foreign Language High School for this year's national college entrance exam, Jung District, Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

Amid recurring criticism over the difficulty of the CSAT English section, experts say the gap between everyday language use and the exam’s dense, academic passages is largely unavoidable.

Kim Soo-yeon, a professor in the department of English literature and culture at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, noted that complaints about the difficulty of reading passages are common, but largely reflect the test’s intended purpose — to assess whether students are academically prepared for university.

“The CSAT is not simply a language test, it measures students’ reading comprehension and whether they can handle the level of material they’ll encounter in university. That requires passages with some degree of specialization,” she said.

However, the widening gap between what public schools teach and what the CSAT demands is increasingly cited as a key reason behind students’ struggles and the fiercely competitive private English education market.

Public school English classes are designed to be accessible to a wide range of learners, focusing on simpler content so that all students can follow along. In contrast, the CSAT evaluates students using dense, specialized reading passages, creating a mismatch between the two systems.

“The deeper issue is that public education isn’t equipping students with sufficient English skills, leaving many with little choice but to turn to private tutoring,” said Lee Hi-kyoung, a professor in the department of English language and literature at Korea University, while acknowledging that assessing students’ readiness for university-level coursework requires difficulty.

The structure of the CSAT is producing a strong “washback effect” — the phenomenon in which test formats directly influence how students study and how teachers teach.

“In Korea, the effect is particularly strong. When the exam relies on tricky questions or advanced grammar, students inevitably study to match it — which is why private tutoring becomes so widespread,” Lee said.