Over 500,000 students sit Korea’s national college entrance exam – 코리아타임스

A College Scholastic Ability Test taker arrives at a test site, cheered on by younger students, at Kyungbock High School in Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

More than 500,000 high school seniors, graduates and other applicants took the state college entrance exam at 1,279 test sites across the country on Thursday.

This year, a total of 504,588 registered to take the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), down by 3,442 from a year earlier. Among them, high school seniors accounted for 64.7 percent and graduates 31.7 percent.

The CSAT, held on the third Thursday of every November, is regarded as the most important event in students’ academic careers, as it largely decides the outcome of 12 years of intense study for those seeking to enter top universities.

All aircraft takeoffs and landings across the country were restricted for 35 minutes from 1:05 p.m. to 1:40 p.m. during the English listening evaluation portion of the exam, to prevent potentially distracting aircraft noise.

Students wait to begin the College Scholastic Ability Test at Ewha Girls’ Foreign Language High School in Seoul, Thursday. Joint Press Corps

It was the fourth CSAT held since COVID-19 broke out around the world in 2020. Mask-wearing, which had since been mandatory for all test takers for the past three years, was lifted for the first time this year.

Those who tested positive for COVID-19 or displayed symptoms were also allowed to take the test in the same rooms as others without the virus, after having taken the test in separate rooms for the past three years.

Yet, education authorities actively advised the test takers infected with coronoavirus or showing symptoms to wear masks and have lunch separately.

A mother hugs her daughter as they arrive at a College Scholastic Ability Test site at Ewha Girls’ Foreign Language High School in Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

As the nine-hour, five-session exam began, some 500 test writers and reviewers, as well as about 230 who were in charge of administrative work, were freed from their confinement, after having stayed together in a camp for the last 38 days to maintain tight security on test materials.

Jeong Moon-seong, a professor at Gyeongin National University of Education and this year’s head of the test writers, said extremely difficult “killer” questions were excluded from the exam as ordered by President Yoon Suk Yeol.

“We excluded the so-called ‘killer’ questions in accordance with the government’s policy to reduce abnormally high private education expenses,” Jeong said in a media briefing at the Government Complex in Sejong.

“We created questions covered by the public education curriculum, while maintaining the ability to assess students’ capabilities.”

On June 15, President Yoon instructed Education Minister Lee Ju-ho to exclude what is not taught at schools from the annual exam. This was part of his education reforms, one of the top three reforms being pursued by the Yoon administration, along with labor and pensions.

At the time, senior presidential secretary for press affairs Kim Eun-hye said that setting questions not covered by public education amounts to education authorities forcing students to use the services offered by the private tutoring industry, which is “very unfair.”

A College Scholastic Ability Test taker gets out of a police car in front of a test site at Ewha Girls’ Foreign Language High School in Seoul, Thursday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

In a bid to support the CSAT takers on their way to the test sites, the National Police Agency mobilized more than 11,000 officers, including 2,447 traffic police, and more than 2,600 vehicles, including 2,323 patrol cars.

The agency said it deployed traffic police at locations expected to be crowded following the end of the test, to prevent any possible accidents.

Hours before the exam began, at 1:50 a.m., a teenage student in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, was rushed to a nearby hospital for injuries caused by self-harm. His injuries were not life-threatening.

Local police said the student had suffered extreme stress over the exam, noting that the case is undergoing further investigation.