High-ranking 50%, Decrease of 3.6 Scores

The average scores of college entrance exam for 2003 dropped by 3.2 scores over last year. The average scores of the top 50% of students decreased by 3.6 scores.

As the high school graduates have higher scores than enrolled students, the high schools have been put on emergency alertness for college studies guidance.

The college entrance exam had the difficult questions and so no one has the full marks this year.

Korea Institute of Curriculum Evaluation (KICE) announced the results of college entrance exam for 2003, and then let 655,384 students know their scores through high schools on December 2.

KICE explained that the lowest limits of grade 1 (top 4% based on converted standard scores) out of comprehensive 9 grades were 350.78 scores for humanities, 364.72 scores for sciences and 313.13 scores for arts. Also, the lowest limits of grade 2(top 11%) were 329.93 scores for humanities, 349.80 scores for sciences and 288.16 scores for arts.

The average scores of total examinees decreased by 3.2 scores to 207.6 scores on the basis of raw score. The average scores of top 50% examinees decreased by 3.6 scores to 266.3 scores.

In terms of exam areas, in particular, the part of social studies had difficult questions. So, its scores decreased by 4.7 scores for humanities, 7.7 scores for sciences and 4.5 scores for arts. Its decrease led the decrease of overall scores.

However, in the part of Korean language, the scores increased by 0.4 score for humanities but decreased by 0.7 score for sciences.

The difference of scores between high school graduates and enrolled students increased. The difference of scores decreased by 0.7∼1.5 for humanities and 0.1∼1.3 scores for arts, but increased by 1.2∼2 scores for sciences. Academic institutes estimate that the scores of high school graduates increased by 13∼21 scores.

Besides, 193 universities will have a registration of occasion successful candidates for the second semester on December 6~9 and then receive the application on December 10∼13. Then, universities will have a regular selection by `A`, `B` and `C` groups from December 14, 2002 to February 5, 2003.

inchul@donga.com