Language and Science Sections Easy, Mathematics and English Hard

Although the language and science sections of the 2005 college entrance exams held on November 17 were rather easy, the Gah (The Korean college entrance exam is divided into two types of mathematics sections. One is the Gah form and the other the Nah form. Students who wish to pursue higher education in engineering take the Gah form, while students who pursue liberal arts take the Nah form.) mathematics and the English section were rather hard. Thus, students who score high in these sections are predicted to have an advantage later during college admissions.

Also starting in this year’s exam, raw scores will be discarded while students will be given a standardized score, a percentile rank, and a degree. It is thus expected that high school admissions officials will have a hard time guiding their students. Also, high competition is expected between students grouped in the middle upper class of the scoring range.

Noh Myung-wan (a professor at Korea University), the director of the college entrance exams announced during a press conference held today that, “The exams were modeled after June and September mock exams. Most of the problems were related to the Education Broadcasting System’s (EBS) lectures, and students who have successfully finished the normal educational process should have had no problems during the exam.”

The rate in which the EBS lectures were incorporated in this year’s tests was 86.7 percent for language, 82.5-83.3 percent for mathematics, 92 percent for foreign language, and approximately 83-87 percent for other sections of the test.

In-Chul Lee inchul@donga.com