2007 CSAT Easier than Last Year’s

The 2007 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) on November 16 was slightly easier than last year’s.

The number of students whose score positions are in the middle or in the upper middle will be larger than last year, making the admissions ratio extremely high in colleges they apply for. Essay tests administered by individual colleges will be more influential.

Ahn Tae-in, professor of school of Biological Sciences of Seoul National University, who made the questions for the exam, said, “We tried to match the overall difficulty of the test on the same level as last year. But we made the Korean exam a little more difficult and the social and natural sciences a bit easier than last year.”

The Education Broadcasting System analyzed that around 80 percent of the questions in the test were related to questions in its lectures it aired for high school students.

Indeed, exam takers agreed after the exam that the Korean test was slightly more difficult, while the English part and the social and natural sciences part were easy compared to last year. Regarding the optional tests such as physics, they responded differently depending on the subjects they chose. They said the advanced mathematics test (A type) was difficult, whereas the mathematics B section was easy.

So, the gap between the A type and the B type is expected to narrow, and less students in liberal arts tracks will apply for a science track compared to last year. Experts forecast that B type examinees will not be advantageous this year when they apply for colleges that reflect both types. The Korea Institute of Curriculum & Evaluation, the committee in charge of the test, will collect files for differences of opinion on the test questions and answers until 5:00 p.m. on November 20, and confirm the correct answers on November 29. Students will be notified of their CSAT scores on December 13.

sungchul@donga.com foryou@donga.com