Serious issue in college scholastic ability test

This year`s college scholastic ability test, or suneung test, had errors in English and Life Science II questions. Last year also had a question error in world geography, and thus the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation had said that for this year "examiners workshop was strengthened and the number of monitoring members was also expanded for a more close examination." However, another error happened this year, raising criticism of a faulty system where the institute takes the whole charge of setting test, verifying and finalizing the answers.

English exam No. 25 question, which raised disputes of having two answers, marked percent instead of percentage point in describing mobile phone usage growth rate of U.S` teenagers. Percent is a ratio with a base of 100 and percentage point is the unit for the arithmetic difference of two percentages. Teachers teach the difference of two with care. It is unconvincing that examiners, who are composed of college professors, and monitoring members didn`t filter such a basic error. Meanwhile, Life Science II exam No. 8 question asked about the process of colon bacillus generating enzyme by which milk sugar can be converted to glucose. Experts are mixed on the answer to this question. Science questions should have one concrete answer and the very fact that a question was made that arouse answer disputes is wrong.

The institute will announce the final answer on November 24 after collecting experts` opinions. However, simply finalizing the matter this way is no cure. The institute is an umbrella institute of the Prime Minister`s Office and thus is not supervised by the Education Ministry despite that the ministry supports it with budget. A reprimand should be issued through Education Ministry audit while an overall examination of the college entrance exam solely pursued by the institute is also necessary.

It is a crucial matter if examiners and monitoring people had just focused on the exam policy to link with EBS education programs and to make questions easier and were negligent on the accuracy of the test. The Education Ministry also can`t escape responsibility who in February this year put forth a principle of "easy English college exam test to prevent private English education fever." The goal of college exam was presented as "to prevent private education fever," when it had to present the national education policy direction. This led to disputes this year and can raise further disputes next year. Fundamental improvement plans should be sought out in order to prevent confusion from the college exam from being aggravated. Some solutions include shifting to an exam that assesses basic scholastic aptitude or qualification exam.