College entrance exam: Too easy or too difficult?

The report cards of the 2016 National College Entrance Examination in Korea are going to be handed out to the students today. Of course, the test is becoming less important with the expansion of rolling admission system. The final test, however, still matters as the rolling admission has the barrier of minimum academic requirements. According to the Korean Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE), the scores have fallen this year, and the ratio of perfect scorers in the Korean, English, and math tests, have also decreased compared to last year, except for the type B Korean test for which the students on humanities course apply. Many students may have been disappointed with their results.

The testees could have felt betrayed as the test has turned much more difficult this year without a notice of warning. The test had been easy for the past four years since 2012. “Just like the practice exams in June and September, those who have faithfully completed the curricula at school will be able to solve the questions without too much difficulty,” chief examiner Lee Joon-shik has said on the test day. However, many of the students must have blanked out at the test paper. It is no wonder that complaints are simmering among the students who only followed the EBS materials, convinced that the test would be as easy as per usual. The actual difficulty felt by students has varied much from group to group, and it has been reported that those who took the test for the second time relatively made better grades.

When the college entrance exam is too easy, it is called "Mul Suneung." When it is too difficult, they say it is "Bul Suneung." If the difficult test is followed by an easy one, it is called "Mulbul Suneung." Korea must be one of the few countries, if not only, where the difficulty of the college test makes news headline. The Korean government has been proposing guidelines to control the difficulty of the test. Determined to cut private education costs, the Lee Myung-bak administration proposed a policy of pegging the EBS contents with 70 percent of the test questions and producing one percent of perfect scorers, which actually worked. The policy allowed the students with mid and low academic levels to bump up their grades significantly, and it led to a stampede to the EBS contents and collapsing stock prices of private education businesses.

When the test is too easy, however, it invites a serious downside. As there are too many high scorers, a single mistake can instantly change the fortunes of students. If anyone can get the top score at an easy test as far as the testee does not catch a cold or make a mistake, the test cannot function as the standard of assessment. Last year, the college entrance exam was so easy that it produced as many as 19,564 perfect scorers in English and 6,630 in type B math test. Compared to last year, I would not say this time the test was not too difficult. Rather it was a successful test that will better assess the levels of students.