Difficulty drops across all elective subjects including reading and literature; EBS linkage rate at 53.3%

Students prepare for the June mock college entrance exam at Seoul Girls' High School in Mapo-gu, Seoul, on Thursday. [Joint Press Corps]
Students prepare for the June mock college entrance exam at Seoul Girls' High School in Mapo-gu, Seoul, on Thursday. [Joint Press Corps]

By Kim Yong-jae, The Herald Business

The Korean Language section of the June mock college entrance exam for the 2027 academic year was slightly easier than last year's College Scholastic Ability Test, analysts said.

The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation and college admissions industry experts said Thursday the section was designed so students could prepare using regular school instruction and EBS-linked study materials. All subject areas — including reading comprehension, literature, speech and composition, and language and media — were rated easier than last year's CSAT.

Most passages in the Korean Language section were drawn from EBS-linked materials, meaning students likely found the content familiar, the institute said.

The institute said it maintained an EBS linkage rate of 53.3 percent, covering 24 questions. All four reading comprehension passages were linked to EBS materials, and roughly half of the literary works in the literature section came from titles included in the EBS CSAT intensive course.

However, some questions designed to differentiate top scorers were included. Admissions industry experts identified question No. 8 on a humanities passage, question No. 13 on a social studies passage, and questions No. 15 and 16 on a science and technology passage as relatively challenging.

Question No. 13 in particular — which required students to apply real-world cases involving government intervention under conditions of information asymmetry — was expected to have a meaningful impact on distinguishing top-tier students.

"There were in effect no high-difficulty killer questions or novel question types," admissions industry experts said, adding that students who had faithfully followed school instruction and studied EBS materials should have been well-prepared.

Daesung Hagwon said the exam was "slightly easy in reading, easy in literature, and easy in elective subjects overall — easier than last year's CSAT." Jongno Hagwon similarly assessed it as "easier than last year's main CSAT and roughly on par with last June's mock exam."

Kim Byung-jin, director of the Etoos Education Assessment Research Institute, said the Korean Language section "was presented in a format similar to last year's CSAT and was comparable or slightly easier." He added that students' perceived difficulty may vary depending on how well they adapted to their chosen elective subjects and their ability to analyze literary works not covered by EBS, and that scoring results would provide a clearer picture.


brunch@heraldcorp.com