British media spotlight South Korea's 'Suneung' high difficulty

Dec. 15 (Asia Today) -- South Korea's annual College Scholastic Ability Test, known as the Suneung, has drawn international attention after British media outlets highlighted complaints over the difficulty of the 2026 English section and raised broader questions about the country's high-stakes admissions system.

The BBC described the Suneung's English section as "notoriously difficult" and cited reactions from South Korean test-takers who likened the reading passages to "deciphering ancient scripts." British coverage also pointed audiences to specific questions that became a focus of controversy, prompting criticism that the passages were more obscure than educationally meaningful.

Britain's Daily Telegraph also questioned whether readers could pass what it characterized as an unusually difficult college-entrance English exam. The Guardian reported that Oh Seung-gul, head of the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, stepped down amid the controversy.

According to South Korea's Education Ministry, 3.11% of test-takers earned the top grade in the English section, down from 6.22% the previous year.

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South Korea shifted the English section to an absolute grading system in2018, a move intended to reduce score discrimination and reliance on private tutoring. The latest results, however, renewed criticism that the test still encourages excessive competition and rewards the ability to decode difficult passages rather than measure practical language proficiency.

British reports also noted the pressure placed on students, describing an exam structure in which test-takers answer 45 questions in 70 minutes and warning that intense competition can carry mental-health risks.

The Suneung was introduced in 1994 as a standardized exam for university admissions and has repeatedly faced domestic controversy over difficulty control, including concerns that yearly swings between "too easy" and "too hard" deepen uncertainty and fuel private education demand.

- Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

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