Suneung agency chief resigns over too-difficult English exam

The chief official in charge of the administration of the country's annual national college entrance exam stepped down Wednesday to take responsibility for the excessive difficulty of this year's English section.

Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation President Oh Seung-geol speaks at a press briefing on Dec. 4, after Suneung results were announced. (Yonhap)

Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation President Oh Seung-geol resigned after acknowledging that the English section of the College Scholastic Ability Test, or Suneung, administered on Nov. 13, was out of line with the purpose of absolute grading, with just 3.11 percent of total test-takers earning the top grade.

Only 15,154 of test-takers earned a highest-grade score of 90 or above, the lowest proportion since English shifted to an absolute grading system in 2018. This is lower than the 4 percent threshold used for the top grade under the relative grading system used for other subjects.

In 2024, 6.22 percent of test-takers received the top grade in English.

On Dec. 4, as official test results were released, Oh expressed regret that the difficulty level of the English section had turned out to be out of line with the purpose of absolute grading.

“For the English section, we found many questions that were similar to those used in private mock tests during the development process, so we changed several of them,” he said. “In so doing, we were not able to properly assess the difficulty level of some questions.”

Of the 12 previous KICE chiefs, only four have served out their full three-year terms. Most resigned over test-setting errors. Oh is the first to step down over a test's difficulty.