South Korea’s college entrance examination authority has been thrown into controversy after the head of the body overseeing the national exam resigned, following widespread criticism of the English section of this year’s test.
According to the BBC, the official, Oh Seung-geol, stepped down after students, teachers and parents condemned the questions as excessively confusing and poorly worded, sparking outrage across the country.
“We sincerely accept the criticism that the difficulty of the questions was inappropriate,” Oh said in a statement.
He admitted that the English paper “fell short of expectations” despite undergoing multiple rounds of review before the exam.
The English component of the College Scholastic Ability Test, known locally as Suneung, is already infamous for its difficulty.
However, this year’s exam drew unusual levels of criticism, with candidates describing some passages as nearly incomprehensible.
One particularly contentious question featured dense academic language drawn from a video game design text, asking students to determine where a complex sentence best fit within a paragraph.
Many students complained that the passage felt more like a philosophy or media studies exam than a language test.
“It was maddeningly confusing,” said Im Na-hye, a final-year student at Hanyeong High School.
“Some of the answers looked almost identical, and understanding the text itself took too much time.”
Online, reactions were even harsher. Some students described the questions as “fancy smart talking,” while others criticised the writing as unclear and poorly structured.
Statistics appear to support the complaints. Only about 3% of candidates achieved the highest grade in English this year, compared with roughly 6% the previous year.
Professor Jung Chae-kwan, an English language scholar at Incheon National University, said the issue was not difficulty but clarity. “The texts aren’t impossible, but they are unnecessarily confusing,” he said.
“That makes them useless for real education. Teachers end up focusing on test-taking tricks rather than actually teaching English.”
He also noted that some passages were taken out of context from specialised books, making comprehension even harder for students under strict time pressure.
Not everyone agrees the test was unfair. Kim Soo-yeon, an English literature professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, defended the exam’s structure, arguing that it reflects the demands of higher education.
“The test measures whether students can handle the level of reading they will face at university,” she said. “Some degree of specialisation is necessary to assess true comprehension.”
Held every November, the Suneung is one of the most high-stakes exams in the world. Students sit for nearly eight hours, answering around 200 questions across multiple subjects.
The results can shape university admissions, career prospects and even future social standing.
On exam day, South Korea effectively pauses: flights are rescheduled, construction work stops and military exercises are suspended to minimise noise.
Since the exam’s introduction in 1993, only four of the 12 officials who have overseen it have completed their full terms. While previous resignations were linked to technical errors, Oh is the first to step down over the perceived difficulty of the test itself.
