Could you pass South Korea’s ‘insane’ English test?

The official who oversees South Korea’s much-feared university entrance exams has resigned after an outcry over this year’s particularly challenging English language paper.

The fearsome Suneung exams are a rite of passage for all South Koreans who want to graduate from high school to university, with a standardised set of papers used for admissions by all higher education institutions.

Students spend months – if not years – in preparation and the exam period brings the country to a standstill, with flights grounded, shops kept open late and police officers deployed to escort those who are running late.

The English language paper has developed an especially fearsome reputation over the years, branded “insane”, “impossible” and “the exam that hates you”.

But the backlash this year has been so intense that the top official in charge resigned, taking responsibility for the chaos and widespread criticism that followed the 12 November paper.

Oh Seung-keol, the head of Korea’s Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, apologised for the confusion caused to students and their parents.

He said he felt a “heavy sense of responsibility for the English section of the test, which did not align with the principles of absolute evaluation,” according to a statement from the institution.

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Mr Oh apologised for “causing concern to test-takers and their parents, and for causing confusion in the college entrance exam process”.

The institute also issued a separate statement saying it “takes seriously the criticism that the test failed to meet the appropriate level of difficulty and the goal of reducing students’ academic burden”.

On Wednesday, Seoul’s education chief proposed scrapping the Suneung entirely by 2040 and overhauling the country’s university admissions system, arguing that its framework no longer meets South Korea’s demographic and educational needs.

“Excessive score-based competition, the burden of private education costs and an admissions-driven, ranking-oriented school system can no longer guarantee our children’s future,” Seoul Metropolitan Education Office Superintendent Jung Geun-sik said at a press conference.

“To revitalise high school classrooms and ensure the successful implementation of the high school credit system, the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education has prepared a set of admissions reforms, including changes to the school grading system,” he added.

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Students were given 70 minutes to attempt 45 questions in the Suneung English section, while the entire exam takes nearly eight hours. Students attempt about 200 questions which cover topics include Korean, maths, English, social and natural sciences.

This year just over 3 per cent of students scored the highest grade in the English section, compared to 6 per cent last year.

Suneung questions often involve long, dense academic passages where students must make inferences or fill in a blank based on close reading.

In the listening section of the exam, students might hear a short dialogue – for instance, a conversation in a park – and then must choose the picture that does not match what was said.

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The exam is held every November to secure admission into the university, but it is also seen as dictating a young person’s prospects for landing a job, social mobility and long-term economic security.

Could you pass the test? Here are four sample questions from the 2026 intake exam

Question 32: For three marks, fill in the blank with the best option:

The basic guidelines for good style are not mysterious; in fact, you use them every day in conversation. In conversation and in writing, we all rely heavily on cooperation to make sense of exchanges, and a polished practical style makes cooperation easier.

Writers develop such a style by acknowledging that readers expect the same things that listeners expect in conversation: clarity, relevance and proportion. If you listen to someone who is not clear, who cannot stay on the topic, or who offers too much or too little information, you will quickly lose interest in the conversation.

Writers, too, need to be clear, stay on the topic and give information appropriately. In fact, this attention to audience and appropriateness may be even more important in writing than in conversation because writing does not permit the nonverbal communication and immediate feedback that are part of conversation. As writers, we have to_______________; in effect, we have to imagine both halves of a virtual conversation.

1. recognise the limitations of writing and conversation 2. envision the reader’s preference for stylistic writing 3. picture the reader’s desire for more knowledge 4. develop collaborative writing with reader 5. anticipate the absent reader’s response

Question 35: Which sentence in the following passage is unrelated to the overall flow? (two marks)

There are few of us who don’t at least want to make time for self-care activities such as exercise, hobbies, or relaxation. We start each day with the best of intentions but then get stuck by the flood of email messages or pulled into an unexpected meeting. (1) As we struggle to reprioritize so we can get everything done before our deadlines, often our self-care activities are the first thing to be given up. (2) No matter how much we plan, we all occasionally have days when that happens.

(3) In the short term, the impact of missing that grant deadline may be greater than the impact of missing a woodworking class. (4) Needless to say, we should try to enroll in the woodworking class before the design class because it is more competitive to get into and more beneficial to us. (5) But it’s important to recognize the cumulative impact of not prioritizing self-care and to make sure that in the long term, this is the exception rather than the norm.

Question 37: Choose the most appropriate order of the sentences that would follow the given passage (three marks):

Philosophy allows us to ask much broader questions than many other scientific disciplines. It is capable of looking at the bigger picture and providing important insights into the relationships between different areas of knowledge.

A. This means that while philosophy can provide valuable insights into theoretical concepts and broader ethical questions, it needs to be supplemented by empirical findings and experiments to reach a more comprehensive understanding.

B. Philosophers tend to ask questions rather than provide definitive answers, and their contributions often consist of challenging established assumptions and proposing new research approaches. However, for a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of consciousness, close collaboration between philosophy and neuroscience is required.

C. Philosophy is particularly important for the interdisciplinary efforts of cognitive science, where it helps to bridge gaps between different disciplines and pioneer new ways for research. Unlike scientific methods, philosophizing is a non-empirical approach that attempts to validate concepts through logical thinking and argumentation.

(1). A-C-B (2). B-A-C (3). B-C-A (4). C-A-B (5). C-B-A

Question 39: For three marks, insert the sentence at the correct point in the given passage about perception in video games.

The sentence is: The difference is that the action in the game world can only be explored through the virtual bodily space of the avatar.

A video game has its own model of reality, internal to itself and separate from the player's external reality, the player's bodily space and the avatar's bodily space. (1). The avatar’s bodily space, the potential actions of the avatar in the game world, is the only way in which the reality of the external reality of the game world can be perceived. (2). As in the real world, perception requires action. (3). Players extend their perceptual field into the game, encompassing the available actions of the avatar. (4). The feedback loop of perception and action that enables you to navigate the world around you is now one step removed: instead of perceiving primarily through interaction of your own body with the external world, you’re perceiving the game world through interaction of the avatar. (5). The entire perceptual system has been extended into the game world.

Answers

Question 32: The answer is (5).

Question 35: The answer is sentence (4).

Question 37: The answer is order (5).

Question 39: The answer is position (3).

Did you get full marks (11 out of 11)? Congratulations! You could rank among the top 3 per cent of South Korean high-school students.