Sept. mock CSAT bars hagwon problem-solving techniques, sets EBS link rate at 50%

The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation said the September mock College Scholastic Ability Test for the 2027 academic year was designed to exclude questions that favor students who have drilled problem-solving techniques at hagwon, focusing instead on distinguishing student ability within the scope of public education.

The institute administered the mock exam Wednesday morning starting at 8:40 a.m. at 2,162 high schools nationwide — including those under provincial education offices — and 574 designated hagwon, and announced the exam's design principles.

The panel of question setters said it aimed to "evenly distribute questions of appropriate difficulty to maintain differentiation within the scope of public education," adding that the exam reflected the content and standards of the 2015 revised high school curriculum across all subjects and areas. The panel said it placed emphasis on assessing students' ability to understand and apply fundamental concepts, as well as their capacity to solve problems, reason and analyze in given situations.

The panel added that core and foundational content covered in the curriculum was re-examined even if it had appeared in previous exams, with changes made to the format, approach and framing of questions. It said point values per question were differentiated by comprehensively weighing factors including curricular importance, level of thinking required, difficulty and time needed to solve each item.

The EBS link rate stands at 50 percent based on the number of questions per subject area. By area, Korean language is at 53.3 percent, English at 55.6 percent, and mathematics, Korean history, social studies and science electives, vocational electives, and second foreign languages and Chinese classics each at 50 percent.

To enhance the perceived connection to EBS materials, the exam drew on charts, illustrations and passages from EBS textbooks. The linkage takes an indirect form — using concepts, principles, key themes and arguments from the textbooks, or adapting and restructuring existing questions. The linked materials are drawn from EBS CSAT textbooks published for current 12th-grade students that have been reviewed by the institute, as well as lecture content based on those textbooks.

In Korean language and English, a range of passages and materials covering diverse topics within the designated scope were used. Mathematics, elective subjects, and second foreign languages and Chinese classics were designed to assess thinking skills grounded in the characteristics of each subject. Korean history, a mandatory subject, was kept straightforward and centered on core content to assess students' basic understanding of Korean history.

This mock exam applied the integrated CSAT format, in which Korean language, mathematics and vocational electives are taken as a combined common-plus-elective structure. Students may choose up to two subjects from 17 options in social studies and science electives, while English, Korean history, and second foreign languages and Chinese classics are graded on an absolute scale.

Meanwhile, 500,128 students registered for this mock exam, down 15,772 from a year earlier. The number of current 12th-grade students fell by 22,007 to 388,203, while graduates and other repeat test-takers rose by 6,235 to 111,925. The share of repeat test-takers reached 22.4 percent, with both the number and proportion hitting their highest levels since the 2011 academic year. The share of social studies elective registrations among all elective entries also climbed from 60.7 percent last year to 67.6 percent this year, reflecting a pronounced shift toward social studies subjects.

College entrance industry experts advised students to continue preparing for the CSAT even after submitting applications for early admissions. Nam Yun-gon, head of the admissions strategy research institute at MegaStudyEdu, said students should "focus on shoring up weak areas identified in the September mock exam and improving the likelihood of meeting the minimum CSAT score requirements of target universities." Kim Byung-jin, head of the education assessment research institute at Etoos, said students should "clearly set subject-by-subject priorities in line with their early and regular admissions strategies and allocate study time accordingly."