Korea’s English Exam Was So Hard It Prompted an Apology. How Would You Do?
The head of South Korea’s notoriously grueling college entrance exam resigned after apologizing for creating an English-language test so difficult that it prompted a public outcry.
The 2026 English test “did not meet the appropriate difficulty level,” read a statement from the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, the organization that administers the exam and which had been led by Oh Seung-keol. “We deeply apologize for causing concern to test takers and their parents.”
Each year, hundreds of thousands of students sit for the eight-hour college entrance exam, known as the Suneung, to compete for seats at the country’s elite universities.
The exam is a decades-old tradition that disrupts the rhythm of the entire nation. Flights are grounded, construction is halted and traffic restrictions are enforced, and the public is urged to keep noise at a minimum so the students can concentrate. In addition to English, the exam tests students’ knowledge of Korean, math and other subjects.
This year, just over 3 percent of students earned the highest marks in the English section — compared to 6 percent the year before.
Here are some questions from the 2026 paper. Could you pass?
1 of 4
What is the most appropriate title for the following passage?
The economic benefit of culturtainment makes it attractive to politicians and policy makers alike. A potential increase in inbound visitor numbers coupled with their demand for related goods and services (travel, accommodation, retail) is an incentive for those within governments and authorities to work with cultural groups in order to develop celebrations and commemorations into larger and more high-profile events. However, such commercialization risks culturtainment becoming homogeneous and losing its original ‘message’ that could lead to a dilution of audiences. This could also lead to smaller non-commercial independent events being set up that would only serve to divide audiences further. This is something that planners and stakeholders will need to balance against potential financial gain. Changing political, social and religious landscapes will lead to the emergence of new cultures, and with them new culturtainment experiences. Overall this is a healthy growth sector of the entertainment industry, but one that by its very nature is delicate in the face of exploitation.
2 of 4
Select the most appropriate expression to fill in the blank.
Kant was a strong defender of the rule of law as the ultimate guarantee, not only of security and peace, but also of freedom. He believed that human societies were moving towards more rational forms regulated by effective and binding legal frameworks because only such frameworks enabled people to live in harmony, to prosper and to co-operate. However, his belief in inevitable progress was not based on an optimistic or high-minded view of human nature. On the contrary, it comes close to Hobbes’s outlook: man’s violent and conflict-prone nature makes it necessary to establish and maintain an effective legal framework in order to secure peace. We cannot count on people’s benevolence or goodwill, but even ‘a nation of devils’ can live in harmony in a legal system that binds every citizen equally. Ideally, the law is the embodiment of those political principles that all rational beings would freely choose. If such laws forbid them to do something that they would not rationally choose to do anyway, then the law cannot be .
3 of 4
Choose the most appropriate order of sentences following the given passage.
We usually think of a clock as a physical thing, like an alarm clock or a wristwatch. But a clock is really a process embodied in a machine, and the nature of that process is repetitive.
(A) Indeed, it is almost impossible to think of a clock that does not depend on a repetitive cycle of events. The only example that comes to mind readily is a candle marked in hours. But here too there is iteration — the repeated burning of molecules of wax — so this too is an iterative process, although at first masked.
(B) The use of radiocarbon dating is another, much longer scale clock that also appears to be like this. It seems to yield a smooth time scale but in fact does not: the decay of atoms of carbon-14 is repetitive, although on a large scale it gives the appearance of being continuous.
(C) A clock can be almost any process that repeats itself over and over again for an indefinite period. Water clocks drip at a steady pace; quartz crystals vibrate regularly.
A – C – B
B – C – A
4 of 4
Choose the most appropriate place for the given sentence in the logical flow of the passage.
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.