The chief author of the state-administered college entrance exam says this year’s exam has maintained the same difficulty level as last year.
 
Lee Joon-sik, who spearheads a group of professors and teachers commissioned to create questions for the 2015 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), held a media briefing Thursday at the Government Complex in Seoul, saying the 2015 exam adopted a similar level of difficulty to two mock exams conducted in June and September.
 
A Chinese literature professor at Sungkyunkwan University, Lee said the authors used various kinds of writing on the Korean and English exams, while the rest of the exams are focused on measuring the thinking capacity of the test takers.
 
He said the 2015 CSAT has an around 70 percent synchronization rate with test preparatory books published by the state-sponsored Educational Broadcasting System (EBS), although no parts of the EBS books were duplicated on the exam so test takers would be unable to memorize them.
 
To avoid a repeat of last year’s controversy surrounding a flawed question, Lee emphasized that the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation has thoroughly checked for possible errors through a newly created review committee.