Korea to hold 2029 CSAT on Nov. 16, 2028
The nationwide college entrance exam for students currently in their first year of high school will be held under the revised format for the 2028 academic year, without elective subjects.
Students participate in a nationwide mock exam for the College Scholastic Ability Test in a high school in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on June 4.
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The annual state-administered College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) for students currently in their first year of high school will be held on Nov. 16, 2028, the Ministry of Education announced on Tuesday.
Score reports will be released on Dec. 8 that year.
The exam will retain the revamped format introduced for the 2028 academic year, which eliminates elective subjects in the Korean, Mathematics and Exploratory Social Studies and Science sections, the ministry said.
The exam will consist of Korean; Mathematics; English; Korean History; Exploratory Social Studies and Science or Exploratory Vocational Education; and Second Foreign Language or Classical Chinese.
Korean History will be mandatory. Elective subcategories within the social studies and science sections will no longer be available. Students taking integrated social studies will also be required to take integrated science, and vice versa.
The current score-reporting system will remain in place: Korean History, English and Second Foreign Language or Classical Chinese will be graded on an absolute scale, with only grades on a nine-level scale provided.
For the remaining sections, students will be graded on a curve. Scores will be reported by percentile rank and grade.
The Korean language section will consist of 45 questions to be completed in 80 minutes, while Mathematics — with 30 percent of the questions requiring short answers — will have 30 questions in 100 minutes. English will consist of 45 questions to be completed in 70 minutes, and Korean History will have 20 questions in 30 minutes. The social studies and science subjects will each have 25 questions and a 40-minute time limit, as will the vocational section. Each Second Foreign Language or Classical Chinese subject will consist of 20 questions to be completed in 30 minutes.
Students caught cheating will have their test results for that year invalidated and will also be barred from taking the CSAT the following year.
For relatively minor violations designated by the Education Ministry, that year's exam will be invalidated without any restrictions on taking the exam the following year. Such violations include continuing to fill in answers after time has been called.
In March 2028, the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation plans to announce its basic implementation plan for the CSAT for the 2029 academic year. The plan is expected to cover test-setting principles and other procedures.
BY KIM MIN-SANG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
