An example shows an English “killer question” that appeared on the Suneung test in 2021. The passage quotes a text from “Merchants of Doubt,” a 2010 nonfiction book by historians of science that delves into stories of how high-level scientists ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny scientific knowledge over four decades. (Ministry of Education)

Following a weeklong debate on the difficulty of so-called high-level “killer questions” in the Suneung, South Korea’s state-administered college entrance exam, local high school teachers said Tuesday that the killer questions are “arduously difficult,” requiring university-level knowledge beyond the scope of high school students.

The math section, which delves into complex equations and requires students to solve short-answer questions without a calculator, is for students armed with “excessive” knowledge of math concepts, according to math teachers.

“One question in the June mock example, for example, was about sequences that required students to understand the mathematical modeling of evolution to solve practical problems,” said Lee Seung-min, a math teacher at Seoul’s Dongbuk High School.

“The overall math skills of students have waned over the past few years, and only those aiming high for university admissions can decode such questions, since it is the main purpose of the killer questions to differentiate between students’ learning abilities. Some of the killer questions are problems that even (public school) teachers can’t solve,” Lee added.

Another math teacher surnamed Yeom at Chungnam High School in Daejeon noted that the problems require students to develop their own problem-solving strategies and routine.

An example of a Suneung math killer question (Ministry of Education)

“Question No. 22 in last year’s (2022) Suneung asked students to calculate inflection points, and this was actually based on material taught in class. But students whose studies focus on the sciences (instead of the humanities) learn the concept (of inflection points) as early as grade 11, so they have an advantage,” Yeom explained.

While the Suneung math problems go beyond solving equations and memorizing formulas, in the English section of the exam, students have to cope with unfamiliar vocabulary and phrases that require fast abstract reasoning and problem-solving techniques.

Cho, an English teacher at a public school in Daejeon, said texts and passages are “too tangled and complex,” explaining that the problems test students’ knowledge of sentence structure and how many words they know.

An example of a Suneung English killer question (Ministry of Education)

“The problems have nothing to do with English comprehension since they use field-specific texts. For example, some questions quoted texts in the field of law, which left many feeling lost. ... Students often face difficulty in solving fill-in-the-blank questions,” Cho said.

“But the students who do well on the test don’t try to ‘understand’ the given text and passage. Instead, they focus on how to get to the answer with the knowledge they have,” Cho added.

Lee, an English teacher at a public school in South Chungcheong Province, noted that students have particular trouble with the double negation sentence structure, in which a statement contains two negative words. If two negatives are used in one sentence, the opposite meaning may be conveyed, according to Lee.

“The double negation taught in public schools is not complicated (compared to the curriculum provided by private academies). While most students find it difficult to understand the meaning of the text in the question, those receiving private education know how to do that because they go through intense training,” Lee said.

Another English teacher surnamed Lee at a public school in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, underscored that the Suneung English questions can be solved only through the help of private tutoring.

An example of a Suneung English killer question (Ministry of Education)

“It’s a race against time. Students have to solve each problem within two minutes, but schools don’t train students this way -- only hagwon (private academies) do. These hagwon also prepare students through studying high-level passages. That’s what divides the students,” Lee explained.

A Korean language and literature teacher surnamed Keum at Seoul’s Gwangyang High School said students do poorly on the Korean killer questions since the content of the questions goes beyond the scope of the Korean literature material covered in class.

“The questions don’t ask students about their comprehension of the subject matter or their thoughts, (they ask) about how much knowledge (the students) have about topics and issues extraneous to Korean language and literature,” Keum said. The passages ask students about modern philosophy, math and science concepts and even Hegel’s Dialectics -- all university-level topics, none of which are taught in the public education system.

An example of a Suneung Korean language and literature killer question (Ministry of Education)

“Killer questions are designed for students in the top one percent where in most cases, they vie for places at med schools or the nation’s top-ranked colleges. A test, however, should be fair by catering to all students’ academic abilities and it should cover what they have learned in class,” she added.

The Education Ministry on Monday said it had found 22 killer questions in Suneung tests from the past three years, as well as in a mock test conducted in June. Of these killer questions, nine were found in the mathematics section, seven in the Korean language and literature section, and six in the English section.