SEOUL, The government has asked police to investigate suspicions surrounding English exam text of the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) that turned out to be very similar to one from a private publication, the Ministry of Education said Monday. The ministry said the request was made in July last year amid allegations that the English exam text of the CSAT conducted in November 2022 and exam text in an English workbook published by a private education company earlier that year are almost identical. The CSAT text is said to be extracted from the book "Too Much Information" published by a Harvard Law School professor. But more than 100 complaints were filed to the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (KICE) soon after the annual college entrance exam, insisting that the English text is identical to the private exam text provided by a famous instructor, except for one sentence. They complained that students who took lessons from the instructor may have had an absolute advantage over others. At t hat time, the KICE, which manages and operates the CSAT, dismissed the complaints, saying the overlap was a coincidence and the two texts have different question types. But the education ministry has changed its stance after the government last year launched a crackdown on suspicious collusion between public and private educators. The CSAT, held on the third Thursday of November every year, is one of the nation's most important academic events, as it is the culmination of years of hard work for many students anxious to enter top universities. Meanwhile, the Board of Audit and Inspection has reportedly begun an investigation into why the education ministry and the KICE had belatedly taken action over the controversial CSAT exam text. Source: Yonhap News Agency
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