Last June Mock Exam Like Last Year's 'Bul-Suneung'... Record Low Number of English Grade 1 Students

Highest Standard Scores in Korean and Math at Last Year's Level
Highest Math Score Since the Introduction of Integrated CSAT
Minimum Number of Grade 1s Since the Introduction of Absolute English Evaluation
Only 6 Perfect Scores Overall... "CSAT Expected to Be Difficult"

The June mock test for the 2025 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), conducted by the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation last month on the 4th, was found to be at a 'difficult CSAT' level similar to last year's exam. Despite the policy to exclude so-called 'killer questions (ultra-high difficulty questions),' the Korean, English, and Mathematics subjects were all practically difficult, which is expected to increase the burden of preparing for the actual CSAT.

According to the '2025 CSAT June Mock Test Scoring Results' released on the 1st by the Ministry of Education and the Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation, all areas of Korean, Mathematics, and English were analyzed to have high difficulty levels.

The highest standard score (perfect score) for the first session, Korean, was 148 points. This is slightly lower compared to last year's CSAT (150 points), which was the most difficult exam in history. The standard score shows how much a test taker's raw score differs from the average score.

Generally, if the highest standard score is in the high 140s or above, the exam is considered difficult. Only 83 students received the highest standard score. The cutoff score distinguishing between grade 1 and grade 2 was also 132 points, similar to last year's CSAT (133 points).

The highest standard score for the second session, Mathematics, was 152 points. This is 4 points higher compared to last year's CSAT (148 points), which was considered difficult. The highest standard score in Mathematics was the highest since the introduction of the integrated CSAT in 2022, including both mock tests and the actual CSAT.

There were 697 students who received the highest score in Mathematics. The grade 1 cutoff score was 135 points, 2 points higher than last year (133 points).

On the morning of the 4th, the day of the June mock test for the College Scholastic Ability Test, students are preparing for the exam at Bangsan High School in Songpa-gu, Seoul. Photo by Joint Press Corps

The third session, English, was also difficult. According to Jongro Academy, the percentage of students who scored 90 points or above and received grade 1 in the absolute evaluation English was only 1.47%. This is the lowest since the absolute evaluation was introduced in 2018. The percentage within grade 2 was 9.47%, making it the most difficult English exam since the introduction of absolute evaluation.

Only 6 students achieved perfect scores in all areas in this mock test. Jongro Academy explained, "From the students' perspective, after the exclusion of killer questions, many discriminative questions were presented in areas not previously identified as killer questions," adding, "Students are likely to maintain a study pattern of preparing for difficult questions until the actual CSAT."

For the inquiry subjects, the grade 1 cutoff scores were 65?71 points for social studies, 66?74 points for science, and 70?74 points for vocational studies. The highest standard score in social studies was Ethics and Thought at 78 points, and Social and Culture was the lowest at 66 points. In science, Chemistry II had the highest score (77 points), while Physics I and Biology I were the lowest (both 68 points).

In vocational studies, Basic Agricultural Technology scored the highest at 99 points, and General Engineering was the lowest at 74 points. The difference in the highest standard scores among elective subjects was 12 points in social studies and 9 points in science.

In the absolute evaluation Korean History section, 13.06% of students scored 40 points or above, receiving grade 1. In the absolute evaluation second foreign language/Chinese characters section, the highest percentage of grade 1 scorers with 45 points was in Spanish I (14.93%), and the lowest was in Russian I (7.74%).

The number of students who took this mock test was 392,783. Among them, 318,906 (81.2%) were current students, and 73,877 (18.8%) were graduates and those who passed the qualification exam. Individual score reports will be distributed on the 2nd.