[2025 CSAT] Admissions Industry: "English Easier Than Last Year's CSAT"... Opinions Divided on September Mock Test Comparison

"easier than the September mock exam" vs "harder than that"
with difficult questions such as numbers 21, 33, and 37

The admissions industry generally analyzed that the difficulty level of the 3rd session English section of the 2025 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) was easier than last year's CSAT. However, evaluations varied when compared to this year's September mock exam, which was widely regarded as less difficult.

On the 14th, Etoos Edu stated in their analysis report, "The English section was easier than last year's CSAT and this year's June mock exam, but slightly more difficult than the September mock exam." The percentage of students achieving the top grade in the absolute evaluation English section was 4.71% in last year's CSAT, 1.47% in this year's June mock exam, and 10.94% in the September mock exam, respectively.

On the morning of the 14th, when the 2025 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) was held, examinees were preparing for the exam at the testing site set up at Banpo High School in Seocho-gu, Seoul. Photo by Joint Press Corps

Etoos Edu explained, "Although the passages were not highly difficult, some questions required thoughtful reasoning to find the answers and included attractive distractors, securing discriminatory power," adding, "Implied inference, vocabulary, and sentence insertion questions were relatively straightforward."

Megastudy also stated that the English section was easier than last year's CSAT, commenting, "Regardless of the question type, as long as the test-taker correctly understood the passage's theme, they could derive the answers."

Daesung Academy shared a similar view. Daesung Academy said, "The difficulty level was higher than the September mock exam but slightly easier than last year's CSAT," and noted, "The passages were somewhat less difficult compared to last year's CSAT."

Uway viewed this year's CSAT English section as easier than the September mock exam. Uway assessed that, compared to the September mock exam, the listening section was slightly easier, and the reading section was either slightly easier or similar in difficulty. They added, "Overall, it was somewhat easy, but some questions maintained discriminatory power," and predicted, "The top grade rate is expected to be above 10.5%."

However, Jongro Academy stated that the English section was "similarly difficult compared to last year's CSAT," and "Overall, the questions were designed with passages that were difficult to comprehend, likely requiring a considerable amount of time to solve." They further predicted, "Although English is graded on an absolute scale, the top grade rate was set similarly to relative evaluation, so meeting the minimum CSAT score requirements in English may not be easy."

The admissions industry identified questions that were expected to be challenging for test-takers, including question 21 on implied meaning, question 33 on blank inference, question 37 on arranging the order of the text, and question 38 on sentence insertion type.