An analysis has revealed that regional disparities in the proportion of students achieving the highest grade (Grade 1) in the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) are greater in English, which is graded on an absolute scale, than in Korean and mathematics, which are graded on a relative scale.
On January 16, Jongro Academy released a survey on the regional disparities in the proportion of third-year high school students achieving Grade 1 in each subject for the 2025 CSAT across 17 cities and provinces. The results showed that the gap is largest in English, followed by mathematics and Korean.
The difference between the region with the highest proportion of Grade 1 in Korean (5.2%) and the region with the lowest (1.5%) was 3.7 percentage points.
For mathematics, the gap between the region with the highest proportion of Grade 1 (5.0%) and the region with the lowest (0.6%) was 4.4 percentage points.
In contrast, in English, which is graded on an absolute scale, the gap between the region with the highest proportion of Grade 1 (score of 90 or above) at 8.4% and the region with the lowest at 2.5% was 5.9 percentage points. This indicates that regional disparities at the highest grade are more pronounced in English than in Korean and mathematics, which are graded on a relative scale.
Jongro Academy explained that since the introduction of the integrated CSAT in the 2022 academic year, English has shown the largest grade gap among subjects over the past four years. The gap in the proportion of students achieving Grade 1 in English was 5.4 percentage points in 2022, 7.0 percentage points in 2023, 5.2 percentage points in 2024, and 5.9 percentage points in 2025.
Furthermore, since the introduction of absolute grading for English in the 2018 academic year, except for 2019, the disparity in the proportion of students achieving Grade 1 in English has been relatively larger than in Korean and mathematics in seven academic years. Although the proportion of students scoring 90 or above in English tends to rise across all regions compared to subjects graded on a relative scale, the interpretation is that in regions with a higher proportion of Grade 1 in English, the number of students achieving this grade is also greater.
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