Suneung: Your Questions Answered

Come autumn in Korea, you’ll start to hear about Suneung (수능) and if you don’t know what all the jazz about, you might wonder what the big deal is. A test? Didn’t we all take tests in high school when we were kids? We did… but this is a little different.

Get ready to learn all about the Korean Suneung, or College Entrance Exam. Whether you’re looking for example English questions on the Suneung to learn about all of the drama every year or what to give a student about to take the Suneung, you’ll find it here.

Wondering what the Suneung is? Here’s all the details:

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What is Suneung (수능)?

Suneung is the Korean acronym for College Scholastic Ability Test (대학수학능력시험), or CSAT. Often compared to the SATs in the United States, it’s actually a lot longer and more intensive and carries a lot more weight for college admissions in Korea.

Koreans will tell you that the results of the Suneung can literally determine your future as scoring high could result in getting into one of the SKY universities, Seoul University, Korea University, or Yonsei University, the top universities in the country. And, scoring low, would result in attending a lesser tier school or not attending at all.

In fact students that feel they aren’t ready, or do get a low score will often take the entire next year to study and try again before even trying to go to college because the Suneung is just that important. 20% of students taking the test are usually high school graduates who didn’t get the score they wanted the previous year.

When is Suneung?

The Korea Institute of Curriculum and Evaluation administers Suneung on the third Thursday of November. Though it can be delayed due to unforeseen circumstances. For example, it was delayed in 2020 due to Covid and previously in 2017 due to the Pohang earthquake. A postponement rarely happens though.

Why is the Suneung so important?

I read somewhere that the Suneung is a population separation tool one time and that’s really what it is. Getting a score high enough to enter one of the SKY universities, considered to be the Harvard and Yale of Korea, will mean prosperity and opportunity for students. 70% of high school graduates in South Korea attend university and of those just 2% get into the SKY universities.

Upon graduating from SKY, students can land jobs at some of the most influential companies in the country including: LG, Hyundai, LOTTE, SK, or even Samsung. While attendance at a SKY school doesn’t guarantee a good job afterward, national newspapers in Korea print how many lawyers, judges, and chief executives came from SKY thus continuously promoting the system of achievement based on attendance in one of the schools.

Attending a lower-tier school or not attending at all means less and less likelihood to have a successful job in the future. Suneung is in essence, seen as a means to an end, a prosperous end, but takes a toll on students and parents all the same.

How many hours a day to students study for Suneung?

Korean high school students study many many hours for Suneung. As if there wasn’t enough pressure, they say that on average, students study for 12-16 hours a day and they’ll tell you that if you:

Sleep 3 hours, you have a chance to enter SKY universities.
Sleep 4 hours, you can get into other universities
Sleep 5 hours, don’t dream of going to college

All of this studying isn’t done at their public school, but is a combination of study rooms, cram schools, and their normal public school hours.

What is the Suneung made up of?

Wondering what the format of Suneung is? There are both multiple choice and short answer questions. The short answer are only in the mathematics section while it is multiple choice for the rest of the test.

The test sections and number of questions consist of:

Korean (국어): 45 questions
- This is usually the most difficult section. Students are assessed on their ability to read, understand, and analyze Korean text rapidly and accurately.
Mathematics (수학): 30 questions
- There are two types of mathematics sections: Ga and Na. Ga is for students applying for natural science majors and is based on calculus, geometry, vectors, probability, and statistics. Na is for students applying for humanities and is based on probability and statistics. Most students opt for Ga when they sign up for Suneung.
English (영어): 45 questions (the first 17 are listening questions)
Korean History (한국사), Social/Science/Career Exploration (사회/과학/직업탐구): 20 questions
Second Language (German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Arabic, Vietnamese)/Chinese Characters (제2외국어/한문): 30 questions*

*The second language portion of the test is optional and not a requirement for every university. However, if students opt in to this part of the test, it changes where they’ll be assigned for their test. Many students and parents think the exam location and environment will be better if they opt into this part of the test so even if they don’t need the score, they’ll opt in just to be placed somewhere “better”.

While it may look easy enough, each questions is paragraphs long. The biggest skill might just be time management when it comes down to it on the Suneung.

Who prepares the Suneung questions?

There are about 500 exam writers (수능 출제자) made of up high school teachers and college professors. They’re selected in secret and they’re taken away from the public for the month of September to come up with the questions. The secretive location is somewhere in Gangwon-do. Once out, they’re not allowed to discuss anything. They’re literally monitored by the National Intelligence Service and aren’t allowed to communicate with the outside world while there.

English Question Drama

If you’re an English speaker, you probably hear each year discussion on the difficulty of the questions. Many native speakers will say that the test is so difficult, it’s even impossible for native speakers. Wonder what the English questions on the Suneung look like?

The following question appeared on 2010 CSAT, and had a correct-response rate of 9.77 percent. The paragraph is an excerpt from John Leofric Stocks‘ “The Limits of Purpose”:

So far as you are wholly concentrated on bringing about a certain result, clearly, the quicker and easier it is brought about the better. Your resolve to secure a sufficiency of food for yourself and your family will induce you to spend weary days in tilling the ground and tending livestock; but if Nature provided food and meat in abundance ready for the table, you would thank Nature for sparing you much labor and consider yourself so much the better off. An executed purpose, in short, is a transaction in which the time and energy spent on the execution are balanced against the resulting assets, and the ideal case is one in which__________________. Purpose, then, justifies the efforts it exacts only conditionally, by their fruits.

demand exceeds supply, resulting in greater returns

life becomes fruitful with our endless pursuit of dreams

the time and energy are limitless and assets are abundant

Nature does not reward those who do not exert efforts

the former approximates to zero and the latter to infinity

Want to see if you can answer a few more? Try these Suneung English test section questions that the Korea Times posted in 2018.

Korean Suneung, English section question

How long is the Suneung test?

The Suneung is a massive 9-hour long test.

Students begin the test at 8:10am on test day at a school they’ve been assigned to. Students can’t take the test at their own school in an effort to prevent cheating.

Korean (국어)	8:40 – 10:00 (80 minutes)
Break	10:00 – 10:20 (20 minutes)
Mathematics (수학)	10:30 – 12:10 (100 minutes)
Lunch	12:10 – 13:00 (50 minutes)
English (영어)	13:00 – 14:20 (70 minutes)
Break	14:20 – 14:40 (20 minutes)
Korean History (한국사), Social/Science/Career Exploration (사회/과학/직업탐구)	14:50 – 16:32 (102 minutes)
Break	16:32 – 16:50 (18 minutes)
Second Language/Chinese Characters (제2외국어/한문)	17:05 – 17:45 (40 minutes)

Extra measures taken on Suneung Day in Korea

Not only is this marathon exam talked about due to its difficulty, but it’s often in the international news due to how the country reacts and prepares to help the senior class.

Police officers are on call to escort students to their assigned school if they’re running late. This is not an exaggeration. There are over 3,000 police cars and 200 fire trucks on standby. Once testing starts, the schools are basically in lockdown. Tardy students would have to wait an entire year to re-test. If they need assistance, they call 112 or 119 and are picked up ASAP. How they run late on such an important day though? I’m not sure. I doubt they sleep at all the night before due to the stress.
Parents will prepare a special meal for their children to take to school but it will NOT include miyeok-guk. Though the must eat soup after giving birth in Korea and on birthdays thereafter, on test day it’s considered too slippery and thus gives a bad omen to test day. Slippery food could make a student “slip” or fail. Rather than slipper foods, parents will pack sticky foods, like yeot or chapssaltteok, to help.
Outside of school entrances, you’ll see a crowd of younger students with balloons and signs giving seniors well wishes and cheering them on as they enter.
Classrooms that are used for Suneung are basically gutted. Decorations or things on the walls are removed and classrooms are taken down to the barebones. There aren’t even extra chairs and desks left inside. When I worked at a public high school, the students helped their homeroom teachers prepare their rooms and cleaned them the days leading up to the test.
Each classroom has two teachers (수능 감독관) who are designated to watch over students. Just like the students, the teachers are also assigned to go to different schools. Each classroom has one high school teacher and one middle school teacher. Do you teach English at a public school in Korea? You’ll actually get the day off and won’t be asked to proctor. Teachers have to arrive by 7:30am and have to turn in their phones and any other electronics, even smart car keys, that could cause interference or distraction.

7 Crazy Things That Happen On Suneung Day

No Planes: During the listening section of the test which happens simultaneously at all of the testing locations across the country, flights are grounded so that there may not be any noise that could distract them. If they’re coming in for landing during that time, they need to maintain a holding pattern and circle until permitted to land.
No Military Training: Again for reducing noise distractions, there can be no military training during Suneung.
Opening Hours Change: Banks and major companies will open an hour late so as to minimize traffic on the roads so that students can get to their designated schools on time. This also includes stock markets. Do you listen to Bloomberg in the morning? They’ve even mentioned the hour delay.
Sick or Injured? Gotta Test: If students wake up the day of the test or are already in the hospital and injured, they need to contact their office of education and be prepared to take the Suneung from their hospital bed. They’ll be watched over by inspectors while doing so. If they just woke up sick, they should take the test from their school health center.
Guarded Bathroom Breaks: Need to take a bathroom break during the test and not during one of the prescheduled breaks? Students will be inspected by a metal detector before and after going to the bathroom and may even be accompanied. Considering there is only so much time to take the test, you can bet most students will just try to hold it.
Considered Classified: The Suneung testing papers are classified documents until test day. Printed out a week before the test, they are guarded in a secure facility and then transported across the country the Monday before the test. The tests are guarded by the police and even the Korean navy in remote parts of Jeju Island.
Delivery Driver Lockdown: The tests are finally distributed to the testing sites at 2:00am on Suneung Day and the truck drivers are then locked inside for the entire day until testing is completed.

What to give students about to take the Suneung

If you know a student that is preparing for Suneung and will be taking the test soon, you can gift them chocolate, yeot (엿), or chapssal-tteok (찹쌀떡). In Korea, chocolate is known to help students focus so you’ll often see students with dark chocolate “supplements”.

As mentioned above, also opting to give students something sticky like yeot, a traditional Korean snack, or chapssal-tteok, Korean rice cake, is to give them good omens for the test.

Lotte World, Seoul, Korea: Korean theme park

What NOT to do on Suneung

Now you know all about what the test takers, test preparers, and parents have gone through, what are you going to do? While seniors are taking a test for 9 hours, every other kid in the nation from elementary school up to juniors has the day off.

We made the mistake of going to Lotte World last year on Suneung. To be fair, Suneung had been postponed due to Covid, and postponing the national test almost NEVER happens so we didn’t even think about it but ended up at the most popular amusement park in the city with every other kid who had the day off. Don’t make that mistake if you can help it.

If you do end up with the day off, think about where students would go… and then do the opposite.

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