Playboy article shows up in a Seoul National University practice test.

From the Korea Herald via the guy who does The Midnght Runner podcast:

An excerpt from American men's magazine "Playboy" was found to have been used in a practice quiz set for Seoul National University's English proficiency test.

Lee Sang-mook, who runs an English hagwon, or a private institute, in Daegu said SNU used an article titled "Bar of the Month" from Playboy magazine in its TEPS practice questions.

"It is up to SNU to choose whatever source it wants to use for the test questions, but using a men's magazine article indicates a lack of effort for developing good questions over the past 10 years," said Lee, who is writing a critical book about TEPS.

The Playboy story about a bar near Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, was just one example that undermines the credibility of TEPS, according to Lee.

He said he found about 10 misspelled words on the website of the Test of English Proficiency developed by Seoul National University at www.teps.or.kr, such as "grastp" (grasp), "respocses" (responses) and "uncerstanding" (understanding).

That's some pretty good sleuthing on the part of Lee. I was going to make a comment about the quality of material he chooses to read, but I have to give credit where it's due and applaud him for reading English-language magazines, for looking through English tests, and for being able to track down information in English. And good on him for calling out bad spelling, as these types of careless mistakes alienate readers who recognize them and undermine a source's credibility. I wonder if he's as annoyed with goddamn ridiculous punctuation errors as I am.

If his name sounds familiar it's because it's the same as a professor at, coincidentally, Seoul National University, a professor known as Korea's Stephen Hawking presumably because they both wear glasses.