All the big Korean news sites have the questions and answers to this year's college entrance examination (2011 대학수학능력시험), with Naver having a list of eleven sources. Each link has them organized by subject, with 3교시 being English, and the fifth period being an optional foreign-language section with German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, the exceptionally-popular Arabic, and Hanja.
The English portion is quite difficult, considering the levels of most Korean students and teachers, and, in previous years, has like most Korean English exams been plagued by poor grammar, awkward readings, and ambiguous answers.
On a related note, last November I had the opportunity to watch the pre-test festivities outside a local high school as friends, teachers, parents, and underclass(wo)men cheered on their classmates:
And as police officers escorted late students to their classrooms:
5 comments:
Score! I'm going to rip out and post some of these test questions. Neat!
Maybe I'm being dense here... but what is the point of this? As in, are these questions released after the test has been given? If not, how is this even a test? People have been arrested for leaking SAT and other test questions in the US, I think...
@whoisjohngalt: the test is over, and it's only offered once a year, so the papers show the questions and answers. Why? Maybe so the college-wannabes can torture themselves, or so that the rest of the country can see what the test-takers saw. It's not a bad way to study - and a good way to ensure you don't use the same test questions over and over again :)
Having looked at both, it seems like this year's test was significantly harder than last year's test. They seem to want to focus on vocab and reading comprehension. The first is, dare I say it, a strength in a lot of high school students. The second, though, is severely lacking. And, though this isn't news, the curriculum isn't geared towards improving reading comp. I feel sorry for the high school seniors I know that had to take this test.
It drives me absolutely insane that the questions on the foreign language exams are written in Korean. Check out question 13 on the French exam: With the exception of the name "Luc," there's not a single French word in either the question or its answers. How the hell can anyone be tested on French comprehension when the question's not even in French?
As I did last year, I checked out the French and Spanish sections of the exam.
The Spanish exam (despite using far too much Korean) is once again really well written and feels like it was written by someone with a very strong grasp of the language. I was able to go through it without much difficulty. It wasn't as witty as last year's exam, but it was pretty straight forward and I don't think I spotted any mistakes. I took issue with question 6 because Spaniards also say "jugo" for juice, but other than that, I'm fine with everything else.
The French exam, however, is a different story. Last year's was much worse. This year's was better, but I still feel like this exam is written by someone who doesn't speak French as their first language. It annoys me completely that they're wording their questions improperly: It reads like someone writing something in English then translating it into French.
As an example, take question 21. The text on the cellphone reads:
"Tout le monde t'attend.
Tu arrives quand ?"
Which means: "Everyone's waiting for you. When do you arrive (get here)?"
I take issue with "Tu arrive quand?" French people would never say that. It would be more along the lines of: "Quand arrives tu?" or "Quand est-ce que tu arrives?" At worse, you'd slang it: "T'arrives quand?" But that's very, very informal.
Like in English, the word "quand" or "when" comes first. "When will you get here?" Saying "Tu arrive quand?" is the same as saying "You arrive when?" as oppose to "When do you arrive?"
And there's lots of errors like that all over the test. Little things that tell me that French is not the test writer's first language.
What particularly amused me was the dialogue used in question 12:
Jiho : Tu as déjà mangé des plats coréens ?
Luc : Non. C'est bon ?
Jiho : _______, c'est délicieux. Il y a un bon restaurant coréen près de chez moi. On y va ce soir ?
Je t'invite.
Luc : Avec plaisir.
Which translates to:
Jiho: You ever eat Korean food?*
Luc: No. It's good?*
Jiho: ________, it's delicious. There's a good Korean restaurant near my place. We'll go tonight? My treat?
Luc: With pleasure.
*Again, the questions are improperly worded.
The dialogue is sort of stereotypical Korean "Do you know Korean food?" fair.
What's worse, however, is trying to decide which answer is correct:
(1) is "Mais si" which means "Of course," while (2) is "Bien sûr" which means "Of course."
Basically, you have to debate with yourself which version of "Of course" is the right one, since - honestly - they both work. The only way to figure this one out is to know that "Mais si" has other uses - like contradicting a previous statement - while "Bien sûr" can ONLY mean "Of course," which makes it more right, I guess?
Anyway, those are my two cents on the French and Spanish tests. I'll check the English ones later.
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