The head of South Korea’s national university entrance exam, Oh Seung-keol, recently resigned amidst controversy over “killer questions”—problems so notoriously difficult and abstract that they seem designed more to stump students than to test relevant knowledge. This year’s English section specifically faced backlash for being “insane,” raising a critical question for language learners and educators worldwide: Are we testing for fluency, or just for the ability to take a test?

Read the full story on the BBC

The “Killer Question” Trap

In high-stakes testing environments like South Korea, the pressure to differentiate the very top certified students from the merely excellent ones creates a perverse incentive. Exam creators insert “killer questions” that require logic leaps or obscure vocabulary that even native speakers would find baffling.

”Culturtainment” and Kant?

The controversy isn’t just about difficulty; it’s about relevance. This year’s exam included questions that required students to:

• Analyze 18th-century philosophy: One question asked students to fill in blanks regarding Immanuel Kant’s views on the rule of law.
• Decode “Gaming Jargon”: Another required dissecting the concept of existence through “virtual bodily space” in video games.
• Define “Culturtainment”: Perhaps the most damning example was a question using the term “culturtainment.” The academic who originally coined the word explicitly stated it should not have been used because it isn’t common English usage.

When a curriculum is driven by the need to answer these types of questions, learning English stops being about communication. Instead, it becomes a game of decoding logic puzzles and memorizing arcane grammar rules that have little utility in the real world.

Cramming vs. Acquisition

The direct result of this system is the explosion of “cram schools” or hagwons. Students spend indiscriminately long hours drilling test-taking techniques. They learn to spot “traps” in multiple-choice questions rather than learning to listen to a story or express an idea.

This approach creates a “mute English” phenomenon. Students may score near-perfectly on reading comprehension tests involving philosophy or complex abstract concepts, yet struggle to order a coffee or introduce themselves in English. Their brains have been trained to analyze text as data, not to process language as human connection.

”Test English” vs. Real English

1. Context is Artificial: Exam questions often strip away the natural context that aids understanding in real life.
2. Zero Tolerance for Ambiguity: In the real world, you don’t need to understand 100% of the words to understand the message. In a “killer question,” missing one nuance leads to the wrong answer.
3. Passive vs. Active: Multiple-choice exams are entirely passive. They do not require the student to produce output, which is a critical part of the feedback loop for language acquisition.

A Better Way: Practical Fluency

To actually learn a language, we need to move beyond the test. We need to embrace comprehensible input—content that is interesting, relevant, and slightly above our current level, but still understandable.

The goal shouldn’t be to survive a four-hour exam; it should be to enjoy a book, understand a movie, or speak with a friend.

At Mytoori, we believe in the power of stories over drills. By reading bilingual stories that provide context and narrative flow, learners acquire vocabulary naturally. You learn how words connect to emotions and images, not just how they function in a grammar trap.

The resignation of Oh Seung-keol is a symptom of a larger issue. Meaningful language education shouldn’t be about “killing” the student’s confidence with impossible questions. It should be about bringing language to life.

References

• BBC News: Chief of S Korea’s high-stakes exam quits over ‘insane’ English test
• YouTube: South Korea exam chief quits over ‘insane’ English test