The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation (Director Kim Moon-hee) notified test-takers on the 29th of the scoring results for the September mock exam for the 2027 College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), which was administered nationwide on September 2. Individual score reports were distributed through registration sites such as the examinees’ current schools, local education offices in their test districts, and their former schools. To assist with college counseling, the Institute also released standard scores and frequency distribution data for grade classifications by section and subject.
A total of 396,118 test-takers participated in this September mock exam. Of these, 298,250 were current students, while 97,868 were graduates and those who had passed the high school equivalency exam. This represents a decrease of 13,053 students compared to last September’s mock exam (409,171) and a decrease of 97,778 students compared to last year’s College Scholastic Ability Test (493,896). It also represents a decrease of 15,184 compared to the number of test-takers in the mock exam held this past June (411,302).
By subject, the number of test-takers was 393,751 for Korean (99.40% of the total), Mathematics: 390,456 (98.57% of the total), English: 395,460 (99.83%), and Korean History: 396,118 (100.00%). In the Inquiry section, 390,120 students took Social Studies and Science Inquiry, and 3,414 took Vocational Inquiry, for a total of 393,534 examinees; 7,843 students took the Second Foreign Language/Classical Chinese section. A total of 389,353 examinees (98.29% of the total) took all three subjects—Korean, Math, and English—and while 387,221 students (97.75%) took all four subjects: Korean, Math, English, and Inquiry.
By elective subject in the Korean Language section, 290,804 examinees (73.85%) chose “Speech and Writing,” which was nearly three times as many as the 102,947 (26.15%) who chose “Language and Media.” In the Math section, Probability and Statistics had the highest number of test-takers at 251,298 (64.36%), followed by Calculus with 129,250 (33.10%) and Geometry with 9,908 (2.54%). Compared to the mock exam administered last September, the percentage of test-takers choosing “Language and Media” in the Korean Language section decreased from 33.20% to 25.99%, while the percentage choosing “Calculus” in the Mathematics section fell from 40.67% to 32.63%.
Of the 390,120 test-takers in the Social Studies and Science Exploration section, 270,301 took only Social Studies, 51,461 took only Science Exploration, and 68,358 took a combination of both areas. 99.39% of test-takers selected the maximum number of subjects allowed, which is two. By subject, “Society and Culture” was the most popular choice with 228,525 students, followed by “Life and Ethics” (188,457 students), “Earth Science I” (60,861 students), and “Life Science I” (54,499 students). In contrast, 3,114 students took Chemistry II, making it the least popular subject among those surveyed.
According to the grading results, the standard score for Grade 1 in the Korean Language section was 131 points, with 16,363 examinees (4.16%) falling into this range. Grade 2 was defined as 124 points or higher, with 31,217 students (7.93%) in this range, while Grade 3 was defined as 117 points or higher, with 45,640 students (11.59%) in this range. In the Math section, the standard score cutoff for Grade 1 was 128 points, with 21,666 students (5.55%) falling into this range; Grade 2 required 122 points or higher, with 32,140 students (8.23%); and 38,909 students (9.97%) scored 118 points or higher in Grade 3. In the English section, which is graded on an absolute scale, 61,457 students—15.54% of all test-takers—received a Grade 1 by scoring 90 points or higher on the raw score.
Meanwhile, the scores of 133 test-takers who took the exam via the online testing website were not included in this analysis of the grading results. The Korea Institute for Curriculum and Evaluation provided these test-takers with separate scores calculated based on standard scores, percentiles, and grades for each section and subject.
