Court dismisses demand to change answer to college exam question

An administrative court ruled Monday against a group of high school seniors seeking a change to their scores on the national college entrance exam.

Thirty-eight students who took the College Scholastic Ability Test on Nov. 7 filed a lawsuit last month, claiming that the test organizers chose an incorrect answer to Question 8 in the geography section.

The multiple-choice question asked examinees to choose the correct statement about the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement blocs. One of four possible answers was that the EU’s combined gross domestic product is greater than that of the members of NAFTA.

The plaintiffs claimed that NAFTA’s gross output has actually been greater than the EU’s since 2010. The Seoul Administrative Court said Tuesday: “(geography) textbooks describe the total output of the EU as greater than that of NAFTA and there is no mention of data on each year.”

“It’s not possible to say that the statement made by Question 8 is wrong,” the court added, dismissing the students’ demand for an additional three points for those who got the answer wrong.

Also on Tuesday, the court rejected their request to re-calculate the scores of the CSAT test released last month.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)