The English section, the third session of the 2026 College Scholastic Ability Test, drew assessments that it was somewhat more difficult than last year's CSAT. Questions 32, 34, 37, and 39 were cited as somewhat tricky items that could distinguish upper-mid-range students.
Kim Ye-ryeong, an English instructor for EBS and a teacher at Daewon Foreign Language High School, said at a Nov. 13 briefing at the Government Sejong Complex on the question-setting trends for the 2026 CSAT English section that it was judged to be set somewhat more difficult than last year's CSAT and at a similar level to the September mock test this year.
Kim said it appeared to have maintained the question-setting stance of last year's CSAT or this year's September mock test without new types overall, and that so-called "killer questions" were excluded, such as by not using passages with excessively abstract expressions that are hard to understand even when translated into Korean.
Items considered somewhat tricky were No. 32 (fill-in-the-blank inference: a writer should consider readers' responses while writing), No. 34 (fill-in-the-blank inference: a passage about Kant's claims), No. 37 (order of sentences: a passage on the characteristics of philosophy that provide insight into the convergence of knowledge across disciplines), and No. 39 (placement of a given sentence: how video game players perceive the reality of the game world). Kim said they were questions expected to distinguish mid- to upper-tier students.
The EBS linkage rate was 55.6% (25 out of 45 questions). The question-setting headquarters said all EBS-linked items were presented as indirect linkages. Specifically, the linked items were ▲ listening and indirect speaking Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 15 ▲ reading and indirect writing Nos. 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 32, 43, 44, and 45.
Meanwhile, the admissions industry assessed that it was similar to last year's CSAT and somewhat easier than the September mock test this year. Jongno Academy said that no new types of questions were presented and they were presented in the existing formats, and estimated that No. 39 might have felt difficult because no clear basis for the correct answer was provided, and No. 34 might have felt difficult because the philosophy topic made the passage hard to understand.