A corpus-based analysis of linguistic difficulty of the CSAT English section under absolute grading

Abstract

The present study was designed to examine the extent to which the difficulty level of the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT) English section under the absolute grading system appropriately reflects the difficulty level of the National Curriculum. Moreover, it aimed to investigate whether the CSAT English section maintains the same level of difficulty each year since the introduction of absolute grading into the English section. To achieve these goals, the study conducted a corpus-based analysis of the linguistic difficulty among High School English textbooks and CSAT reading passages (collected from 2015 to 2020). The results showed that the difficulty level of the CSAT reading passages under absolute grading was much higher than that of High School English textbooks. It was also revealed that the English sections of the CSAT under absolute and relative grading were almost identical in terms of linguistic difficulty. No significant difference was found among the difficulty levels of the three CSAT English sections under the absolute grading system (2018, 2019, 2020). The findings of the study shed some light on the implementation of the absolute grading policy and its ability to achieve its intended purpose of normalizing public education.