We have been told that we should foster our creativity and originality, that we should be able to think outside the box, that we should value the process more than the result. However, does an exam consisting almost entirely of multiple-choice questions (MCQs) help us build the qualities we are told to possess? I doubt it. It asks us to choose one of the given answers, ignores the logical steps, and assesses us solely on the final answer. I believe that out of an obsession with objectivity and fairness, Korea is sacrificing quality in education.
I spent my high school years in Geneva, Switzerland, where I completed the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP). Throughout those two years, and on the final exams, every subject included long-answer or essay questions.
This format develops a student’s ability to build an argument and defend it. In English class, we read whole novels together, discussed them, and then wrote essays in response. I still remember writing an essay about The Great Gatsby and Antigone using an analysis I had developed myself, and receiving a 7—the highest grade in the IBDP—for the first time. I have found joy in literature ever since. That is what this examination format allows: a student’s own idea can be marked correct, as long as it holds together logically, even when it is not the answer printed in the textbook. Additionally, in an age of generative AI, writing a long essay under exam conditions is one of the few ways left to train students to build an argument on their own.
Long-answer questions also reward the reasoning itself. For most exams at POSTECH, long-answer questions assess both process and answer, giving credit for moving in the right direction. This format is more forgiving of mistakes, since an error in a long-answer question costs part of the question, while in an MCQ it costs all of it. This is what lets students value process as much as result, as we were told to do, and makes them bolder about finding different paths to an answer, which is the art of math and science.
On Aug. 5, at a government briefing, LEE Jae Myung, the president of Korea, discussed the limitations of MCQs and the idea of transitioning Suneung, the College Scholastic Ability Test, to long-answer or essay questions. The idea drew mixed reactions. Many were skeptical, arguing that essays cannot be graded fairly and that changing the system would only confuse students.
That skepticism is not unreasonable. Koreans have seen enough admissions scandals to distrust any evaluation that depends on someone’s judgment. But an essay written in an exam hall is different from a school record or an interview. Every student answers the same questions on the same day, and the grader never learns whose answer they are reading. The IBDP has graded essays this way for decades, using detailed mark schemes, external examiners, and an option to request a re-mark from a different examiner. It is not perfect, but long answers and fairness can coexist.
Politics aside, I believe it is time to discuss this transition seriously. Korea’s school-age population is falling so fast that university admission quotas already exceed the number of students taking the Suneung. A shrinking student population is usually reported as a crisis. In education, however, having fewer students also means more time and resources for each one. If we take enough time to build the system and grading policy, new question formats could foster the abilities students will need in the AI era. Fairness matters, but it should not stop us from testing the qualities we tell students to have.
