This paper analyses the foreign language curriculum of general high schools in China. The Chinese educational authority announced an experimental version of its language curriculum in 2003, revised it in 2017, and revised it in 2020. In 2003, the foreign language curriculum included only three foreign languages: English, Japanese, and Russian. German, French, and Spanish were added from the 2017 curriculum. The 2017 curriculum consists of three categories: ‘required’, ‘required optional’, and ‘optional’. The required courses meet the requirements for graduation by all students. Students intending to go to college must complete all required optional courses. The six foreign language curriculums equally set four core competencies: language ability, cultural consciousness, thinking ability, and learning ability. In addition, this paper investigated curriculum structure of the six foreign languages, learning vocabulary, and items included in the appendix, and compared the foreign language curriculum in China and Korea. In conclusion, Korea’s next curriculum suggested that achievement standards and evaluation criteria should be more specific in preparation for the high school credit system, and that achievement standards and evaluation criteria should be described so that the curriculum and college entrance can be linked.

In Korea, the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) was introduced in 1993 as the official national college entrance examination. Over the 22 years since its inception, the CSAT has gone through numerous changes in its policies regarding the test structure, test administration, test writers, item bank, item difficulty, test materials, score reporting, and the use of test scores. The present study reviewed these policies and policy changes regarding the CSAT, with a focus on the English section ofthe test. The study found that while some of the policies were laudable for beneficial effects on students and the society, some other policies had detrimental effects on the quality of the test and for stakeholders including students, teachers, and parents. More active involvement of testing professionals is suggested for the improvement of policymaking processes and the policies themselves.

The purpose of this study was to develop a statistical model of predicting item difficulty of the English reading test of College Scholastic Ability Test(CSAT). At the initial phase, the study investigated variables that were significantly correlated to item difficulty of English reading test. Using the correlated variables an instrument was designed to gather the data on item difficulty of each item of the English reading tests of 2002 and 2003 CSAT. Correlation analysis was done to get models which could predict item difficulty of the tests. To validate the results of the analysis, the models were applied to the September Tests of 2003 and 2004 CSAT. It was found that the 2003 linear regression equation model showed the acceptable level of stability and predictability. The study also revealed that statistically significant predictors were grammar, inference and options. It was also found that the proportion of variance accounted by the predictors was different. Some implications for CSAT design and further research were drawn from the findings.