Kim, Jeong-eun, Seon-bin Lee and Hyun-Jin Kim. 2025. Can the CSAT English gap-filling questions assess test-takers’ inference skills?

This study investigates the validity of gap-filling inference questions in the Korean CSAT English section by tracking learners’ problem-solving processes. Verbal data were collected from 51 university students, using the think-aloud protocol, as they engaged in gap-filling inference questions. We analyzed how accuracy rates were related to problem-solving time, the frequency and duration of inferencing, and various learner-internal variables such as English proficiency and topic familiarity. The results indicate that topic familiarity was the only significant predictor of accuracy, whereas English proficiency, problem-solving time, the frequency of inferencing occurrences, and the duration of inferencing did not show significant effects on accuracy rates. Additionally, participants reported that vocabulary difficulty, sentence complexity, and challenges in distinguishing answer choices were key factors contributing to the perceived difficulty of gap-filling inference questions. These findings suggest a need to reassess the validity of gap-filling inference questions in the CSAT and raise questions about whether they effectively measure inferential reasoning skills.