SNU exposed for Playboy excerpt

An excerpt from American men`s magazine "Playboy" was found to have been used in a practice quiz set for Seoul National University`s English proficiency test.

Lee Sang-mook, who runs an English hagwon, or a private institute, in Daegu said SNU used an article titled "Bar of the Month" from Playboy magazine in its TEPS practice questions.

"It is up to SNU to choose whatever source it wants to use for the test questions, but using a men`s magazine article indicates a lack of effort for developing good questions over the past 10 years," said Lee, who is writing a critical book about TEPS.

The Playboy story about a bar near Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, was just one example that undermines the credibility of TEPS, according to Lee.

He said he found about 10 misspelled words on the website of the Test of English Proficiency developed by Seoul National University at http://www.teps.or.kr, such as "grastp" (grasp), "respocses" (responses) and "uncerstanding" (understanding).

Lee also pointed to several cases of misused words in dozens of TEPS questions.

Up to 450,000 people are expected to take the TEPS this year.

By Kim So-hyun

(sophie@heraldm.com)