Geography Exam in Subject Proficiency Test Moderately Difficult, Tutoring Industry Predicts Five Standards Unchanged from Last Year

According to analysis by Taiwan's tutoring industry, the geography section of the 115th academic year Subject Proficiency Test was of moderate difficulty, with the five performance benchmarks—top, upper, average, lower, and bottom—expected to remain unchanged from the previous year. While the National Association of Teachers pointed out an error in Question 35, where the prompt mentioned a 'line graph' but all answer options were 'bar charts,' tutoring experts believe the discrepancy does not affect students' ability to select the correct answer and thus do not anticipate score adjustments.

Today, De Sheng Education convened a panel of tutoring instructors to analyze the exam. Geography teacher Huang Chuang-hung, speaking to the media, stated that this year's test was generally moderate in difficulty. While students may have found it relatively easy, some questions required deeper analytical thinking.

Notably challenging was the question set from Questions 29 to 31, which used extensive data charts to explore transportation development and housing price fluctuations between Douliu City and Hufei Township in Yunlin County. Huang explained that for the written-response section, students needed to articulate that high-priced housing areas in Hufei are concentrated near the high-speed rail station, yet the overall average price still remains below that of Douliu, which has a Taiwan Railways Administration station.

Questions 39 to 41 required students to determine river flow direction from contour lines. The scenario involved flood damage downstream of the Mataan Stream, where students had to infer from a topographic cross-section that the northern levee is higher than the southern one, and that the riverbed is higher than the Guangfu urban area—causing floodwaters to overflow and flow southward into the city, resulting in severe damage.

Question 35 contained a clear error: while the prompt referred to a 'line graph,' all four answer choices displayed 'bar charts.' The National Association of Teachers' solution team argued this warrants score adjustment (free points), but Huang maintained that the rainfall differences among the charts are visually obvious, allowing students to identify the correct answer regardless. As such, he predicts no score adjustment will be made.

The tutoring team projects the five benchmarks for this year's geography exam to be 53 (top), 47 (upper), 39 (average), 31 (lower), and 26 (bottom)—identical to last year's standards. (Editor: Long Bo-an)