This article reports on an investigation on the correlation between test-taking strategy use and the CSAT (College Scholastic Ability Test) English reading comprehension scores of high school third graders and CSAT retakers. The study employed quantitative data analyses. 100 high school third graders and 64 CSAT retakers residing in Jeonju were participated in the survey asking for their test-taking strategy use. Their English reading comprehension test scores for the National KSAT mock test taken in March, 2019 were also collected. The strategy checklist used in this survey was adapted from Anderson et al.(1991)'s Multiple-Choice Strategy Checklist and Phaiti(2003)'s Cognitive and Metacognitive Questionnaire.
The findings of this research are as follows.
First, out of 35 strategies in the strategy checklist, 23 strategies got more than 3.00 in their mean scores which means that the participants used the test-taking strategies quite frequently. Second, the higher proficient learners used more strategies than the lower proficient learners in the overall strategy use. In case of specific strategy use, all the strategy categories showed a significant difference except the Strategies for Establishing Coherence and the Test-wiseness Strategies. Third, statistically significant correlation was found between the test-taking strategies and the CSAT English reading comprehension scores.
Since this study showed that there is a significant correlation between the test-taking strategies and the English reading comprehension score of the CSAT, further research is needed to encourage students to use the test-taking strategies.