The purpose of this study is to identify the changing trends and characteristics of the questions in the employment
exam for secondary Korean language teachers since 1997. As selecting and appointing excellent teachers are the most
important factors that improve the quality of education, being informed of these criteria should better prepare pre-service
teachers who will be entering the teaching profession. Therefore, this study classified and reviewed questions of the Korean
modern literature section across a diachronic time frame. The results show an increase in the number of questions that assess
the ability to read literary pieces and the ability to teach literature in class, instead of questions that test simple facts and concepts.
However, the questions had the tendency of overly focusing on certain writers and their work, while questions that
assessed the teachers' ability of literary evaluation were limited. These results indicate the need for a variety of questions that
connect the examinee's understanding of literature with instructional design and practice, thus more reliably assessing their
potential teaching abilities. The employment exam for Korean language teachers needs to be improved to enhance the test's
fairness and validity, and more discussion is needed regarding the test items and the teaching skills that the exam seeks to
assess. The significance of this study is that it shows the significance, limitation, and areas for improvement of the existing
employment exam by investigating changes and characteristics in the modern literature questions section of the Korean language
teacher employment examination.