AI Aces Tokyo University Exam, Beats Top Scorers

ChatGPT scored the highest marks in this year’s entrance exams of the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University, two of Japan’s top universities, surpassing those of the actual top scorers, an AI venture said Monday.

According to LifePrompt Inc, the generative AI chatbot scored 50 points higher than the top test-taker on the University of Tokyo’s most competitive Natural Sciences III medical track exam and received a perfect score in mathematics. The achievement follows the AI’s failure to pass all of the school’s entrance exams in 2024.

The company tested using OpenAI’s ChatGPT 5.2 Thinking model, having it take the two universities’ undergraduate entrance exams, feeding it the exam questions converted into image data. Since the answers included essay responses, they were graded by teachers from major cram school Kawai Juku.

ChatGPT also answered this year’s unified university entrance examinations, and the Tokyo-based venture totaled the scores.

ChatGPT scored 452 points out of a possible 550 on the University of Tokyo’s Humanities and Social Sciences exam and 503 points out of a possible 550 on the Natural Sciences exam.

Both scores surpassed the highest scores of successful applicants announced by the university at 434 points for Humanities and Social Sciences III and 453 points for Natural Sciences III.

On the other hand, the AI scored 90 percent on the English exam but only 25 percent on essay-style questions in subjects like World History.

As for Kyoto University’s examinations, the AI scored 771 points in the Faculty of Law exam, exceeding the highest passing score of 734, and 1,176 points in the Faculty of Medicine exam, above the top scorer’s 1,098.