Half a million students take entrance exam

By: Kim So-hyun

Reprinted From: The Korea Herald

About 588,000 students took the annual College Scholastic Ability Test yesterday supported by special traffic control and police patrols.

Thousands of police sidecars and patrol cars were on call around 996 testing schools to rescue those running late on one of the most important days of their lives.

As all CSAT examinees were required to enter the test rooms by 8:10 a.m., more subway trains and buses were put into operation in the morning hours starting from 6 a.m. Government offices and some companies advised their employees not to come to work until 10 a.m. to reduce congestion.

Vehicle transport or parking was prohibited within 200 meters around the testing schools. Two policemen were stationed at each school to keep the peddlers selling pens, drinks and tranquilizers under control and prevent possible acts of disturbance.

Proctors of the nationwide college entrance test also took extra caution not to distract or cause inconvenience to the examinees following a rather unusual court ruling.

The Seoul Central District Court recently ordered a teacher identified by the surname Kim to pay 8 million won in compensation to a student surnamed Hong for causing him to retake his CSAT.

Teachers overseeing test rooms are required to stamp their names on the test papers and answer sheets for confirmation. Kim, by mistake, stamped on the wrong box -- a box for absentees -- on Hong's answer sheet. Kim later learned of his mistake and called Hong during the last break to mark his answers again.

Hong, who had always scored the highest level in all four sections, claimed he was nervous after the unexpected request and didn't do so well in the last session. He failed to enter Seoul National University and said the invigilator was at fault.

Hundreds of students post complaints against proctors on the website of the Korea Institute of Curriculum and Examination, which manages the CSAT, after the exam each year.

The most common complaints so far were that they couldn't concentrate because the teachers were chattering or writing on the chalkboard during the listening test. Some claimed the teachers wrote down the wrong test hours on the board, made too much noise with their shoes, left their cell phones on, or even overlooked cheaters and snoring students during exams.

The Education Ministry and the KICE said they sent out guidelines for proctors to the local education authorities and made sure they were prepared to minimize complaints from the examinees.

Like the students, the proctors are not allowed to take mobile phones, books, newspapers or food into the test rooms. They are also advised to watch out for anything that could disturb the students during the listening tests, not to respond to questions unless they are about printing problems on the test sheets and not to talk unless strictly necessary.