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If you want to take a flight leaving from
or to anywhere in South Korea between 1:10
and 1:40 PM on November, 14, 2019, you are
out of luck.
Well, actually, the flight will still take
off—it’ll just be delayed.
Ok, granted this is a pretty niche problem
but the reason it is is because that’s when
the listening portion of the South Korean
College Scholastic Ability Test will take
place.
Now, this test is sort of like the American
SAT except more difficult and higher stakes
since you can ace your American SAT and still
get rejected from NYU because you didn’t
spend enough time working at sea turtle conservancies
in Nepal.
The CSAT plays an enormous, paramount role
in deciding which university each individual
gets into.
South Korea is one of the best educated countries
in the world to the point where some people
say that it’s actually overeducated—there’s
an oversupply of highly skilled labor and
an undersupply of less skilled labor.
The reason that is is because a huge proportion
of its population goes to University.
69% of South Koreans get at least a two-year
degree compared to 59% in Canada, 49% in the
UK, and 47% in the US.
Remember, the US isn’t dumb, it just does
a good job of supplying its unskilled labor
industries.
Now, the CSAT is mostly graded on a curve
so difficulty doesn’t really matter—what
matters is how everybody else does.
Unfortunately, everybody else does quite well
since nearly everybody tries to go to university
and they all want to go to one of these three
universities considering that 50% of all CEO’s
in the country went to one of them.
They’re like the Korean Cambridge and Oxford’s
minus all the tweed.
Now, as an exercise, let’s look at a section
from the English language comprehension section
since that’s something that any Half as
Interesting viewer should understand—unless
you’re watching this on some freebooted
Russian dubbed VK video page in which case,
shoutout to you.
Anyways, “the contents, interpretations
and representations of the resource are selected
according to the demands of the present; an
imagined past provides resources for a heritage
that is to be passed onto an imagined future.”
Excuse me, what?
Which stroke victims decided that understanding
this was a necessary prerequisite for University
in South Korea?
Well, it turns out, these ones.
Every September, about 500 teachers from across
the country are selected to write the exam
and they all convene on a secret mountain
location in the Gangwon province.
These teachers are not allowed to have their
phones—in fact, they’re not allowed to
have any way to communicate to the outside
world as they write the test as they just
can’t have any chance of cheating.
Meanwhile, students will be in their final
months of preparation.
Now, trying to pass this exam is a little
like trying to become a millionaire—it’s
a lot easier if you’re a billionaire.
Most students, in addition to going to school,
will go to Hagwons, or cram schools, after
normal school every evening to prepare for
the CSAT and the more expensive the Hagwon,
the better the results.
While the exam is intended to be an equalizing
force, to give students from all backgrounds
an equal chance to attend university, the
existence of these cram schools and other
means of tutoring makes this not the case.
Some of the tutors at these for-profit Hagwons,
especially the online ones, have become millionaires
simply through teaching.
I know that seems crazy—making a job out
of creating educational videos for the internet—
but, some reach a level of celebrity status
where they actually do paid TV endorsements.
Then, of course, comes test day sometime in
the middle of November.
Almost all businesses, including the stock
market, open an hour late at 10:00 am to allow
the roads to be un-congested in the time leading
up to the exam’s start at 8:10 am.
If students are late, they can call the police
for a free escort to the exam location.
The exam only takes place once a year and
it’s a requirement for going to university
so, if they miss it, their whole life will
literally be delayed by a year.
At least it would give more time for Nepalese
Sea Turtle conservation work, though.
First up, starting at 8:40, is the 80 minute
Korean language section.
The students then have a short 20 minute break,
then the 100 minute Math section starts at
10:30.
Once that’s done, there’s a 50 minute
lunch break and then, at 1:10 pm, the notoriously
difficult English section starts.
The first bit of this is the listening comprehension
section.
For the entire day, in order for the students
to concentrate, almost all noisy activities,
like construction work and military training,
are cancelled.
Large trucks are also banned from driving
near testing sites.
For the entirety of the 30-minute listening
section, though, no planes will land or take
off from South Korean airports.
The planes waiting to take off will, of course,
just sit there, while the planes waiting to
land will just circle high above, where they’re
less noisy, until the listening section is
done.
Once the listening section is done, the flights
will resume, but the test is far from done.
It will last until 5:40 pm meaning that, all
told, students will have completed almost
10 hours of testing.
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