At least 39 students are suing South Korea's government, claiming they were put at a disadvantage when a section of their college admission test ended a minute and a half early. To be clear, the annual College Scholastic Ability Test or "Suneung" is an important test. As the BBC reports, "the Suneung is one of the hardest exams in the world and stakes are very high. It not only determines university placements and jobs but even future relationships." Over eight hours, high school seniors write papers on numerous subjects. During the first section of the Nov. 16 exam, on the subject of Korean, the students tested at Seoul's Kyungdong High School say they were told to put down their pens early, per the Independent. A supervisor of the test had misread the time, public broadcaster KBS reported.
After realizing the error, officials allowed the students to write for an additional 90 seconds during a lunch break, but not to change existing answers, per the BBC. That wasn't enough for some students, who claim they were offered no apology or explanation. Some say they were too upset to focus and abandoned the test altogether. The lawsuit filed Tuesday demands 20 million won or about $15,400 for each of the students, which equates to "the cost of a year's studying to retake the exam," per the BBC. There is legal precedent for such a reward. In April, a Seoul court ruled the government should pay $5,250 to each of eight students who had papers taken away two minutes early during the 2021 exam. The test monitor had mistakenly scheduled the bell, per the Korea Herald. As in the more recent case, teachers allowed the students to make up the lost time. (More South Korea stories.)
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