Every November, the nation of South Korea seems to hold its breath for one day. Shops close their doors, flights are grounded to minimize noise, and the morning rush hour slows to a crawl. This nationwide pause is for the Suneung, the country’s notoriously difficult college entrance exam. By the late afternoon, most students emerge from the testing centers, relieved and ready to embrace their waiting families.
However, for a small group of students, the day is far from over. Long after the sun has set and darkness has fallen, they remain in the exam room, sometimes finishing as late as 10 p.m. These are the blind students, who often spend more than 12 hours taking the longest and most grueling version of the Suneung.
A Marathon of an Exam
This Thursday, over 550,000 students across South Korea will take the Suneung, which is short for College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT). This year has seen the highest number of applicants in seven years. The exam is more than just a test; it is a major life event that can determine a student’s university prospects, future career, income, and even their personal relationships.
Depending on their chosen subjects, students answer around 200 questions covering Korean, mathematics, English, social or natural sciences, and an optional foreign language. For most, it is an eight-hour marathon that begins at 8:40 a.m. and ends around 5:40 p.m.
But for blind students with severe visual impairments, the rules are different. They are given 1.7 times the standard amount of time to complete the test. This means that if they opt to take the additional foreign language section, their exam can finish as late as 9:48 p.m., nearly 13 hours after it began. There is no dinner break; the exam runs continuously. The physical size of the braille test papers also adds to the challenge. When every sentence, symbol, and diagram is translated into braille, each test booklet becomes six to nine times thicker than a standard one.
The Students Facing the Longest Day
At the Seoul Hanbit School for the Blind, 18-year-old Han Dong-hyun is one of the students who will be taking the longest version of the Suneung this year. Last year, there were 111 blind test-takers in the entire country. Dong-hyun, who was born completely blind, was focused on managing his stamina when the BBC met with him just a week before the exam. He will be taking the test using braille papers and a screen-reading computer.
“It’s really exhausting because the exam is so long,” he said. “But there’s no special trick. I just follow my study schedule and try to manage my condition.”
Dong-hyun finds the Korean language section to be particularly difficult. A standard test booklet for this section is about 16 pages long, but the braille version is around 100 pages. Even with screen-reading software, the spoken information disappears as soon as it is heard, making it hard to go back and review. He has to hold all the details in his memory as he works through the questions. The mathematics section is also a major challenge, as he must interpret complex graphs and tables using only his fingertips.
Another student at the school, 18-year-old Oh Jeong-won, said that the late afternoon is the hardest part of the day. “Up until lunch, it’s manageable,” he said. “But around 4 or 5 p.m., after English and before Korean History, that’s when it gets really tough.” He explained that because there is no dinner break, they are solving problems during the time they would normally be eating, which makes it feel even more exhausting.
A Battle for Equal Access to Materials
For these students, the length of the exam is not the biggest challenge. The most difficult part of their preparation is getting access to the right study materials. Popular textbooks and online lectures that are readily available to sighted students are often out of reach for them. There are very few braille versions of these materials, and converting them into an audio format is a difficult and time-consuming process.
One of the biggest hurdles is the delay in receiving the braille versions of the state-produced EBS preparation books. These books are essential for studying, as they are closely linked to the national exam. Sighted students typically receive these books between January and March, giving them a full year to study. However, blind students often do not receive the braille files until August or September, just a few months before the exam.
“The braille materials weren’t completed until less than 90 days before the exam,” Dong-hyun said, expressing a common concern. The National Institute of Special Education, which produces the braille materials, told the BBC that the process takes at least three months for each book. The Korean Blind Union has been raising this issue with the authorities for a long time and is planning to file a constitutional petition to demand better accessibility to all textbooks.
A Test of Perseverance
For these students, the Suneung is more than just an exam; it is a testament to their years of hard work and perseverance. Their teacher, Kang Seok-ju, said that the endurance of his blind students is “remarkable.” He pointed out that reading braille for hours on end can make their fingertips sore, but they push through the pain.
“This exam is where you pour everything you’ve learned since the first grade into a single day,” he said. “I just want them to leave knowing they did what they could. The exam is not everything.” For these students, finishing the 13-hour marathon is a victory in itself, a symbol of their incredible determination and will to succeed against all odds.
