PART A
Read Text 1 and answer questions 1-23 on pages 1-5 of the Question-Answer Book for Part A.
Text 1
A price too high for South Korean students
[1] The Heirs (also known as The Inheritors) is a
highly popular romantic drama set in a South Korean
elite high school centering around the second
generations of uber-rich families and a Cinderella-
5 like girl. The chiselled good looks and charm of the
male protagonist, Asian heart-throb Lee Min-ho, has
perpetuated the fanciful ideas about school life in
South Korea among the uninitiated. He and the
supporting cast may be the best-dressed 18-year-olds
10 on and off campus, but anyone knowing the harsh
realities behind their trendy uniforms would not envy
the real-life specimens. As the famous Korean saying
goes: ‘If you sleep three hours a night, you get into a
top university. If you sleep five or more, forget about
15 getting into any.’ Seriously sleep-deprived students
in South Korea simply cannot spare the time for a
healthy doze of leisure pursuits, let alone the energy
to mess around with the petty squabbles and
indulgences that seem to be the sole occupations of
20 the main characters in The Heirs.
[2] A typical South Korean student spends up to
13 hours a day hitting the books. Yoo-kyung Do is in
her second year of high school. The schedule for her
typical academic day starts at 8 am. She leaves school
25 at 4 pm and heads for a hagwon to continue training.
Hagwons are private cram schools notorious for their
approach to churning out academic excellence in the
College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), the country’s
university admission exam. At the hagwons, students
30 with bloodshot eyes are crammed into identical
spartan rooms featuring only a blackboard, tables and
chairs to rote learn grammar rules and formulas under
harsh fluorescent lights.
[3] ‘No one forces me to be here, but I know all my
35 classmates are attending at least one extra class. I’d
feel unsettled if I didn’t,’ Yoo-kyung explains. She
adds that she is happy to be able to have a quick bite
at home before setting off for the crammer, one of
three she attends for various subject areas on different
40 days of the week.
Paper 1 • Set B • Term Paper 1 • (Reading – Part A)
[4] Korean parents obligingly pour thousands of
dollars into after-school tuition, with no exemption
for the most privileged households that opt to splash
out on more high-end hagwons with addresses in
45 Gangnam, an affluent neighbourhood in Seoul made
famous by K-pop artiste PSY’s viral hit. Currently
about 100,000 hagwons flourish in South Korea,
attended by around three-quarters of the children in
the country, including pre-schoolers.
50 [5] Meanwhile, such unrelenting efforts and
financial support has harvested brilliant results in
international education tests, making even the
world’s leading economic powers turn green with
envy. United States President Barack Obama once
55 lauded South Korean educators as ‘nation builders’
and education ministers in the United Kingdom have
been prompted to attempt to translate and model
curriculum after the South Koreans’ so as to send
their students’ scores soaring.
60 [6] But the better the results the longer the shadow
they may cast. It has been revealed in recent years
that South Korea has paid a steep price for its rapid
advance into a knowledge-based society through its
one-size-fits-all education system that locks
65 exclusively onto the nation’s university admission
exam, namely the CSAT. The country has the third
highest suicide rate in the world with self-inflicted
harm as the principal cause of death for the less
resilient among the under-40s – hardly a feat the
70 leading lights in the UK would like to emulate. Only
60 per cent of students feel contented with school
life, as compared to an average of 80 per cent in
wealthy countries in the West.
[7] Young Mr X is a victim of the country’s
75 punishing obsession with academic excellence. He
was driven to the edge on the eve of the life-
determining CSAT. ‘I was overcome by a sense of
incompetence; I feared I would fail my parents who
had invested heavily in me, mortgaging their house
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80 to pay for my tuition at high-end hagwons at one
point. The panic became so intense that I found I
couldn’t bear it any longer.’ Fortunately, he received
psychotherapy early and was well-supported by
loving parents who opted to send him abroad to
85 continue his studies. But he is one of the lucky few.
[8] For most of Mr X’s counterparts in South Korea,
exam success reigns as the sole determiner of
aspiration and approval, and ultimately the course of
life thereafter. Strained nerves are the rule, and
90 suicidal inclinations abound. Tiger parents’ high
expectations, which are the norm, only add to the
mounting pressure.
[9] ‘Sixty years ago, our country was an economic
wasteland and most of our parents’ generation were
95 illiterate as a result. Though we’re now an economic
power to be reckoned with, we still haven’t many
natural resources at our disposal, so people are our
most valuable asset. They must be pushed to perform
in high gear,’ Yoo-kyung’s father counters when
100 asked about whether he thinks the education system
is abusive and exploitative.
[10] Yoo-kyung’s answer echoes her father’s. ‘I’m
tired after less than 5 hours’ sleep each day, but I’m
motivated. I know the reward I’m accorded will be
105 proportionate to my efforts.’
[11] Like China, Korea has a long tradition of
education fervour. Not only does education change
one’s fate, it also determines the whole family’s
social status and material comfort – a reality that can
110 be traced back to the Joseon era, where society was
highly stratified and only candidates from more
prestigious backgrounds were eligible to sit for
civil service examinations. A noble family might be
degraded to mere commoners if their offspring failed
115 to pass their examinations to become government
officials.
[12] Up to and including the present day, individual
students have been held responsible for the success
or failure of their families, or even their nation.
120 Viewing their children’s academic performance as
key to securing the household’s future livelihood,
parents exert strict control over juvenile progress to
help ensure that the family as a whole climbs up the
END OF READING PASSAGE
Paper 1 • Set B • Term Paper 1 • (Reading – Part A)
social ladder. The corporate culture is equally
125 authoritarian – employees must work long hours, just
like in their schooldays, and have to be as submissive
to their managers as they once were to their
teachers.
[13] However, the government is gradually seeing
130 the side effects of its extreme schooling machine, and
is doing some soul-searching on behalf of its future
pillars of society, to make them feel more fulfilled in
life. In so doing, it is also seeking to address the issue
of a shrinking population that is plaguing the country.
135 However, the government’s rallying cry for a higher
birth rate has fallen on deaf ears as would-be parents
are turned off by the prospective education rat race
that awaits their offspring.
[14] ‘Knowledge is essential to industrialise a
140 country, but we are moving beyond this to sustain
our success. We’re in need of not only high scores,
but also high creativity, and high emotional and
social quotient,’ one of the pro-reform educationalists
says.
145 [15] The government has been attempting to restrict
the long opening hours of hagwons amidst a backdrop
of outrage and protests from parents, teachers,
students and industry practitioners. As hagwon
owners seek ways to get around the 10 pm curfew,
150 higher supervision has been urgently called for. In
Seoul, for instance, bounties are on offer to citizens
who turn in violators to ensure that the ban is fully
enforced.
[16] Until more favourable educational policies
155 prevail, it is society and its citizens that have to keep
up with the times. Although The Heirs and other
similar K-dramas thrive on depicting romantic
involvements between young people from contrasting
social backgrounds, they would be unlikely to be
160 replicated in real life. The cultural ideology that still
reigns supreme in South Korea stipulates the priority
of family gain over personal freedom. If families
continue to treat children as investments set up to
yield future returns, with even their marriages treated
165 as deals, or if the government only regards its
population as a powerbase for the economy, new
generations are unlikely to find meaning in their
everyday existence.
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