모의고사 drive-thru 및 walk-thru 방식으로 배포
For students in South Korea, the final year of high school is one of the most important years of their lives as they gear up for the once-a-year, high-stakes college entrance exam.
It's seen by many as one of life's most pivotal moments. But, this is quite the unusual year for high school seniors - COVID-19 happened. Despite the pandemic, they took their first mock exam today.
Our Kim Do-yeon went to a high school in Seoul to see how it was done COVID-19 style.
"These high school seniors have come to school for the first time this year.
But they're only here to pick up a copy of the first official practice exam."
Students who visited on foot to pick up the exam had their temperature checked at the gate. Students whose parents drove to the school were able to pick up the test without leaving their cars.
Usually, practice tests are done in a similar setting as the actual college entry exam, but due to COVID-19, schools asked students to do the test at home following the test's time limit.
"This is definitely different from the actual exam… we won't even get our actual scores, so I won't be able to know where I currently stand nationwide. I'm also worried about concentrating throughout the test."
Students had the choice to download the tests, but as the actual exam uses A3-sized paper, most students came to pick up their tests from school so that their test was as similar to their real exam as possible.
However, one teacher told us that this was not enough and that he was becoming increasingly worried about his students.
"The most important thing is to beat COVID-19... while we can't open the schools to students, us teachers have been worried and motivated to provide everything we can. That's why we spent all day yesterday making the test packages so that students can easily pick them up. I hope they feel our support and study hard."
The Ministry of Education says it will decide by early May when to let students return to the classroom in line with the government's easing of quarantine measures.
Due to the delay to the start of the school year, the college entry exam has been postponed by two weeks, and will take place in December.
Kim Do-yeon, Arirang News.
