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A quick yearly silence has as soon as once more enveloped South Korea, as half one million college students throughout the nation sit for a very powerful check of their lives.
Planes have been grounded, building work halted, and automotive honking discouraged because the Suneung, an eight-hour college placement examination billed as one of many hardest on this planet, kicked off on Thursday.
But this yr, there was one sound that college students have been particularly petrified of: “APT”.
The world hit by Blackpink’s Rosé and Bruno Mars emerged as a “forbidden” track amongst college students who feared that its catchiness may trigger them to lose focus in the course of the check.
No distractions are too minor with regards to the Suneung, which many see as a end result of years of formal training – and a turning level that determines their college placements, careers, and social statuses.
“I’m worried that the song will play in my head even during the exam,” one pupil informed Yonhap News of the chart-topper. “Adults might laugh and say, ‘Why stress over something like that?’ But for us, with such an important test ahead, it can feel unsettling.”
Suneung college students have beforehand been inspired to keep away from different so-called earworms, with songs corresponding to “Go Go” by BTS and “Ring Ding Dong” by SHINee repeatedly cited on-line as tracks that must be forbidden.
Ensuring that the examination runs easily is a nationwide effort. Shops and the inventory market opened late on Thursday to cut back site visitors congestion, and authorities adjusted public transport working hours and put greater than a dozen spare trains on standby in case of breakdowns.
More than 10,000 cops have been deployed, together with some tasked to ferry college students to highschool throughout emergencies.
Besides grounding planes to minimise noise disturbances in the course of the 20-minute English listening check, authorities have additionally requested bus and taxi drivers to chorus from honking whereas the exams are going down.
Disruptions to the Suneung are handled as a critical matter. Last December, dozens of scholars sued the government after lecturers unintentionally lower their check brief by 90 seconds.
There are a file variety of candidates retaking the examination this yr, after authorities introduced they might broaden enrolment in medical faculties – a transfer that was met with widespread protests among trainee doctors whereas being welcomed by aspiring medical college students.
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