Each autumn, South Korea grinds to a halt for its well-known university entrance exam.
Shops are shut, flights are delayed to reduce noise, and the usual pace of the morning commute slows down for the test-takers.
As evening approaches, the majority of examinees exit of school gates, exhaling with relief and greeting the relatives standing by.
However, some individuals finishes at that time. Even once darkness has fully settled and night has set in, some students are still in the exam room – completing close to 10pm.
They are the visually impaired examinees, who frequently spend over half a day completing the most extended form of the Suneung.
The Marathon Examination
This week, over 550,000 students across the country will take the CSAT – an abbreviation for College Scholastic Ability Test in the local language. It is the highest number of test-takers in almost a decade.
This examination doesn't just determine whether people can enter college, but may influence their career opportunities, earnings, future residence and including personal connections.
Depending on their selected disciplines, examinees complete roughly 200 problems across Korean, math, foreign language, science subjects, an additional foreign language, and Hanja.
Typically, this constitutes an eight-hour endurance test of back-to-back tests. They begin the Suneung test at 08:40 and finish around 17:40.
Blind students with severe visual impairments, though, are given almost double the regular exam time.
Consequently, when completing the additional foreign language section, the exam can end as late as 21:48 – nearly thirteen hours after it started.
There is no dinner break; the test continues straight through.
The substantial volume of the braille test papers further extends the length.
When every sentence, mark and diagram is transformed into tactile writing, every exam document transforms into significantly thicker than the standard equivalent.
Personal Experiences
At Seoul Hanbit School for the Blind, 18-year-old Han Donghyun is among the examinees who are preparing for the most extended form of the exam currently.
Previously, there were over a hundred visually impaired examinees nationwide – ninety-nine with partial sight and 12 with complete visual challenges like the student – according to information from educational authorities.
Dong-hyun was born completely blind and is unable to perceive light.
When meeting at his school, his fingers moved quickly across a tactile training material of previous test problems.
Approaching the examination date, he was focused on maintaining his stamina and physical state. Dong-hyun will complete the test using braille test papers and a screen-reading computer.
"The fatigue is significant because the exam is so long," he said. "But there's no special trick. I simply adhere to my preparation plan and try to manage my condition. This approach is essential."
The student said the language component is especially challenging for him.
Regular examination materials for that section is approximately 16 sheets – but the tactile edition is about one hundred pages long.
Despite using audio assistance, spoken information vanishes as soon as it is perceived, contrary to written content that can be viewed and re-read. He has to retain information in his recall as he goes.
The mathematics section is equally demanding.
He must interpret complex graphs and data sets that have been converted into braille, using only his fingertips.
Still, he noted that conditions have improved than they were previously. Historically, examinees had to do nearly every calculations in their heads. But since 2016, blind test-takers have been allowed to use a braille notetaker, known as the assistive tool.
"Similar to sighted students write out their work in writing, we input them in braille on the Hansone to follow the steps," he said.
Physical Demands
A different examinee at Hanbit School, 18-year-old Oh Jeong-won, who will also sit the Suneung this year, mentioned the late afternoon are "the hardest point" of the day.
"Up until lunch, it's manageable," he stated. "However, during late afternoon, following language sections and before Korean History, that's when it gets really tough.
"There's no dinner break," he elaborated. "We continue answering questions while we would typically dine, so fatigue increases. Still, I persist because I understand there will be a feeling of achievement at the conclusion."
For the student, the fatigue is compounded by the need to stay highly concentrated with tactile input and his auditory perception.
"While processing the tactile information with my fingers and also taking in content through audio, it seems significantly more exhausting than experienced by those with vision," he said.
Accessibility Barriers
However, examinees explain that the length of the exam and the extended preparation are not the primary challenge. What is most challenging is availability of learning resources.
Popular textbooks and online lectures that those with vision depend on are frequently out of reach.
There are very few tactile editions, and converting materials into audio needs having text files – which are difficult to obtain. Frequently, individuals must manually type complete materials to create accessibility.
Online lectures also pose difficulties, as numerous educators present information using written annotations, diagrams and graphics on display, which are inaccessible through sound only.
A major obstacle, however, is the postponement in receiving tactile editions of the government-issued EBS preparation books – a core set of resources directly connected to the national exam.
Due to this postponement, blind students often receive the resources months later than their peers.
"Those with vision get their EBS books between January and March and use them for the whole year," explained the student. "We obtain the braille files only around August or September, when the test is approaching quickly."
The student shared the identical worry.
"The braille materials weren't completed until under three months before the exam," he mentioned. "I kept wishing the production timeline could be faster."
The responsible organization, which produces the tactile edition of EBS exam materials, explained that the process takes at least three months for each book because it must follow relevant guidelines.
The institute further mentioned that it is "making various efforts to ensure that visually impaired examinees can learn uninterrupted, including producing and supplying the resources in separate volumes."
The Korean Blind Union said it has long raised these concerns with {author
