By Lee Hyo-sik
A student who took the annual state-administered college entrance exam Thursday is facing punishment for posting a series of real-time messages on a Twitter account describing what it was like during the test.
Police discovered that the controversial messages were posted through a program called “Bot,” which enables Twitter users to write and save messages in advance, and post them later at pre-designated times.
The student in Gunpo, Gyeonggi Province actually didn’t bring a smartphone or other mobile devices into the exam venue and thus did not make the postings during the exam.
Police decided not to charge the student, saying the incident was a simple prank. But the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology is poised to ban the student from taking the entrance exam in the future and nullify the test score.
During the nine-hour-long College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), the applicant with Twitter user ID “spacei****” posted dozens of messages on the most popular social network service describing what it was like to take the test.
The first message, posted right before the CSAT began, read “I will continue to tweet even after I enter the test venue. Watch me.” Following postings read “A listening test for the language section has just begun.” “I was only able to solve half of questions.” “The answer for the second essay question in the mathematics section is 14.”
More messages were updated on the Twitter account until 3 p.m.
After discovering such postings, education ministry officials indentified who the student was before the CSAT ended, and asked police to investigate. The ministry said it would file a formal complaint against the test taker with law enforcement authorities.
After the exam, supervisors handed the student over to officers at the Gunpo Police Station. During questioning, the student confessed to using the Bot program to post messages that sounded like real-time ones during the exam.
Officers decided not to indict the exam taker, citing that the act was simple mischief.
On a similar note, a disabled student was expelled from the test for trying to cheat by bringing a cellular phone and an electronic transmitter into the test site in Jongno, downtown Seoul. The student is also expected to be banned from taking the test in the future.
Meanwhile, universities will hold an essay test for those who took the CSAT, beginning from today.
Students seeking to enroll in Kyunghee University and Sogang University will have to take the exam Saturday. Korea University and Hanyang University will hold the test on Nov. 19.
Education experts say that excelling on the essay test is crucial for students to enter universities they want as this year’s CSAT was easier than previous ones. More students are expected to receive high scores and the competition to enter prestigious schools will be fiercer.
leehs@koreatimes.co.kr