Korean Test Prep: Best In the World?

Mr. Cho, 31, studies business administration at a collage in Canada. This summer, he could not concentrate on studying after returning from Korea, as his Asian peers from Japan and China continued to visit him.

His friends came to him after hearing that he had learned GMAT and TOEFL in private language institutes in Korea during the vacation to apply for a Master of Business Administration course in U.S. business schools.

Cho said, “Among students here, Korean institutes are considered best to prepare for various tests from TOEFL, GMAT and SAT to AICPA. So they borrow notebooks or tapes of those institutes and translate them in order to study.”

Recently, more and more students studying overseas come back to Korea on their vacations to prepare for tests such as TOEFL. They say the way private institutes in Korea teach -- pick out only the parts that are highly likely to be in the test -- is much better than that in the U.S.

As the method private cram schools in Korea is known to the U.S. test administrators, however, they change their test patterns or come up with new tests. Because they realized Korean students achieved high scores due to private institutions, and their scores do not match their real ability.

Of course, cities in the U.S. like Los Angeles or New York have many private academies for college entrance exams or certificate tests. But students who have learned in institutes both in Korea and the U.S. say Korean academies are much better than the ones in the U.S.

Mr. Jeong, 30, who studies business administration at Indiana University, says, “While the U.S. institutes do not pick out points that will be in the test, Korean instructors even know about the exact patterns of the tests.”

Students who study abroad and are currently learning in private academies in Korea all agree. They say, “Studying here for just one month is way better than a year in U.S. institutions. Korea’s academies are the best in the world for achieving high scores in the short term.”

President Cha Seong-hong at the Korea Accounting and Information School said, “In August around 100 Korean students studying overseas or Korean expatriates attended my academy for AICPA. There are also students who attend online lectures in the U.S. and Chinese students in the class.”

Colleges in the U.S. do not have confidence in scores of Korean students -

American universities mostly know about institutes in Korea, and are doubtful about Korean students’ scores.

Recently many of them have adopted a new test to choose a teaching assistant. They implemented the new system after some Korean students selected as assistants could not even speak English properly despite their excellent TOEFL scores.

Vice President Kim Sun-soo of IKE Academy viewed that since cram schools in Korea teach students only how to get a good score in test, their abilities do not reach the expected level. Some colleges in the U.S. even said they could not trust the test results of the administrations like ETS because of Korean students.

So much so that students say the new speaking and writing tests were added to TOEFL and TOEIC because Korean and Chinese students pick out the parts that are highly likely to be in the tests and cram them.

Professor Lee Byung-min of Department of English Education at Seoul National University pointed out that the abnormality of private cram schools has been developed due to Korean schools’ system which selects students only on tests and Koreans’ mindset that test scores are the barometer of everything. He also said that the anomaly will not be removed as long as Koreans change their mindset on education and their educational system.

creating@donga.com