Students try cheating by cell phones despite ban

Cell phones once again proved a problem at the national Scholastic Ability Test taken yesterday. According to the Education Ministry, 12 students were caught with cell phones.
At 8:40 a.m., test takers were given a final chance to surrender their cell phones. Supervisors armed with metal detectors watched the halls, checking that students going to restrooms did not have cell phones with them. “Many female students were offended when they were scanned with the detector,” said Won Young-hwan, a teacher who supervised the test.
Despite these restrictions, the cell phone of one 18-year-old teenage boy in Busan rang directly after the first test period began; he was removed from the test. At Gyeonggi High School in Seoul, another teenage boy had completed the first period of his test and was going to the bathroom when a supervisor discovered he had a cell phone in his possession; he was also sent home.
Students were eliminated mostly because their phones rang during the tests; two phones were discovered by a metal detector.
One of the test takers was caught sending a text message after the final period of the test was over; another’s phone rang after test answer sheets were collected but that person was eliminated anyway.
“People may feel sorry for certain test takers, but we had revised laws that prohibited test takers from bringing cell phones to the test venues in the first place,” an Education Ministry official said.
Under a recently revised law, all those caught with cell phones are banned from re-sitting the exam next year.

by Wohn Dong-hee