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L'examen le plus CRUEL du monde — Transcript

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0:00This morning, you're taking us through
0:02the world's most difficult exam. It's
0:04the equivalent of the "bac," but in
0:05South Korea. And above all, you're
0:07telling us how the fate of young
0:09Koreans is decided in a single day. It
0:15happened right around here. When we
0:18arrived, the young girl had climbed
0:20over the railing and was crying. On
0:25November 13, 2025, the Seoul Stock
0:27Exchange opened an hour late.
0:30Government offices and major companies
0:31didn't open their doors until after 10
0:33a.m. The military suspended artillery
0:37fire and halted tank movements. And at
0:401:05 p.m., for 35 minutes, not a single
0:43plane took off or landed in the entire
0:45country. That day, South Korea, Asia's
0:494th largest economy, came to a
0:52standstill not for a war, not for a
1:01natural disaster, but so that 493,896
1:05students could listen to 25 minutes of
1:07English without being disturbed. Let me
1:10tell you the story of the country that
1:12stops for an exam. The Suneung isn't
1:15just an exam, it's a societal choice:
1:17accepting that an entire life is
1:18decided in a few hours in a country
1:20that goes silent so as not to disrupt
1:22the sorting of its children.
1:24This exam is called the Suneung. To
1:26help you understand, it's basically the
1:28equivalent of our baccalauréat in
1:30France. 9 hours of testing on a
1:32Thursday in November, once a year.
1:34Except there is a fundamental
1:35difference from the bac, and it
1:37explains this whole story. You don't
1:39just pass the Suneung; it ranks you.
1:42It's not just a diploma, it's a
1:43national rank. And in Korea, this rank
1:46decides almost everything. University,
1:49career, social status. What I'm going
1:51to show you today is how this system,
1:53the same one that transformed one of
1:55the world's poorest countries into a
1:57technological superpower, is slowly
1:59devouring the country that invented it.
2:08It’s 6 a.m. and the Seoul subway is
2:10already running on an increased
2:11schedule. It's written in black and
2:13white in the Ministry of Education's
2:15plan. Between 6:00 and 8:10 a.m.,
2:18trains must run back-to-back to
2:19transport half a million candidates.
2:22Around each exam center, cars are
2:23prohibited within a 200-meter radius.
2:26Even buses slow down as they approach.
2:27Horns are banned, construction sites
2:29stop, and shopping malls turn down the
2:31volume. And if a candidate is late,
2:33they just need to signal a police
2:35patrol.
2:36Go to Samsung High School, we'll take
2:38him quickly. French.
2:39A high school candidate being
2:41transported by police on a Harley
2:42Davidson. please,
2:44you're going to succeed.
2:46Thank you, sir.
2:47The police escort him to his exam room
2:49with the siren on. It is arguably the
2:51only day of the year when a high school
2:53student can commandeer a police car. At
2:588:10 AM, the doors close, and at 8:40
3:07AM, the first exam begins. And
3:10meanwhile, something happens that I
3:12find fascinating: the stock market
3:15waits its turn. That morning, the main
3:17Korean market opened at 10 AM instead
3:19of 9 AM, and the competing platform
3:22simply canceled its pre-opening session
3:24. In other words, the students will
3:26take their exams first, and the traders
3:29and the stock market will follow after.
3:31Meanwhile, inside the rooms, the test
3:33marathon has already begun. The first
3:35exam is Korean, the national language,
3:37followed by mathematics, and in between
3:42, there is no question of leaving. The
3:49candidates eat right there at their
3:50exam desks with the lunchbox they
3:52prepared that very morning. Then comes
3:541:05 PM, and it is perhaps the most
3:56impressive moment of the day. The
3:58English exam is approaching, with its
4:0025-minute audio listening section.
4:09And here, the Ministry of Transport
4:11enforces an official order: a total
4:13suspension of takeoffs and landings
4:15across the entire country from 1:05 PM
4:18to 1:40 PM. 35 minutes of national
4:21aerial silence, which is 10 minutes
4:23longer than the exam itself, just as a
4:25precaution. And to give you an idea of
4:27the seriousness with which Koreans take
4:29all this, listen to what happened in
4:32December 2023. In an exam center in
4:34Seoul, a proctor called the end of the
4:36test 90 seconds too early. 90 seconds,
4:39and well, 39 students sued the state,
4:41each demanding 20 million won—about
4:44€ 13,000—which they claim is the
4:46cost of a year of preparation to start
4:48over. And the most absurd part of this
4:51story is that the proctors had given
4:53them back the 90 seconds during the
4:55lunch break. Except that for them, it
4:57was too late; the rhythm was broken,
4:59and it wasn't worth the 90 seconds
5:01during the exam. So, let's take two
5:03seconds to breathe, because we really
5:04need to process what we've just seen.
5:05An exam is not supposed to do that. An
5:08exam is not supposed to stop planes,
5:09make a stock market wait, and even
5:11trigger lawsuits down to the exact
5:12second. And actually, researchers have
5:14a name for this phenomenon. It’s
5:15what’s called the "washback effect,"
5:17described by Alderson and Wall in 1993.
5:19The idea, basically, is that an
5:21important exam is never content just to
5:23measure what students have learned.
5:25Little by little, everything starts to
5:27revolve around it, around the exam.
5:29Teachers no longer teach to foster
5:31understanding. They teach for the exam.
5:33Students no longer learn to know; they
5:35learn for the exam. Families organize
5:38their entire year around the exam. The
5:41exam was supposed to be a thermometer,
5:43but it ended up becoming a motor. In
5:45Korea, that motor has become so
5:47powerful that it doesn't just
5:49reorganize classrooms; it even
5:51rearranges air traffic. And the real
5:53question, of course, is how an entire
5:55country ended up this way. To
5:56understand it, we have to go back quite
5:58a long way, much further than you'd
6:00imagine. The year is 958. King
6:08Gwangjong of Goryeo, the Korea of that
6:10time, established what is known as the
6:12Gwaggeo. Basically, it’s a national
6:14civil service exam to become an
6:16official of the kingdom. What changed
6:18was that to become an official, you no
6:20longer had to be born into the right
6:21family; you just had to pass a test. So
6:24, on paper, it was a revolutionary idea
6:26for the time because power was no
6:28longer inherited; it was earned. The
6:30selection process was already brutal,
6:32as some sessions saw about 6,700
6:34candidates for only thirty spots, and
6:37this exam lasted for 936 years, until
6:391894. To give you an idea of the scale,
6:42when Napoleon created the ancestor of
6:44our baccalaureate in 1808, Koreans had
6:46already been taking national exams for
6:48850 years. In other words, exam-based
6:51meritocracy in Korea isn't just a
6:52public policy; it is truly a
6:54civilization. Keep this image in mind,
6:56because this civilization was about to
6:58encounter poverty, and the collision
6:59between the two would trigger
7:01everything. 1945, Korea emerges from 35
7:03years of Japanese occupation. At that
7:06time, only 22%of Koreans could read and
7:08write. Less than one in two children
7:10went to school, and after that, the
7:12Korean War leveled what was left
7:13standing. In 1961, when General Park
7:15Chung-hee took power, the per capita
7:18income was $ 83 per year. 83 dollars.
7:21The country was then poorer than most
7:23sub-Saharan African nations. The
7:26problem was that Korea had nothing to
7:28fall back on. No oil, no minerals, no
7:31capital. It possessed only one resource
7:34: brains. So, it applied a simple idea
7:38that economists would later call the
7:40human capital theory. When you have
7:43nothing else, you invest in minds; you
7:45build schools before building wealth.
7:47And it worked at a staggering speed,
7:49because by 1960, even before the
7:51economic takeoff, literacy had risen
7:54from 22 to 72%and primary school
7:56enrollment from 45 to 86%. This country
7:59became literate amidst the ruins. Then,
8:01the state made a choice that almost no
8:03one talks about, yet it is perhaps the
8:05key to this whole video and this entire
8:07story. To understand clearly, at the
8:09time, academic competition was already
8:11fierce, with entrance exams at every
8:12stage to get into middle school and
8:14then high school. So, the state decided
8:16to calm things down by abolishing them.
8:18Middle school entrance exams
8:20disappeared in the late 60s, followed
8:21by high school rankings in 1974. The
8:24intention was commendable, but think
8:25for a second about the consequence. If
8:28there is no longer any selection for
8:30middle or high school, then the entire
8:32competition of a lifetime ends up
8:34concentrated on a single checkpoint, a
8:36single day, a single judge. And so, by
8:38wanting to extinguish competition
8:40everywhere, the state compressed it
8:41into one place, and pressure compressed
8:43like that, sooner or later, ends up
8:45exploding. On paper, at least, the
8:47result is brilliant. You might be
8:49familiar with the PISA rankings. It's
8:51the major international study that
8:52compares the level of 15-year-old
8:54students around the world. Well, in
8:562022 for example, Korea crushed the
8:58averages. 527 points in mathematics
9:01against an average of 472 for developed
9:03countries. And 71%of Koreans aged 25 to
9:0634 are college graduates. It is quite
9:09simply the world record for the OECD.
9:11Just imagine a country that started at
9:14$ 83 per capita and became a
9:15technological giant in one generation,
9:18driven by its schools, by its education
9:20. So, told like this, it is one of the
9:22most beautiful stories of the 20th
9:23century at a national level. The thing
9:25is, all of this comes at a cost. In
9:34fact, when an entire society converges
9:36toward a single judge, something very
9:38logical happens. A gigantic market
9:40grows around that judge. This market is
9:43the hagwons. Basically, these are
9:45private tutoring institutes; imagine a
9:47company like Acadomia, for example, but
9:48on the scale of an entire country and
9:50open every evening. In 2024, Korean
9:52families spent 29.2 trillion won there,
9:55or about 19 billion euros in one year
9:59for evening classes. Concretely, 80%of
10:02students participate for an average of
10:057.6 hours per week for about 474,000
10:07won per month per child, or a little
10:10over € 300. And I want to emphasize
10:12an important point here, which is that
10:13all this is on top of regular school
10:14hours.
10:15In the hagwons, you are generally
10:16always ahead of the official curriculum
10:19. Yes.
10:19So basically, the Korean student lives
10:21a double day, with classes during the
10:23day and in the evening. To put it in
10:25perspective for France, according to
10:27the Ministry of Education, at 13 or 14
10:29years old, less than a third of
10:30students exceed 5 to 6 hours of
10:32homework per week in total. Here, we're
10:34talking about a second schooling that
10:36begins when the first one ends. And
10:38like any giant market, this one has its
10:40stars. Does 45 minutes work out like
10:45this? It's about knowing how many times
10:47to multiply. In 2014, the Washington
10:50Post profiled a certain Shagil Young,
10:53an online math teacher. This teacher
10:55has 300,000 students enrolled in his
10:57course, and it’s $ 39 for 20 hours.
10:59And that year, his declared income was
11:01$ 8 million. Just imagine, it's a math
11:04teacher who is actually paid like a
11:06global star. 3,000 Look closely.
11:26That’s how it should be. And one of
11:30his phrases sums up the whole system a
11:31little bit. He says that in this
11:33profession, it's not enough to teach;
11:35you also have to be a complete
11:36entertainer, someone who keeps people
11:38engaged. So obviously, the state has
11:40more or less tried to curb this whole
11:42phenomenon. In 2009, it imposed a
11:44curfew in Seoul: the hagwons must close
11:46at 10 PM. And that's where the story
11:50shifts into something that seems like
11:52it’s out of a thriller, with
11:53inspectors starting to patrol the study
11:56districts at night, looking for beams
11:58of light behind curtains. They even
12:11raid fake establishments that are
12:13actually hagwons disguised as libraries
12:15because they were the only ones allowed
12:18to stay open after 10 PM. So it's quite
12:21a surreal situation to be in an
12:22establishment after 10 PM studying and
12:24telling yourself you're doing something
12:26illegal, and the system even invents
12:28bounty hunters. They are nicknamed "
12:31hagwaparazzi." 000 to whistleblowers
12:34who help catch hagwon violators and
12:37hagwons teach people They are actually
12:50individuals equipped with hidden
12:52cameras who are paid with a percentage
12:54of the fines imposed on the institutes
12:55caught in the act. And I'll let you
12:57take in the image. A country that pays
13:00hagwaparazzi to track down clandestine
13:02math classes. And after 15 years of
13:04this tracking, the result is clear: the
13:07market has never been bigger. And
13:12finally, beyond the illegal aspect, one
13:15has to wonder why these families pay
13:17€ 300 a month so their children can
13:19work so much in the evening? What
13:22exactly are they buying for € 300 a
13:24month, more than € 3,000 a year?
13:26because, in the end, it's not about the
13:27content, it's not about the courses.
13:28Schools already provide those courses
13:30for free. In reality, what they're
13:32buying is a way of working, structured
13:34hours, quick problem-solving techniques
13:37, and exam methodology. And this is
13:39where this story surely concerns you
13:41directly if you are a student, because
13:43the research is crystal clear on this
13:45point. What earns you points isn't just
13:48the volume of hours, but what you put
13:49into those hours. What are we doing
13:52during this study time? By the way, if
13:54you want to see what a well-structured
13:55hour of study can really produce, I've
13:57broken down the full method in another
13:59video. I'll put the link right here for
14:00you. But let's get back to Seoul,
14:02because one question remains unanswered
14:03. Why? Why do entire families sacrifice
14:07their evenings and the equivalent of a
14:09salary for an exam? And to fully
14:12understand what's at stake, I have to
14:14tell you about three letters: S, K, Y.
14:23SKY are the initials of the country's
14:25three elite universities. They are
14:27Seoul National, Korea University, and
14:29Yonsei. Together, they form SKY, which
14:32literally means the sky. And to reach
14:34the sky, you have to rank at the very
14:36top of the Suneung, that famous exam.
14:38If I fail my Suneung and don't get into
14:41the university I chose, I will feel
14:43guilty toward my high school. I studied
14:47only for this goal. I gave everything
14:51just for that, to get into the best
14:53school. I would blame myself a lot if I
14:56failed.
14:58What these three universities promise
15:00......are not degrees, it's the country
15:02itself. In 2010, 46.3%of high-ranking
15:05civil servants and half of financial
15:07executives graduated from these three
15:09campuses, as well as over 60%of those
15:11who passed the bar. And even in 2024,
15:14about 30%of the bosses of the 1,000
15:17largest Korean companies are SKY alumni
15:19. So, there are three campuses. There
15:21are only a handful of spots, and they
15:23concentrate most of Korea's power and
15:25economy. An American sociologist,
15:28Samuel Lucas, gave this mechanism a
15:30name in 2001: effectively maintained
15:32inequality. Basically, the idea is that
15:35when education becomes widespread, the
15:37hierarchy doesn't disappear, but it
15:38shifts. Imagine everyone moves up one
15:41floor; the building remains the same,
15:43and so do the gaps. When everyone has a
15:45degree, what matters is no longer
15:47having one, but which one it is. And in
15:49Korea, a single exam decides that. And
15:51deep down, that's perhaps the real
15:52lesson of this story. What Korea has
15:55understood, and pushes to an extreme,
15:57is that you never excel alone. Take
15:59away the support system, the structure,
16:01the collective standard of work, and
16:03you are left with just ordinary
16:05students. The environment sets the
16:07level, and Korean students are
16:09excellent and incredibly
16:10high-performing precisely because they
16:13are in this environment of excellence.
16:16Of course, you have to know how to take
16:17the good sides of something without
16:19necessarily taking its excesses, and
16:21combine an environment of excellence
16:22with a balance of well-being and
16:24personal growth. It is exactly on this
16:26principle that I built the "student
16:28reset." It's not extra classes—you
16:30already have enough of those—but it
16:32is truly an environment where working
16:34seriously as a student is the norm,
16:35with a clear structure and weekly
16:37follow-up. Of course, it's without the
16:3910:00 p.m. curfew and without the €
16:41300 per month cost. If you ever want to
16:42see how it works and how it functions
16:44from the inside, I’ve put a little
16:45link in the description. But once again
16:47, let's go back to Seoul, because in
16:49Seoul, the state finally declared war
16:51on its own creation. In June 2023, the
17:00Minister of Education, Lee Ju-ho,
17:02announced a spectacular reform: the
17:05removal of "killer questions." To be
17:08clear, these are questions that are
17:10intentionally impossible and outside
17:12the school curriculum, whose only goal
17:15was to separate the very best, which
17:17alone justified the use of private
17:19tutoring. And the minister's stated
17:22goal was to break the vicious cycle
17:24between the exam and the hagwons, those
17:26famous evening tutoring organizations.
17:29The police also got involved, with a 20
17:31-month investigation into the sector's
17:32abuses—false advertising, leaked exam
17:34topics—leading to 126 people being
17:36implicated. And perhaps the most
17:38troubling and disturbing part is the
17:39age at which the race now begins. A
17:42government survey revealed in 2025
17:44shows that 47.6%of children under 6 are
17:46already taking private lessons in Korea
17:48.
17:49Little Jiu comes here three evenings a
17:52week.
17:53Is it difficult?
17:54Very, yes.
17:56Do you like math?
17:59No. And hold on, for those under 2,
18:01it's one in four children. So there are
18:04preschools specializing in English that
18:06charge 1.5 million won per month, or
18:08nearly € 1,000, for children who
18:10don't even know how to read in their
18:12own language yet. So, how can things go
18:15this far, and why do families
18:16ultimately continue? On that note,
18:18there are two sociologists, Breen and
18:20Goldthorpe, who provided the answer in
18:221997. It’s called relative risk
18:24aversion. Basically, families don't
18:27play to win, they play not to lose.
18:29They don't pay 300 or 1,000 euros a
18:32month hoping to move up. They pay out
18:34of fear of moving down. And the fear of
18:36sliding down the ladder is infinitely
18:38more powerful than the hope of gain.
18:40That's why no reform of exam subjects
18:42can ever be enough. As long as one
18:44single judge decides everything, every
18:46family will keep raising the stakes.
18:48And in fact, the trap isn't in the exam
18:50; it's in what the exam decides.
18:52Ultimately, we have to look at what
18:55this system does to the students
18:57themselves. And I'm warning you, this
18:59part is a little less fun, but we can't
19:01tell this story without it. Take the
19:08PISA study from earlier, the one where
19:10Korean students crush the math rankings
19:12. Well, there is the same study that
19:15also measures students 'life
19:16satisfaction. And this time, as you
19:18might suspect, they aren't in the
19:20global top three, because these same
19:22adolescents rank 66th out of 73. Their
19:25average score is 6.36 out of 10, and 22
19:27%of them rate their life between 0 and
19:304. In other words, the world's
19:32highest-performing school system
19:34produces some of the most unhappy
19:36teenagers in the world. A psychologist
19:38named Herbert Marsh described part of
19:40the explanation back in 1987. It's
19:43called the "Big Fish, Little Pond"
19:45effect, literally a big fish in a small
19:48pond. And the idea is quite simple: at
19:50an equal level, a student surrounded by
19:52stronger peers feels weaker. While a
19:54good student in an average class feels
19:56strong. The same student plunged into
19:58an ocean of very good students will
20:00feel useless. And Korea has built a
20:02national aquarium filled with excellent
20:04students.
20:05In France, after school, you know, kids
20:07your age have time to play. Doesn't
20:09that make you miss it?
20:12Yeah, a bit, but hey, I have to keep my
20:14grades up for middle school, and anyway
20:16, I'll have plenty of time to have fun
20:18when I'm an adult.
20:20So, a country where almost everyone
20:22feels mediocre. Being good is never
20:24enough because everyone is good.
20:27And he is among the top 7%of the most
20:28brilliant high schoolers in the country
20:30. To maintain his ranking, he always
20:33arrives at the high school first. The
20:35building is deserted. He's going to
20:38take a little practice exam by himself.
20:40I gave it my all; I'd blame myself so
20:42much if I failed. And the figures that
20:46follow are quite harsh, but they are
20:48also part of the record. And we must
20:50talk about the fact that in the 2022
20:52official statistics, it accounts for
20:5542.3%of deaths among Korean teenagers.
20:57It is the leading cause of death for
20:59those aged 10 to 30. And to be rigorous
21:01, researchers refuse to reduce this
21:04tragedy to the exam alone. That would
21:06be a far-fetched oversimplification.
21:08But no serious study on the mental
21:10health of young Koreans can ignore it.
21:12Neither can we.
21:13It happened right around here. When we
21:16arrived, the young girl had climbed
21:18over the railing and was crying,
21:20holding the parapet with one hand. I
21:23was able to wrap my arms around her
21:24waist while my lieutenant held her
21:26shoulders to prevent her from jumping.
21:28And then there is a fact that is also
21:30quite dizzying, perhaps the most
21:31dizzying in my eyes, which is that the
21:33Korean fertility rate fell to 0.72
21:35children per woman in 2023. It is the
21:38lowest in the world, in all of history.
21:40So, here again, there are surely many
21:41other factors that explain this.
21:42Housing, job insecurity, many things
21:44really weigh in the balance. But in
21:47official surveys, the cost of education
21:49consistently comes up among the
21:51documented reasons for choosing not to
21:53have a child. So, when you know that to
21:56properly educate your child according
21:58to the country's standards, you will
22:00have to spend a certain amount every
22:02year, potentially until they are 18,
22:04you can very quickly be led to think
22:06that it is beyond your means and,
22:08therefore, you put off having a child.
22:10Take a second to measure what that
22:12means. The system designed to prepare
22:14children's futures has become one of
22:16the reasons why the country is no
22:18longer having children. And what is
22:20striking is how deeply this kind of
22:22thing can be rooted in a people's
22:24culture and how much it can even become
22:26an obsession.
22:27Unjung got his results 3 weeks later.
22:30He passed his exams, but his ranking
22:32doesn't allow him to get into the top
22:34three universities he wanted. He
22:37refused to tell us his scores.
22:39And yet, despite this very strong
22:41rooting of this exam in the hearts and
22:43minds of Koreans, in December 2025,
22:45something happened that would have been
22:48unthinkable 10 years ago. The Seoul
22:51Office of Education officially proposed
22:53phasing out the Suneung by 2040. So for
22:57now, it's just a proposal, not a law,
23:00but just measure the symbolism. The
23:02country that stops for its exam is now
23:05asking out loud if it should stop. And
23:08that's where this story gets a little
23:10uncomfortable, because you can't say
23:12that this system failed. Ultimately, it
23:15kept its promise and then some, taking
23:17a country with $ 83 per capita where
23:19less than one in four could read and
23:21turning it into a global power in a
23:22single generation. No oil, no minerals,
23:25just brains and a competitive exam. So
23:30no, the problem isn't that the machine
23:32failed, the problem is that it worked
23:35too well, and a machine that works too
23:37well is one no one really dares to turn
23:40off. Deep down, the Suneung never
23:42really measured what students are worth
23:44. What it sells to an entire country is
23:47a promise: that in the end, everyone
23:49will have the place they deserve in
23:51society. And that is why the planes
23:53stop. That is what the country protects
23:56down to the very second—it’s not
23:57its candidates. It’s really that
24:00promise, that very value, because a
24:02single exam offers something we all
24:04seek: a simple, quantified, cold,
24:07objective, and definitive answer to one
24:09of the most agonizing questions for
24:11many people. Am I worth something?
24:14Except that no exam can answer that
24:15question. It can only silence it for
24:18one year at a time. And that's why the
24:20160,794 come back, and that question
24:24doesn't stop at Korea's borders. We
24:27also have our rankings, we have our
24:29competitive exams, we have our
24:30algorithm that decides in one night the
24:32future of hundreds of thousands of high
24:34school students. And the difference
24:36between them and us isn't the nature of
24:38the machine, it's just how it’s tuned
24:40. Next November, at 1:05 PM sharp,
24:42Korean planes will be grounded once
24:44again. Half a million pens will hit the
24:47paper, and for 25 minutes, an entire
24:49country will hold its breath. The only
24:52question no one dares to ask anymore,
24:53ultimately, is how much longer they can
24:55hold it. Thank you for listening to
24:58this story. If you like this type of
24:59format, this is the first one I've done
25:01on this channel. Let me know in the
25:02comments. There’s a good chance
25:04I’ll do more. And if you want to hear
25:06another student story to inspire you,
25:07I've put one right here. See you later.

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