How Hard Did You Have to Study?

I had a read of 'Testing' by Min Jin Lee (acclaimed author of 'Pachinko'), published in The New Yorker on July 19, 2026.

Protagonist Bo Koh is a dutiful first-born Korean son of Helen and John Koh. He pushes himself past his limits to reach the academic excellence that he seems to want. Bo is the eldest of three children, the younger ones being DH and Mido. The Koh family moved around the world loads. He grew up in the Australia and the US, but is taking the life-defining Suneung, the intense eight-hour Korean university entrance exam. From all accounts, his parents are reasonable and didn't see a need to push their eldest son to succeed to their definitions. 

The piece is an adapted from the author's upcoming novel 'American Hagwon' (to be released in September 2026). It follows the same protagonist and his family in this excerpt, exploring themes of immigrant identity, family duty, and the crushing pressure of academic achievement. 

As soon as Bo and his classmates finished the bongosa, they rushed back to their hagwon. Their tutors had been more or less flying blind, because there were almost no prior tests from which to teach. Each student, fresh from having taken the exam, was asked to recall the test questions, and three tutors recorded the questions and typed out their speculated answers. The bongosa question Bo would never forget was “Describe the difference between digital and analog.” For his answer, he had written that a digital clock stated a moment in time, whereas an analog clock revealed the process of time. Bo’s tutor said that this answer was terrific. Not that it mattered.

Bo’s Suneung score was what kept him out. A perfect score was 200. He received 153, a strong showing but not invulnerable, and, predictably, given his focus on studying for the college exams, his high-school G.P.A. had fallen to the lower end of the second stanine, so he was no longer in the top four per cent nationally.

I see the titles and shuddered. PTSD from my own school days when we had to study endlessly for exams that made no sense to me, but I exceled in taking them and getting great results anyway. What sort of education and information I retained, is questionable. The point was to get those A-grades, isn't it? 

Bo didn't make the Suneung on his first attempt. His girlfriend Ara Yang did. He wanted to take the exams again next November. But for his parents, it isn't so simple. They had to move back to Sydney because there wasn't work in Seoul. If Bo wants to take the Suneung again, that meant paying another year of hagwon fees, as well as maintaining homes in both Seoul and Sydney, stretching the family's finances. They couldn't keep asking family for help too. 

Bo stayed in Seoul at the gosiwon near his hagwon, funded by his Aunt Sonya, dutifully preparing for his exams. He wanted to make it to Yonsei University. ultimately failed the Suneung thrice. On the day of the release of the results of his third try at 22 years old, he went to work at a convenience store. His earnings enabled him to stay at the gosiwon while he mulls over his next steps. His Aunt and his parents would prefer him to go to America than to waste time on Seoul's education system.  

In an interview with the same journal, the author is asked why Bo is so persistent about taking this examination when he doesn't actually need it. Is it a cultural thing?

Bo spends three years preparing for and taking the Suneung (three times). His persistence doesn’t make a lot of sense to those around him, given that he has U.S. citizenship and could pursue his education in a much less restrictive environment there. Why do you think he insists on it?

Bo was born in New Jersey while his father, John, was working in the New York area. Owing to his father’s career, Bo and his two siblings went to school in New Jersey, Sydney, and Seoul. Bo, the eldest, identifies strongly with Korea, and although he is by birth a U.S. citizen, he wants to know what his life would have been like if he had been born in Seoul and stayed put there. Bo seeks a kind of stamp to prove his authenticity as a Korean, and he feels that going through with this exam, which even some native-born Koreans are loath to take, will provide that. Bo is a deeply principled young person, and I admire him enormously, but the high-achieving student can sometimes suffer from hubris, rigidity, and impracticality. That said, I respect his stubbornness and anxieties.