🚝썰국열차

This friend of mine played a soccer game the day before the CSAT. Don't play games. Hey, the exam is tomorrow, why are you playing games? People usually wear padded jackets. It’s freezing outside. He wore a short-sleeved shirt to the English exam , it was so awkward sitting next to him . That friend of mine was just incredible. It was like this. The 2014 CSAT. Honestly, I went to a school that had a lot of geniuses. Let me introduce you to one friend. He was a guy, let’s call him Baek. Baek. What was unique about him was that he was obsessed with his iPhone. Was it a 4? Or a 5? He carried this tiny thing around. He was on it every single day. I checked what he was doing; he wasn't playing games, he was following about 60 blogs on business and management, so he didn't need any other credentials. He had so much information from there that he could write his personal statement effortlessly without needing to quote anyone else. His intellectual curiosity was amazing. His focus was intense. This friend of mine played a soccer game the day before the CSAT. He didn't study much for the exam. He played soccer the day before, so we were all super worried. Don't play games. Hey, the exam is tomorrow, why are you playing games? We even went to his room to worry about him. But he was so calm. When we'd solve past papers later, you know, we'd all follow along. He’d just do it at the end, while others kept repeating the same old practice questions from the start. Usually, seniors only look at past papers right before the exam. Then the day of the exam arrived. He and I were in test rooms right next to each other. In the morning, while parents and teachers were cheering us on and I was shivering, this guy was wearing just a single short-sleeved shirt—people usually wear padded jackets. It was so cold, I was shocked. Was he from the Antarctic or something? Like a polar bear. He was just in a regular tee, looking so relaxed, I thought he was a proctor. That day was the 2014 CSAT Type B. It was back when they first started splitting into Type A and B. I started getting stuck from question four. I started shaking inside. After the Korean section, I was so nervous. There was a long reading passage about lasers, something like Picasso and lasers, and back then, "Infinite Challenge" was really popular. I liked the Infinite Challenge Music Festival; I loved GD and Hyung-don—that’s the group name. You can look it up by searching "2014 Infinite Challenge Music Festival." A week before the CSAT , I was listening to it in the computer lab. Hyung-don is rapping. GD is rapping. It was a song with a very addictive rhythm. As soon as I tried solving problem number four, it felt like an artist drawing, Hyung-don rapping. Focus, focus, focus. How does the artist draw, experts say Hyung-don is rapping. My mentality immediately hit rock bottom right then and there. I was ruined instantly. I couldn't even get through the Korean section. There was a passage later on called "The Wall of Rumors." I examined his records. He wrote this in a letter. Hyung-don, so I bombed the Korean test. Then came math. Math wasn't too bad. The only subject I got a Grade 1 in was math during my active-duty student days. Math was okay , so I finished it and it became lunchtime. At lunchtime, there were five of us from the same prep school among the 28 students, and the day before, the teachers said never talk about the exam. Don't talk about the exam. But kids usually talk about the test, don't they? The five of us were eating, but nobody talked about the exam. It was truly silent. I realized I was totally screwed. They were completely ruined too. Usually, when people have confidence, they ask things like, "Hey, what did you put for number so-and-so?""Oh, I got the others right, but number 30 is a bit confusing.""I need to check that one." Friends with that kind of frontal lobe configuration usually ask for answers. But the five of us were eating in total silence; you could only hear the sound of us eating. I thought it was an ASMR mukbang. Nobody asked a thing. Nobody asked about the number of lattice points in math earlier. I can't even remember it now. "Oh, so your mom made you beef radish soup." It was like a secret cooking recipe. Like Baek Jong-won's cooking tips. So no exam talk, just talk about beef soup, bean sprouts, and spinach; I thought I was taking a culinary aptitude test. Even though I knew I failed, I secretly wanted to check some answers, but it just wasn't happening. Everyone else was leaving. Out of 28, 22 were leaving, but five of us were alone in the center, and no one dared to approach us. Nobody could penetrate that beef soup aura. One person had red eyes, as if they were tearing up. They were hurting. I went to the bathroom. When I got there, all the armchair experts were going crazy. Armchair math geniuses everywhere. "Wow , this is huge.""Was it 19? Or something else?""Number 30 is 125.""Hey , it's 123." Oh man, I really didn't want to hear that. I seriously wanted to cut off my ears; like in that folklore, I just wanted to get rid of them. So what I did was pretend to wash my hands to block them out, human nature is just like that. Even if you try to overcome it ethically, you still hear those armchair experts. You know that feeling, right everyone? The Korean exam is over, it's already done. The game is basically over. I have to take it. I have the science exam left, but it feels like a festival. Oh, wow, it's finally over. Hey, this is a retake year. What’s the cutoff for Kangdae anyway? Even before applying, kids were saying, "You won't even make the Kangdae score." How am I supposed to tell my teacher? How am I going to tell the HAFS people? While I was spiraling into self-pity, I saw him sitting on the stairs. Eating a tiny little packed lunch. I was so curious. I mean, I had already failed, so it didn't really matter. I asked, "Hey, how was it?" trying to be casual and indirect. He just said, "Oh, it was a bit tough." I thought, "If even he found it hard, then it must be tough." I thought that to myself and went back in. Then came the English test—oh, wow, it was so hard. That's what I thought. Even if Kim Ki-hoon were sitting there, he’d find it hard. That’s how bad it was. "Okay, start the English exam now." Look at that problem. There's the blank. Just look at number 31. I even measured it with my hand, and it's longer than my hand. I covered it with my hand once. But it still sticks out. I skipped number 31. I moved on to number 32. Two problems gone. Okay. Back then, the first-grade cutoff was around low 90s, so okay. Wait, if I get 91, I'm good. I moved on from 33. I can't solve 33. Okay. Alright. Wait, is this the first time the English cutoff is going to be 91? One blank was 2 points and two were 3 points, so 92. Okay. That should be fine. Number 34. Okay. Maybe the longest choice is the answer. Suddenly, that thought—how ridiculous. My delusion started to kick in. "Oh, maybe the longest one is the answer?""Oh, yeah." First time ever, an 80-something score for 1st grade. I'm going to be a page in history. Wow. Was English about 25%back then? The correct answer rate was 25%, anyway it was hard. The English exam is over. Wow, I can't even describe the expressions. Because English was just so difficult. The bathroom is quiet this time, too. Do you guys know that? After Korean and Math, kids feel sort of liberated. That’s when they talk about Kangdae. But when you go to the bathroom after English...It’s strangely quiet. The kids finally realize the reality. Suddenly, you miss your mom. Even the sound of peeing sounds sad. Is this what they call an objective correlative ? I’m just projecting my feelings onto everything. But I run into that friend, Baek. So, I was looking away, and I almost went the wrong way. It’s tough. Ah, it’s tough. It’s tough. It’s tough. Crying out to the empty air. I’m just shouting rhetorical questions into the void. It’s tough. It’s tough. I kept saying it was tough, and he replied that it really was difficult. Oh, it must be really hard. Even for HAFS students, this wouldn't be easy. Wow, the 2014 CSAT really is difficult. After the social studies exam, the person at the front of the line is the friend I came with from HAFS. As you all know, back then, liberal arts students who didn't sign up for a second foreign language could leave. They go to the waiting room for a bit. To the waiting room. But we wanted to say hi to him, since I had to take the second foreign language exam, but I could only see his back from behind. Right? That’s when tears start to well up. Wow, I thought, "This is insane, we're in the same boat," and tears just came out. He shed them, wow, this is a true legend. After it was over, the conclusion finally comes out. After the exam, that friend named Baek, well...He becomes a perfect scorer on the 2014 CSAT. He becomes a perfect scorer. He had an all-pass for any major at Seoul National University for regular admissions, but he got in through early admissions. Even at SNU. I asked him later. I asked him if this was a humblebrag, but he said he just reads the problem and goes check, check , check to solve it. I mean, for guys like us who are average, we do it like this, but Since he's at the absolute top, here's how he does it. "Look from number one.""Look from number five.""It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter." That’s how he rolls. He said he never once got stuck on the math section. For Korean and English, if he had to hesitate for a second while checking, that must have been what "difficult" meant to him—I guess it was just a relative standard of difficulty.