A group of students in South Korea is suing the government because their college admissions exam concluded 90 seconds early.
They are suing for 20 million won ($15,400) each, which is the cost of a year of study to repeat the exam, reports BBC.
According to their lawyer, the miscalculation impacted the rest of the students' examinations, it said.
Suneung, the country's notorious college admission test, is an eight-hour marathon of back-to-back papers in different subjects.
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The Suneung is one of the most difficult tests in the world, and the stakes are quite high, the report said.
It influences not just university placements and professions, but also future relationships. During the yearly event, a variety of efforts are taken to assist pupils’ concentrate, such as restricting the country's airspace and delaying the opening of the stock market.
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The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday by at least 39 students, says that the bell rung earlier at a test venue in the capital Seoul during Korean, the first topic of the exam.
Some students objected immediately, but their papers were still taken away, according to the supervisors. The teachers spotted the error before the following session began and granted the one and a half minutes back over the lunch break, but they could only mark blank columns left on their papers and could not edit any current answers, the report also said.
According to the Yonhap news agency, students were so furious that they were unable to focus on the rest of the exam. Some are said to have given up and returned home.
According to their lawyer, Kim Woo-suk, education officials have not apologized either, it said.
This is not the first time students have filed a lawsuit because a bell was rung too early. A Seoul court granted 7 million won ($5,250) in April to students who claimed they were disadvantaged in the 2021 Suneung test because their bell rang around two minutes early.