This post describes what I've been doing at home for the past year. I did do quite a lot. It's a pretty long post.

The Beginning

Sure, people joke that high school is a four-year program these days, but who actually wants to do senior year all over again? With the same scores, I would definitely have been admitted in the first round to that department last year, but this year I watched my chances on the mock application service drop day by day until it finally said I had no chance at all. I can't even describe that despair. That's how it was for me.

Of all the KICE exams I took that year, the CSAT was the one I did best on, and yet these were my actual CSAT scores.

I was aiming for the top universities in Seoul, but for various reasons I did poorly on my exams in senior year compared to my lofty goals (more on that later). And school GPA, where almost everything came down to memorization, just didn't suit me at all, so I consistently stayed in the low grade 3 range at a regular high school. Of course, that low grade 3 average was made up of things like a grade 5 in a major subject like Calculus I, mixed with grade 1s in minor subjects I was confident in, like Japanese and Computer Science.

Anyway, I had zero confidence that I could handle a full gap year of retaking, so I decided on a 반수 (studying for a retake while enrolled) and applied to a national university that allowed taking a leave of absence in the second semester. With these scores, it obviously wasn't a top Seoul school, or even a school in Seoul at all. And I got in on the first round. But…

After getting this text, all sorts of worries started creeping in, starting with "what if I get comfortable with the drinking-and-partying college life and just settle down there?" and going all the way to whether I could actually pull off studying for a retake while enrolled. And the decisive factor: I was really jealous of my friends going to prestigious universities.

So I got my enrollment fee refunded and impulsively crossed the river of no return that is the gap-year retake (not to be confused with retaking a course).

Winter

There are many prestigious universities along Seoul Subway Line 2. Among them, the one you can graduate from the fastest is Gangdae.

Of course, my scores probably weren't even good enough to get into Gangnam Daesung Academy. But students retaking the exam usually enroll in some kind of cram school, whether a full-course retake program or a self-study retake program, and attend it for a year like high school. That's the standard route, so I figured I had to go somewhere.

So in February, I went around various retake academies in Mokdong listening to their pitches. But since my family wasn't exactly well off, we decided I'd self-study at home first and enroll in an academy later.

As I started self-studying at home for who knows how long, I naturally started studying with online lectures and past CSAT problem books. And at this point, I had no idea I'd end up studying at home until November, apart from some single-subject cram classes.

Spring

Late February these days is definitely not spring weather, but let's just call this section spring so the seasons line up with the plot

Before starting my retake year, I analyzed in some detail why I'd failed on the 2017 CSAT. The idea was to get a sense of how I should study this year to actually raise my scores.

Korean had always been around grade 4 for me, so I figured that as long as I did what I did in November, I could hold on to grade 2, and the same went for chemistry. English had switched to absolute grading, so 90 and 100 got the same grade, and even scores in the 80s barely got 'dinged' by universities, so there wasn't much pressure there.

The problems were math and biology. The 2016 math mock exams had been easy overall, but I'd made a lot of mistakes on the easy problems, so from September to November that year I practiced solving every problem twice while working through private mock exam packs. That was the root of the problem. The 2017 CSAT math was anything but easy, and solving it that way without even looking at the later problems, I found myself with only 40 minutes left by the time I got to problem 18. Biology went wrong because I hadn't mastered the more obscure concepts. So for math, I first needed to train the skill of solving easy problems quickly and accurately in one go, and for biology, I felt I needed to restudy all of the concepts from scratch.

After analyzing what went wrong and actually starting my retake year, I found I had a huge amount of time to use. I tend to give in easily to the temptation of my laptop and smartphone, and I couldn't be bothered to get rid of them, so I decided to plan out a study schedule for each day.

From the day I was born until I was nineteen, I had never once made a 'daily schedule.' Starting self-study at home was the first time I ever tried making one.

Every morning, I'd plan out the day in 30-minute blocks starting from the time I woke up, and then actually follow it. If I didn't get something done, I marked it with an X and did the missed studying the next day. I also arranged the subjects in the same order as they appear on the actual CSAT.

After making these plans for a while, I realized that studying with a plan, even if I only planned a little because I was tired or wanted to slack off, was far more effective than not planning at all.

From February to June, I mostly solved a lot of past KICE problems and focused on reviewing concepts. I had so much time that I didn't need to rush, so I went through everything slowly and thoroughly. It felt like there was way more I didn't know than I expected. Especially in biology. In the concept lectures, there were stuff marked with stars and circles that was so unfamiliar I wondered whether it had even been in the textbook, and I picked those concepts up again during this time.

For the March and April joint academic assessments, retake students can't take them alongside high school seniors (hereafter 'current students'), so I took them the day after they were held. Maybe because I'd studied for an extra year, I got grade 1 in everything except Korean History on both.

For reference, in June and September you can take the exams at an academy or a school, but you have to apply about a month in advance. You also have to pay a fee. Honestly, apart from early admissions, this is the only disadvantage retake students have compared to current students.

Summer

If you don't slack off during this period, you can pretty much get into the university you're aiming for.

And then I scored a big win on the June mock exam. Except for math. I dozed off during math. So on top of 21, 29, and 30, I ended up also getting 18, 20, 22 (!), 26, and 27 wrong, a truly spectacular situation.

But I started thinking, 'I got grade 4 because I dozed off, and if I hadn't, I would've gotten at least grade 2,' and in July I got grade 1 in every subject again. This was when I should have realized that the grade cutoffs for the academic assessments (March, April, July, October) mean nothing, but instead this is exactly when I started getting seriously lazy. Part of it was that my room was hot and had no air conditioner, so I started studying in the living room, where the TV was, but the decisive factor was that I started getting overconfident in my skills.

They say all retake students lose motivation around this point, and that period I thought would never come for me came anyway. The planner I'd filled out every day got emptier and emptier, and some days I just spent the whole day glued to my phone and laptop. All while thinking things like, if I took the CSAT right now, I'd totally ace it.

Still, there was no denying that the September mock exam was coming, so I slowly started working on private mock exam packs. Once it was the end of August, that is.

So how will this exam taker do in September? Make your prediction before scrolling down.

(Censored)

Fall

Overall, I scored worse than on the 2017 CSAT.

Why? Was the concept review I'd worked so hard on until June not enough? Or was I just not good enough?

Neither. I'd made absolutely absurd mistakes evenly across every subject. Most of the 16 problems I got wrong were truly ridiculous mistakes. To give just one example of how ridiculous, on problem 3 of Chemistry I,

Bond a, which was clearly a solid line…

Believe it or not, I read it as a dotted line and got it wrong.

I seriously wondered how I'd gotten all the hard problems right (except math 21) and yet gotten wrong problems that other people couldn't get wrong even if they tried, and in the end I concluded it was because I'd slacked off from June to August and lost my feel for solving problems.

So what do you do then? You have to get used to solving problems again. From this point on, I started studying mainly with mock exam packs, to get used to solving problems again and to train the ability to solve the hard problems, the so-called 'killer questions,' within the time limit. I'd probably run into killer questions while doing past exams, but I felt that 'being able to solve it' and 'being able to solve it within the time limit' are different things. In the end, the CSAT is a battle against the clock.

I also started taking classes at single-subject cram schools. Single-subject cram schools in Daechi-dong, Mokdong, or Bundang are not only cheaper than retake academies, but if you pick well, you get to solve pretty high-quality private problems every week. You don't see many retake students at single-subject cram schools, so you might feel a bit out of place, but hey, it's only for three months.

Oh, and please don't ask about early admissions. I used all six applications on essay-based admissions. I got rejected from all six. Thank you.

As a side note, anxiety can be either an obstacle or fuel depending on how you use it. More precisely, it's the best fuel when it's balanced with confidence. After the September mock exam, I was extremely anxious about whether I'd even do better on the CSAT than last year, but if I'd only been anxious, I'm not sure I could have stayed calm on the CSAT. What I knew for sure was that when I studied diligently from February to June, my June mock exam scores were so good it was hard to believe I'd averaged grade 3 on the 2017 CSAT (except for math). If you do it, it works. September didn't work because I didn't do it.

And so I ran full speed all the way to the CSAT.

The CSAT Postponement

The day the postponement was announced, I was in despair and furious that I had to do this for a whole 7 more days. But you can't blame anyone for a natural disaster, so while it made me angry, I just think of it as one of the prices I paid for not choosing Earth Science.

The science electives are great subjects for raising your score in a short time. During those 7 days, I focused on studying for them.

CSAT Day

I took the 2018 CSAT at the same test site as the 2017 CSAT. I got up early that day, left at 5:30 a.m., arrived early at 6, dozed off in the car for a bit, and entered the classroom at 7:30. For breakfast I had a single banana, which is easy on the stomach but high in calories, and I brought an enormous amount of chocolate and ate some after every period.

Managing your condition and mental state on CSAT day is really important. Right off the bat, the passage on the first page of period 1 Korean just wouldn't sink in. In period 1 especially, the sound of other test takers flipping the page after finishing page 1 is really distracting, so I just did page 2 first and then page 1. That way, I didn't have to worry about the page-flipping sounds.

For lunch, I ate what I usually eat, just a bit less so I wouldn't get sleepy. The chocolate takes care of the calories anyway. Chocolate is delicious. It's not like eating a lot for one day is going to make you balloon by several kg, and if my brain graciously wants to keep spinning, of course I have to feed it. What else can I do?

It was hard overall, but except for the first page of Korean, I don't think I was that nervous. If you keep practicing under real exam conditions right up until the CSAT, it feels like you're taking a mock exam even though it's the real thing. It totally feels like a mock exam; the test paper just doesn't have the words 'mock exam' on it.

After each subject, I'd get anxious wondering whether I'd solved things correctly, but the OMR sheet was already turned in, so I just forgot about it and took the next subject at ease. Of course, during the breaks, I worried like crazy.

After every exam, including the science electives, was over, the way home felt lighter than last year.

Winter Again

After getting home, I nervously graded my answers that evening. The scores were so good I couldn't believe they were mine. Thankfully, this time it was in the good direction.

It didn't quite feel real. On the math OMR card, I'd erased and corrected answers with correction tape several times, and I was anxious right up until the day before scores were released, worrying that the tape might have peeled off or the ink might have smudged.

But it was a pointless worry.

Excluding Korean History, I went up a total of eight grades compared to the 2017 CSAT.

I do have the lingering regret that I could maybe have gotten grade 1 in everything if I hadn't slacked off in the summer, but I was still really happy. I kept repeating to myself, 'I'm glad I did the retake.'

I'd never really achieved anything properly through hard work before, so in the sense that I learned that if you have the will and just do what you set out to do, it happens, 2017 was definitely the most meaningful year of my life so far.

Right now, I've submitted my regular admissions applications and I'm waiting for the results. I think it'll go well.

That's how I lived last year.