Fears for national entrance exam next week, as top scorer on tax exam admits sending photos of questions to AI tool
The marks attained by the top scorer on South Korea’s national exam for aspiring tax accountants this year seemed too good to be true. On Sunday, sceptics were proven right when he confessed to using generative AI to cheat.
The scandal follows months of speculation after he scored near-perfect marks on hundreds of questions over two exams taken in April and July. It has also raised the stakes for organisers of South Korea’s annual college entrance exam this Thursday.
“I cheated using electronic devices and generative AI. My passing the exam with the top score was not the result of fair effort,” the candidate said, identifying himself by the surname Han, as he apologised on the YouTube channel Attorney Lee Don-ho.
Han, who ranked first in both rounds of the qualification exam held in April and July, confessed through his lawyer that he used AI to obtain answers during the tests. He said he had cheated by taking photos of the exam questions with a microcamera, sending them to an AI tool and checking the answers on a smartphone.
His score of 397.5 out of 400 points in the first round, with only one wrong answer out of 160…
