Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters

A therapist hypnotizes students retaking the college entrance exams, during a meditation session at Deung Yong Moon Boarding School in Kwangju, South Korea on October 30, 2012.

Reuters reports — Conversations between men and women are forbidden at the school on the outskirts of Seoul, where security cameras watch the students' every move. There is no access to television, the Internet, mobile phones or MP3 players.

Welcome to the monastic life of a boarding school for students dedicated to spending nine months preparing to retake South Korea's college entrance exams, in the hopes of a place at the best college and a job for life at a top corporation.

Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters

A student retaking the college entrance exams attends class at Deung Yong Moon Boarding School on October 30, 2012.

South Korea's exam hell is an annual event so full of pressure that many students are driven to despair, with some even taking their own lives. More than 50 percent of those between the ages of 15 and 19 who are suicidal have given "academic performance and college entrance" as a reason, says the national Statistics Korea. Read the full story.

Previously on PhotoBlog: Chinese students face "the most pressure packed test in the world"

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