SEOUL, Jan. 15 -- In South Korea, the race for top exam scores has become a high-stakes gamble, with bribery and theft turning classroom assessments into multimillion-won commodities.

Two recent cases show just how high the stakes have become.

The Korea Herald reported that one involved elite private instructors paying vast sums for test questions, while another saw a mother jailed for repeatedly stealing school exam papers.

Last month, prosecutors indicted some of the country's top private academy instructors for illegally obtaining college entrance exam prep questions from current teachers.

The indictment revealed that mathematics instructor Hyun Woo-jin sent nearly 180 million won (RM495,000) to a public school teacher over several...