I think we are maybe discussing slightly different things: you're talking about Koreans in Korea, whereas I had in mind Asians and more specifically Koreans in the western world where they and their children frequently excel relative to native people who work less hard. This is a discussion about the SAT and not the 수능 exam after all.

User intertextuality proposed that maybe the SAT should be adjusted so it "doesn't reward excruciating studying and working systems". My point is that firstly, many people find studying to a deadline to be excruciating so let's dispense with the dramatic adjectives, and secondly, what kind of replacement for the SAT scheme would not reward hard work and study? Would it even be an exam at all? In any conceivable testing regime people who study and work harder to succeed will, on average, do better. That seems fundamental. Without changing it so much it's not an exam anymore, Koreans will seem to have a cultural advantage over other less hard-working cultures and why should they not? In America they are not forced to work crazy hours, by law or the economy or culture or anything else.

It's entirely possible for the SAT to remain exactly as it is, in a way that rewards study, without implying a Korea-style deathmarch cultural ethic.