undreds of thousands of students will sit the day-long college entrance exam nationwide on Thursday.

The College Scholastic Ability Test for the 2013 school year will be taken at 11,191 places from 8:40 a.m. to 5:35 p.m. Applicants must arrive 30 minutes before the test starts, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology said.

The number of applicants dropped some 3 percent from a year earlier to 668,522.

The government plans to increase operation of the subway and buses in the morning rush hours. The opening time for most government offices and business firms will be delayed from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Also, the government plans to ban traffic within 200 meters of 1,191 test venues across the country and to deploy 3,526 police vehicles to help the students arrive in time and prevent interruptions.

Flight landings and takeoffs will be also banned during a listening test in the morning and also in the afternoon, the ministry said.

There will be little chance of rain, but it will be mostly cloudy throughout the day with temperatures reaching a high of 14 degrees Celsius, according to state weather forecasters.

By Oh Kyu-wook (596story@heraldcorp.com)