Japanese Students Suffer from Pressure Last April,15-year-old Rei Iwasaki stopped her piano and flute lessons and began to study every day of the week. Her parents paid to send her to a "cram school ."She wanted very much to pass her exams. In February she did pass an all-day, five-subject examination and entered the high school she hoped to enter. Thirteen-year-old Akio Yoshiwara wasn't so lucky. Unable to take the pressure of the exams, he hanged himself in February. He left a suicide  note which said, "I did my best in this dear life, but it's no good." Suicides are now a common part of life among students in Japan. The cause is the incredible pressure of the "examination hell." Even a number of teachers are committing suicide each year. When some students broke windows in a school near Tokyo, the principal blamed himself and wrote the following note: "The incidents were due to the lack of appropriate measures by the principal and I apologize. I am very tired. The Japanese educational system is much different from the American system. It is perhaps the most regimented  school system in any of the industrialized nations. Boys and girls wear uniforms and go to school six days a week --- 240 days a year compared to 180 in the U.S. Ninety- five percent graduate from high school compared to seventy-five percent in the U.S. Students don't ask questions in class but only listen respectfully to the teachers. And every few year's students are tested to see which school they will enter next. There is stiff competition for the "best" schools. The result is a well-informed, disciplined student, ideal for factory and company work and excellent at learning specialized skills. But there is little  fun  in  education,  little  creativity  and  the  incredible pressure  of "examination hell." Why did the principal kill himself? Because  _
He thought it was his fault that some students broke the windows. He was very tired. He couldn't stand the pressure of the "examination hell". He blamed himself and wrote a note.