Although there is growing interest in learning about the successful policies and practices of high-performing education systems, there is a lack of comparable attention paid to how the players in the systems, such as teachers, feel about and experience these systems. This study examines the teaching experience of four Korean novice teachers in their education system; one known for emphasising exam performance. While executing teacher-directed instruction for exam preparation, the teachers simultaneously made notable efforts to integrate other teaching methods because of their reservations about exam-oriented teaching and their consideration of student engagement and learning. This article argues that these were capable teachers who were willing to teach beyond the exam, but the system confined their exercising of instructional capacities and aspirations within the boundary of exam preparation, causing them to execute largely mundane instruction. Based on the findings, the article suggests implications for policy borrowing from high-performing education systems.