補習（升學補習）是台灣學生升學道路上很難避免的經歷，爲什麼不論升學考試的錄取率是30％或90%、甚至更高，都不能消弭甚至無法緩和補習風氣？除了明星學校的影響外，有不少人士認爲這是因爲「補習已成國人的文化，要消失很難」。這篇文章的目的，就是要運用一個非常簡單的經濟模型來詮釋，補習可能怎樣演變成流行文化，並且爲何一旦演變成流行文化後要消失就會變得很困難。值得強調的，本文並不主張補習風氣興盛的緣故可以完全歸因於文化因素，而是強調當補習風氣具有文化特質時，會呈現一些重要特色而使得敎育改革變得異常艱難。

The opportunity to attend university for senior high school students has been dramatically raised from 30% to nearly 100% in Taiwan. This reform of education, however, has had almost no adverse effect on the popularity of cramming for examinations. Some argue that the reason is that cramming for examinations has become part of our culture. We set up a social norm model to explain why cramming for examinations can evolve into popular culture and why when the cram culture has become prevalent, it is very difficultto eliminate it.