1, that kind of course is called skill examination, not written examination. Sometimes it's just for you to pay, and in some places it's a trial lecture at the invigilator.

2, that's right, but it's difficult to take the self-study exam, and it's not easy to stick to it. It's good that one out of 10,000 people will graduate from college, and maybe one or two hundred people will graduate from college. Generally, the college entrance examination is almost three years, but it is a lifetime slow. The same is true for undergraduate courses.