https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/11/07/act-moves-testing-south-korea-single-site
Wow. That can be a very long commute to take the test. On the other hand, it’s likely better to do the long commute, than to take the test, only to have it’s results cancelled due to cheating. Last summer, when they cancelled the ACT in South Korea and Hong Kong, it impacted 5,500+ test takers.
A step in the right direction.
It helps a little bit. But I cannot see how a central testing location in SK is going to prevent kids from having the test before they enter the test center, as the article suggests.
The level of educational competition is so high in Asia today that the standardized tests, SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, etc., is still underestimate the will and resources behind this kind of cheating. This is not something new at all.
When I was a student 30 years ago, the prep education companies in Asia (1) were able to give out pre-test session that provided their "forecasts"just a few hours before the test, (2) sent professional takers into the test to come up the entire test, (3) distributed the entire test and answer keys to their customers like in 3 hours after the test was done. Some of them also provided some other “special” services; who known how much deeper those services could be. I bet today the problems can only be even worse because the level of competition in Asia is even higher than we faced a generation ago.
I think the problems (leaks) take place during the distribution of the tests to the 32 sites. If there is only one site (at one time) administered by ACT officials, the problem can be reduced. But, of course, the problem will never truly be eliminated. Cheaters are crafty.
Agree with @STEM2017 . Cheaters will find a way to cheat. Morality and ethics are not their concern. If the US proctors accompany the tests when they are sent overseas and do not let them out of their sight prior to administration (and do not succumb to bribes or what have you) that may help a bit. But US cheaters memorize tests and/or get illegal copies of theirs and/or sneak photos or use sites to share information, and if the test is the same as has been used in the US, even with the time difference for “same date” administration, cheating can occur in either direction.
It’s pretty darn rich that the ACT is blaming unscrupulous cheaters when the [ACT’s very own policies](Widespread cheating detailed in a program owned by test giant ACT) and [url=<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/us-college-act-partners-idUSKCN11D2J8%5Dpartnerships%5B/url”>http://www.reuters.com/article/us-college-act-partners-idUSKCN11D2J8]partnerships[/url] openly and obviously contributed to the cheating.
Still, I think this is a necessary step and really, really hope it works.
IMO, a more meaningful way to mitigate the cheating problem is to use a different, but equally difficult, test for international Asian students at test centers in South Korea, China, India, etc. Their time zones are not too far away from one another. It is quite feasible for this version of test to be done starting and ending at the exactly time so that test leaking due to test timing lead-lag is less likely.
This will introduce additional cost of designing tests for standardized test agencies, but should not be too high on a unit cost basis, because of the sheer size of international Asian students taking these tests.
The additional cost can be mostly passed on to those international Asian students as well if so desired. For SK, this is a country that postpones the opening of their stock markets and closes down nearby airports for their college entrance exam. The fee of taking an exam, by comparison, is like almost nothing. Overall, differential pricing can be actually much cheaper than having all of the students travel far to a central location.
To understand the will and resources behind the alleged cheating into a US college, I provide the following quotes:
“Korean children spend 220 days a year in school versus 190 in Finland and 180 in the United States. By some measures, the average Korean child spends 13 hours a day studying after supplemental class time is factored in.”
“Just 10,000 of 550,000 high-school graduates win places in the country’s top three universities (SKY) each year. This dearth of top universities is a major contributing factor to the annual departure of tens of thousands of Korean students to overseas universities, mainly in the United States.”
“The United States is far and away the most popular destination for Korean students studying overseas. Of the more than 126,000 students who were studying abroad in 2012, over 72,000 were enrolled at U.S. universities (IIE Open Doors: 2012) — third overall behind China and India, despite having a population that is less than 1/20th of those nations.”
“In addition to English fluency, a major competitive edge in the Korean job market, parents are often looking to spare their children from the notoriously competitive and exam-focused Korean school system by sending their children abroad.”
“In South Korea, grim stories of teen suicide come at a regular clip.”
A common criticism of the test companies is that they reuse entire old tests for international testings. So if they just stop reusing tests, then methods of cheating that depend on finding the content of old tests will be more difficult.
@ucbalumnus: You are correct on this, and I am aware of it as well. I think it is only ethical and professional for the test agencies to use new problems/questions. Recycling old problems/questions gives incentives to students to collect old tests, particularly those who have the financial resources.