You can bait all you want. Not biting. Seen your type before. No thanks.
I see you’ve found one of the other threads to spar in. Let me help you- here’s another : http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1734046-what-a-joke-fair-test-and-the-wapo-taking-credit-for-exposing-sat-cheating-in-asia-p3.html
@jym626–the “type” who contribute long, thoughtful, informed posts and politely keep their cool even when met with one-line amalgams of sarcasm and cliche?
@napat98 - While you’re correct that it’s a real shame that the vast majority of innocent test-takers have suffered as a result of score delays and cancellations, I find it curious that you place the blame for this NOT on the cheaters or the CB (whose practice of recycling tests leaves the door open for exactly the kind of cheating Schaeffer and Strauss write about–even leaving aside the debatable particulars of their reporting!) but on Schaeffer and Strauss themselves.
Why are you shooting the messenger when even you admit that cheating is taking place? Surely it’s the cheaters–and the CB policies that making cheating possible–who should be blamed for the inconveniences suffered by the vast majority of innocent test-takers.
post 63- best laugh of the day! Thanks!
All one has to do is read thru Jan 15 SAT international thread to know the exam was leaked.
You sure this ain’t the other Korea? I’ve visited south Korea and they were all nice in Seoul.
Not much of a market for SAT prep in the DPRK, @Te4mVygrin
I am Korean and I know about 10 students who chose to cheat (Not only Koreans). It is indeed sneaky, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to jeopardize getting my test scores in time.
Collegeboard should stop recycling tests. It’s giving companies the opportunity to cheat&make money off of desperate students, and giving a serious disadvantage to innocent students.
I know a Korean friend who cheated who got the tests through a teacher who boasted a great track record of previous Chinese and Japanese students. They all went from 1800,1900s to 2200s or 2300s, and even a 2400. My friend trusted him to teach well, but he was really shitty with teaching and didn’t show up properly. 3 days before her test, the teacher contacted her saying that he was sorry, and that he would give back the money, and that he had the test questions. He sold them really cheap too, ($2000 for the whole batch) so she bought, took the test and got 2300+.
I know another case where 6 chinese students teamed up, contacted a teacher and got the test questions for $4000. THen they split the cost among 6, and it was only $650 for each which they thought was pretty economic.
In these cases, the questions are exchanged via encrypted email. Sellers are not part of a company, which makes it super hard to catch. Collegeboard needs to get rid of the root problem - stop trying to be lazy and cheap. Just make new questions. Jeez.
Uh, how about students have some morals and not cheat? College board doesn’t need to stop being lazy, cheaters do.
Yes, it would be great if students would have morals and not cheat. But there are ALWAYS going to be cheaters. The least collegeboard can do is abandon an outdated and obviously inappropriate system and start making some changes so that innocent students around the world don’t receive disadvantages.
@marvin100
“I find it curious that you place the blame for this NOT on the cheaters or the CB (whose practice of recycling tests leaves the door open for exactly the kind of cheating Schaeffer and Strauss write about–even leaving aside the debatable particulars of their reporting!) but on Schaeffer and Strauss themselves.”
Unfortunately, I don’t have the energy for long posts tonight, but I think you are drawing an unjustified inference: faulting party A does not necessarily entail absolving party B or party C, does it?
I’ll try to post a little bit more in the other thread on this topic, but I hope I’ve been clear enough already about my problem with the Strauss/Schaeffer coverage–it has always been totally devoid of content, and it has always seemed designed only to generate negative publicity in furtherance of the two collaborators’ anti-testing agendas. The January 21 article, however, was particularly egregious, for all the reasons already mentioned–its appearance before the test had even taken place, its feeble passive-voice headline (“New Cheating Concerns Raised…”), and, of course, its subsequent refutation by actual events.
Since you, @marvin100, keep mentioning “recycled tests,” let you ask you this: was the November 2013 international test a recycled test? My understanding is that it was not. Yet if you review the Strauss-Schaeffer coverage, you will find two–yes, two–articles about alleged November cheating, both containing Schaeffer’s boilerplate calling for an end to the practice of reusing tests, oblivious or indifferent to the fact said practice was surely irrelevant to the alleged cheating under discussion.
Oops–meant “November 2014 international” in the post above, not “November 2013.”
Just like AlfredoKim said, I don’t think that it’s fair to cancel all the scores just because of a “few rotten apples.” I’m currently attending a DOD school in Seoul, Korea, which is basically considered an American school, but we have to take the international SATs. Wouldn’t be fair for honest test takers to have their scores cancelled. I’ve had my scores delayed back in October, but I don’t want my scores to be cancelled (I took the Jan test). Would be quite a waste of study time too… But then again, the amount of cheating that goes on here is ridiculous. I wouldn’t be surprised if another cheating scandal happened.
Here’s another solution that Collegeboard (and the ACT guys) - put out a press release that states:
“Due to ongoing criminal activity in certain parts of the world, Collegeboard will no longer administer tests outside of the United States of America”.
At a certain point, the cost of dealing with the problems abroad will begin to surpass the income generated by the test. Then Collegeboard could just say it’s a money-losing proposition that we can no longer support.
@marvin100
In Hong Kong and Singapore it was June 2014. Passing on a rumor–and directly identifying it as a rumor is not the same as “lying”.
For someone who claims to have worked in the Seoul district for quite some time, are you also unable to distinguish between the June 2014 domestic exam, which ConcernedK so shamelessly asserted that many Korean academies were mass distributing and FairTest also claimed would be repeated on the January exam, and the June 2014 international exam, which did indeed come out in Hong Kong and Singapore, but which is also a completely different exam from the domestic one?
Hence, although it has been proven unequivocally that ConcernedK’s claims were completely bogus, you seem to validate her bogus claims by conveniently forgetting to mention in your post above that there are two different versions of “June 2014.”
Care to explain why?
Yes, I just posted something similar in another thread. All these demands that ETS stop using recycled tests? Not going to happen–that would be more than 20 new tests each year. Keep cheating, keep complaining, and eventually you’re going to find it much harder to test at all. That’s what anti-testing advocates such as Strauss and Schaeffer want, but it’s not going to do much good for students in Asia.
@foodwishes My point is exactly that. It is true that there have been many cases of cheating in Korea in the past several years, but to spread vicious rumors that are completely unsubstantiated, as was the case with this thread and the article, and to bring further, completely unwarranted, shame to Koreans is WRONG. We didn’t cheat this time, or at least not based on these dubious claims by Schaeffer and ConcernedK, and so I just want people to get the record straight!
June 2014 domestic was NOT recycled on the January 24th exam, NOT in Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore or anywhere else internationally, but ConcernedK (she now admits her egregious claims), Fair Test and now marvin100 seem to keep asserting otherwise.
I mean, what gives?
I’m just going to say, but there’s been no traces of cheating in the Korean district as of yesterday. To single out a single country in the midst of so many other countries, which are known to cheat far more frequently than South Korea, is, with all due respect, a little inconsiderate. To accuse the entire country, in spite of all the actual honest students that genuinely studied for the SATs, is too unfair. And as for the news regarding cheating in South Korea - has there actually been any? So far it’s only Vietnam and Indonesia that I know have been accused to the POSSIBILITY of cheating. No South Korea - if there had been, I would’ve known for sure. Trust me, I keep up to date with things over here in the peninsula.
@foodwishes
Good point, but even if it is proven later that Korean students cheated on Saturday’s exam, which indeed they may have, it is still grossly discriminatory to make accusations of cheating before it even occurred based on completely dubious claims; this amounts to nothing more than blatant racial targeting and arouses even more anti-Korean sentiments. I really hate to play the race card here, but am I wrong for doing so? If another terrorist attack occurred in America, do we automatically single out all Muslims, or if there a robbery in the vicinity, it was most likely the black guy everyone saw walking by just several minutes before, right?
@AlfredoKim - The June 2014 domestic/int’l discrepancy is easily explainable as a minor mistake. Or perhaps you believe it’s just a coincidence that the rumor had the correct month and year (if not the geographic administration) of a test that was offered in Asia? If you do, well, then I’ll accept that–it’s not an unreasonable position–but neither is it unreasonable to suggest that the rumor, like many rumors, contained a core of truth while missing a precise detail.
I’m still curious about a more important part of your argument: You haven’t told us what the claimed “harm” is. How does passing on a rumor, even if unfounded, harm innocent test-takers? And why are you blaming the messenger, when it’s clear as day that it is the cheaters who are to blame and it’s also the CB’s policy of recycling exams internationally (something the CB wouldn’t do in the US–the PR repercussions of a cheating scandal based on access to an unreleased test would be too great) that makes possible certain extreme forms of cheating?
Why are you so vehement about attacking a rumor–one that even in the least charitable interpretation was merely misinformed–and defending the cheaters and the CB policy that keeps them in business?
@napat98 - Why are demands that ETS stop recycling tests simply “not going to happen”? ETS has more than enough revenue to do so; ETS doesn’t do so in the US; ETS is initiating a new, revised SAT soon. I think it’s incumbent on anyone who genuinely wants to stamp out cheating as much as possible to urge ETS to cease the recycling policy as soon as possible. And what’s your reasoning behind your claim that it would require “20 new tests a year”? 13 per year would be enough–one each for domestic (Jan, March, May, June, Oct, Nov, Dec) and international (Jan, May, June, Oct, Nov, Dec). It might not wipe out the trickiest time-zone gaming, but it would eliminate the truly unconscionable cheating, that of prep centers and tutors who gain access to unreleased tests (something that absolutely happens, I assure you).
(This last note is probably too optimistic, but what the heck: I’d also like to ask you, @AlfredoKim, to try to be more civil. I’ve been around here a long time and have helped many, many CCers with questions about the SAT and other matters, so your unwarranted implications that I am not who I say I am are inappropriate and just plain rude.)