@2018eastorwest, if it’s “obvious,” at least one person in the universe should be able to explain it. So far, that hasn’t happened. (Nor has anyone explained why the risk became apparent only five days before the test date, when registration closed weeks ago.)
@ Plotinus, I think Hunt was saying exactly what he or she said. Most test prep companies would not sue the College Board because they don’t want scrutiny of their own business practices, which most assuredly would happen during discovery. Doesn’t matter whether their business practices are considered illegal or unethical. In discovery you can ask, and ask for documents to be produced, about anything that is relevant. Since test security is the cited reason for the College Board’s action, the College Board would be able to argue that test prep companies’ practice of sending employees in to take the test, among other practices, is relevant. If they don’t want anyone knowing how they do what they do, they will not sue.
I was not affected personally by the cancellation, but I find it revealing of the level of CB mismanagement.
Yes, and we all know ADULTS are the primary violators of this dictum.
This requirement is not very realistic in the age of internet, smart-phones, and social networks. It’s better to follow the LSAT model: publish and retire every test after it has been given. CB and ACT are not going to solve the problem by banning adult test-takers.
Do you have evidence that a high proportion of adult test-takers cheat?
Assuming that your premise is true, what kind of reasoning is this?
Many people of a certain kind are criminals.
Therefore, we will treat all people of that kind as criminals.
We will not try to identify those people who are criminals and punish only them. We will punish the whole group, guilty and innocent alike.
What you have just said is true of literally anything money can buy. Food gives those who can afford it an edge over those who cannot. Ban food.
@jgoggs - one of the articles (that you must not have read) that is linked in this tread speaks of the dangers of the potential that 1000s of adult non-student test takers could memorize the test and reproduce it and give it to clients who might take that same recycled test in a future administration (for example in May, out of the country).
There are many other references in this thread regarding examples of cheating that you have repeatedly ignored.
Just because you won’t acknowledge doesn’t mean that no one has explained it.
It has been explained over and over again.
You are choosing to ignore it.
As far as when the risk became apparent, I read on one of the linked articles in this thread that the CB stated that it noted after registrations had closed that there was a very high percentage (1000s) of adult non-student registrants. It looks like registrations generally close approx. 10 days prior to the test. (If you look on CB, you will see that the registration did not close “weeks ago”). I guess that once the CB looked at the total pool and realized what was going on (nine-ish days prior the test date), they sat down and tried to figure out what they should do. Within a few days, they sent out the email.
To me, that seems reasonable given the facts. It doesn’t seem, to me, that the CB was out to get you.
If you don’t like my opinion, then maybe you shouldn’t post on a public discussion forum.
[/quote]
https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/sat/register/dates-deadlines
Yes. There are examples of cheating. There are examples of cheating involving student test-takers. There are examples of cheating involving adults. What I’m asking for are examples of cheating involving adult test-takers. Got any?
Plenty. Including, for the last time, the reference test prep companies sending their employees to to take the test, (many from out of the country) to memorize answers. They are not sending high schoolers (some to the us from Asia) to memorize the test materials. They are sending adults. Who are not students. To cheat. Which seems to be a part of the reason why the CB has cancelled registrations of adult non students.
And as far as your link to the test resstration, it prove that the late registrations close ten days prior to the test. Read it, you will see what I mean. Registrations closed for the March 5 test on feb 23, which was Approx. 6 days prior to the email that you posted.
Good luck to you. But I am not sure how effective of a tutor you are given your inability to see the obvious and understand anything but what you want to see or hear, as evidenced by all of your posts.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe you have to provide your home address when you register. If the security risk is from people flying in from out of the country, why didn’t CB just cancel the registrations of people who do not have a permanent U.S. residence?
The fact that CB cancelled ALL adult registrations at the last minute looks to me just as much an attack on professional tutors as a defense of SAT test security. As @jgoggs has pointed out, there are all sorts of other gaping holes in test security that CB is just ignoring.
I thought Khan Academy had already leveled the field with the paid prep crowd. Hasn’t Khan Academy already shown that skills can’t be bought?
The truth in the CB PR is that a talented, motivated student who goes to a Common Core school can prepare for the SAT perfectly well without paid tutoring. With the new easier test, there really is no reason for you to blame the test prep industry if your kid is not getting the scores he or she wants. Maybe his or her school is not teaching Common Core well. Maybe the student is not that motivated. Maybe you let him or her spend too much time on Facebook. Parents play a role too. Don’t blame poor SAT scores on a lack of money for paid tutoring. Paid tutoring is just one way to fix the damage caused by other factors. There are other ways to fix and/or prevent it.
Okay, addressing the same points, yet again:
(1) The part to which you are referring is Bob Schaeffer’s hypothesis about how some cheating might take place. Hypotheses are not evidence, obviously. Moreover, nothing about his hypothesis, as it is described in the Washington Post article, mentions adults. So again, can you cite a single known case of cheating involving adult test-takers?
(2) You are now “moving the goalposts,” changing the discussion from “registration” to “late registration.” Do you have any evidence to support your narrative that all of these cheating international tutors took advantage of the late registration, or is it more hypothesizing? Because what I requested was evidence.
@jgoggs Evidence comes in many forms, including good 'ol circumstantial - which can even convict a murderer, not just a cheater.
Also - registration closes when it closes. It does not close until it is closed to all registrations, including late ones.
After the late registrations, registration officially closes - which means it is no longer open. So, as I already stated, the BC made the decision days, not weeks after registrations closed. Get it now?
PS I am glad that you started this tread - it really sheds light on SAT cheating by adult non student test takers.
Thank you for bringing it to our attention, and for letting the CB, who is probably monitoring this tread, know that they were right in their decision to cancel those thousands of registrations of adult non-students.
The CB realizes that the game is changing. Others will have to follow. As I said, good luck to you!
Banning adult test-takers is not a game-changer. It is just PR.
The real game-changer is dumbing down the test and filling a ridiculously easy math section with stupid English verbiage. Dumbing down the test changes the game in a way that helps students who are less talented and motivated, and who are good in reading but weak in math, and hurts students who are more talented and motivated, and who are good in math but not as good in reading.
If you like this game change, good for you. I don’t think the typical CC student is going to come out ahead, with or without adults in the testing room.
Just this morning on College Confidential, I read lots of questions that will be on Saturdays test. Students have already taken this test, yesterday, and are freely discussing it. Cheating by students…maybe they should ban students from taking it, since they won’t stop recycling tests which would end all of these issues.
@Sue22 Many or even all of the operations described do not depend upon adult test-takers. Some don’t involve test-takers at all, and others could be carried out by younger test-takers. What is CB doing to stop these operations? Isn’t the obvious solution to stop test recycling? Doesn’t the fact that CB went after adult takers show that the real motive is not to stop cheating?
And the pattern continues: no answers to my straightforward questions, and no evidence at all for any of your own assertions.
This thread seems to have experienced an influx of testing industry loyalists ( @2018eastorwest , @intparent , @thshadow , and perhaps others) who seem willing to excuse every instance of ineptitude by the College Board as they diligently hunt down suspected tutors to unmask and insult.
Why, exactly, do tutors need to be outed and shamed?
Well, according to various posts, it’s because tutoring “gives an edge to those who can afford it.” When we testing industry critics point out that that claim is true of literally everything money can buy–even food gives people who can afford it an edge over people who cannot, but we don’t ban food–we get snark in return. Clearly, constructive dialogue is not what these testing industry apologists want.
Indeed, those of us who go to the trouble of trying to engage them find that they are invulnerable to facts and logic. Point out that they are wrong about one point, and they will simply invent another to take its place. @2018eastorwest seems to have invented a whole convoluted narrative that goes something like this:
Thousands of adult international test preparation tutors waited until the late registration deadline to sign up for the March SAT so that, in a coordinated effort, they could take the test, memorize all of the answers, and recreate the test for their clients, because the test is going to be reused internationally in May.
None of this–beyond the fact that the large numbers of tutors registered for the March test–is supported by any evidence at all. The College Board’s own statements don’t mention international tutors at all, much less thousands of them. And the cancellations aren’t limited to tutors or to people from outside the U.S.
What we actually know here is that for the first time, College Board has peremptorily–and at the very last minute–cancelled the registrations of large numbers of test-takers who were, according to the College Board’s own policies, entirely eligible to take the test, and who had paid their fees and received confirmations and admissions tickets. We also know that this is just the latest in a long string of high-profile College Board blunders that have already been detailed elsewhere in this thread: cheating scandals in the U.S. and abroad, test cancellations, scoring delays, reporting delays, misprint mishaps, and so on.
The testing industry partisans on this thread will parrot their favorite talking point: “The College Board’s terms of service say that the College Board can do whatever it wants, so stop complaining about all of those things.” Well, no. Everyone with a stake in College Board and its products (and that category includes not just students, parents, and teachers but also any tax-payer in any of the states that are now paying to have every student take the SAT) has reason to be concerned and a right to expect better.
@Sue22, as I have already pointed out to another poster, that quote encapsulates Bob Schaeffer’s theories about how some cheating was taking place. The article you have linked is from a year ago, and since then it has become very clear that the Asian cheating scandals of 2014 and 2015 did not unfold as Schaeffer had hypothesized. We now know that those scandals involved actual leaked material–people in College Board or ETS’s own distribution chain (even if that just means test center staff) selling the materials for profit before the actual test date. If you find later cheating-related articles by Valerie Strauss, you will see that Schaeffer reports receiving full scans of tests in advance of test dates. Many College Confidential members can attest that scans of such unreleased materials can now be found fairly easily online.
Additionally, as @Plotinus has already pointed out, nothing in that description necessitates the involvement of adult test takers.
Finally, the March test is given in the U.S. only, so all the discussion about taking advantage of time differences is irrelevant. (And Asian time zones are ahead of those in the U.S. anyway.)
@jgoggs, I think if you had spent any time around the threads on this sub-forum, especially the PSAT NMSF cutoff threads, you would not consider the posters you are targeting fans of the College Board or the testing industry. Your tone with anyone who has asked you a question or disagreed with anything you say has been aggressive and repetitive almost to the point of bullying. I’m not a fan of the College Board. I think they have made many missteps over the last few years, and the abrupt cancellation of adult test takers’ registrations without a more thorough explanation is certainly another one. I have also had my own personal run-in with the College Board, having spent weeks fighting with them to no avail trying to get my son’s testing center changed and it was like hitting a brick wall. My son has had a good experience with an SAT tutor, so I’m not anti-tutors per se, although I applaud efforts to level the playing field for kids who can’t afford what my son was lucky enough to have. All that said, you do not reflect well on your industry.
Go ahead, fire away. Sigh.
As I previously stated, I do not like the SAT. It is not a factor in my house. I think that the ACT is a better test. Your “narrative” is funny, however, though inaccurate - as is most else of what you have posted @jgoggs
I’m no fan of the College Board. I think it’s a money-making racket. One of my kids never even took the SAT or ACT. That said, it seems the CB is trying to take steps to minimize cheating. The fact that they may be doing it imperfectly doesn’t change that. Jgoggs is right that the CB doesn’t indicate that it is against their TOS for adults to take the SAT. At the same time it’s obvious from their materials that they intend for the test to be taken for educational, not commercial purposes.
If I am asked by a school that has an IB and not a Common Core curriculum to run a year-long curriculum enrichment course to help the students do better on the SAT, and I want to take the SAT so that I can organize and teach the class in the best possible way, is my taking the SAT a business or an educational purpose?
This is not a made-up story. This has really happened.
Teachers get paid to teach. Is that commercial? Taking the SAT can help them teach better. Isn’t College Board in favor of teachers helping students to do better on the SAT? College Board has not supplied teachers with enough materials to prepare their students in school for the SAT. Some schools need help. This is an educational purpose. Just because it is not volunteer work does not mean that the intent is not educational, and far less commercial than anything College Board does.
The whole Common Core movement seems designed by people who hate teachers.