I’ll probably just switch to solving 3-SAT (3-satisfiability) problems.
Nothing to worry about, everything is gonna be fine… They are “deeply focused” after all 
Is the ACT any better? They reuse tests domestically! It works a little differently with the ACT though, as they provide official practice tests to individual high schools who pay for the service. The tests are scores and reported to schools just like real ACTs, but the results are not official and can not be sent to colleges or anywhere else. These forms eventually show up as nationally administered exams. Harder to collect questions and answers for these, as you need to be a student in a participating high school, but they definitely reuse questions.
Except for “marketing” and “canoodling” state officials, there isn’t a thing that the Iowa Boys of Testing do better!
Who will be the first domestic 36 ACT’er to sue UIUC for not getting into the CS program? The program is heavily populated with Internationals, and Chinese students in particular (over 20% of incoming class). With admissions being somewhat heavily stats based, and the average ACT being 34+, I bet it is only a matter of time!
It’s not fair that HYPSM get all the good lawsuits!
It really is outrageous that ETS keeps using recycled tests. This has been going on for years. BEEP the cheaters, but beep ETS as well for leaving the biggest, most obvious door wide open.
I would add a beep for the players who are ultimately responsible for this policy, the colleges themselves.
While it wouldn’t be fair to lump them all together, because some of them obviously go through a lot of trouble to vet internationals beyond these tests, it’s obvious to me that as a group they just don’t care very much.
Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post has done a lot of weak reporting on the supposed SAT cheating scandals.
In a December 23 article (you can find it with Google), she claimed that scores had been withheld from the September SAT. There is no September SAT, of course, and that embarrassing mistake has now been removed from the article.
In a November 16 post (again, Google), she claimed cheating services were “heavily advertised” on “Chinese language websites” such as “QQ and WeChat.” As anyone in Asia knows, those are not websites.
In the article linked above, just look at the photo caption. Problem 1: the SAT has not been called the “Scholastic Aptitude Test” since 1990. Problem 2: November 13, 2014 was a Thursday; the SAT took place the previous Saturday. Problem 3: The students in the picture obviously are not taking the SAT; the girl in the front is looking through a color textbook and has her backpack right next to her desk (not allowed during the SAT).
And, most importantly, problem 4: yesterday’s SAT was NOT a repeat of the June 2014 U.S. test. Most countries got a repeat of October 2012 international, and Hong Kong and Singapore got a repeat of June 2014 International.
Yes, Strauss and her accomplice, Bob Schaeffer of “FairText”( a one-man anti-testing advocacy group operating out of a P.O. Box in Massachusetts) have really jumped the shark with this one.
The funniest thing is, the Examiner article linked above quotes Schaeffer as follows: “‘Earlier this week, FairTest received a link to what purports to be the test form that will be used this Saturday in China and South Korea,’” said Schaeffer. “‘It appears to be a recycled copy of a June, 2014 SAT given in the U.S.’”
Oh, really? Care to show us that link, now that we know that test was not used? Of course not–the link never existed, did it? In your anti-testing crusade, you gambled on this story, and you lost.
(Schaeffer has made similar claims before. If you dig up Strauss’s article from October 30 (available on Google), you’ll read him claiming to have received the October test in advance as well. No proof was provided that time either, but at least he had the good sense to wait until after the test, when it was known which test had been reused, to start making his unverifiable claims.)
The lesson here: don’t trust these people. They don’t know what they’re talking about, and–as agenda-driven, anti-testing advocates–they don’t mind simply making stuff up.
Wow, talk about slanted. Dunno about Schaeffer, but Strauss is the only journalist holding CB’s feet to the fire AT ALL about their ridiculous practice of recycling tests, a practice that leaves the door open to cheating. Or are you suggesting that this kind of cheating doesn’t actually happen? Because I’m in the Seoul SAT market and I can assure you it does (and has for years).
I’m suggesting that, despite having a blog hosted by the Washington Post, Strauss is no journalist at all. She can’t trouble herself with even the most basic of fact-checking, and she certainly hasn’t done any actual reporting. Every single one of her so-called articles follows this same basic pattern:
-There are rumors some people cheated on the last SAT or are going to cheat on the upcoming SAT.
-Bob Schaeffer of the “National Center for Fair and Open Testing” [a fancy name for a P.O. Box in MA; I could just as well call my microwave the “National Center for Pizza Reheating”] says dozens of people have forwarded him copies of the test used last week or the test to be used next week [although no screen caps of those tests will be published with the article as offers of proof]. Bob Schaeffer, an anti-testing advocate, further says that ETS can prevent all these problems by discontinuing the use of recycled tests.
-The College Board/ETS have issued this form statement about cheating and are not going to discontinue the use of recycled tests.
If Ms. Strauss thinks this issue is so important, perhaps she can stop serving as the hapless mouthpiece of agenda-driven fanatics and instead persuade the Post to put some real reporters–ideally those with some familiarity with the SAT and some Asian language skills–on the case. I don’t think that will happen, though; I think she’ll keep publishing these same non-articles over and over again, even though this one fell so flat.
@marvin100–The fact that these things may happen does not mean that Schaeffer isn’t obviously lying about the links or that Strauss has any idea what she’s talking about. I’d perhaps draw an analogy to the Rolling Stone UVA article–rapes happen, but that doesn’t mean Rolling Stone’s article wasn’t nonsense.
Attacking the authors and the Fairtest organization does nothing to address the problem. I think the microwave has more sense.
@jym626–Did you perhaps mean to post in a different thread? This one is about the news coverage itself, as you can no doubt see from the thread title. I have suggested, both here and elsewhere, that Schaeffer (FairTest) and Strauss deliberately exaggerate the problem in order to advance their anti-testing agendas. Schaeffer’s claims with regard to last Saturday’s test now seem like pretty clear evidence that I am correct. Any substantive comment?
What, exactly, do you believe is the exaggeration? Do you believe they’re lying about illegal unreleased tests being hosted online? People have posted such links right here on CC (the links have, of course, been deleted)! Since such links would be legally problematic, it’s not unreasonable to assume Strauss and/or Schaeffer have forwarded them to ETS rather than put themselves in potential legal trouble by posting them publicly.
napat,
You make so many false assumptions. The thread title is perfectly clear, especially since the first of the 2 articles it cites is one I linked in another thread that was posted 2 hrs before this one, back on Jan 22. I’ll save you some search time- here is that link http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/sat-act-tests-test-preparation/1734013-more-info-on-the-sat-cheating-scandal-cc-mentioned-uh-oh.html#latest IMO, the " the hapless mouthpiece of agenda-driven fanatics" as you so kindly referred to them, aren’t the ones with the agenda. Just sayin’.
Let’s just say one thing: the testing on Saturday was NOT June 2014 US. I’m sure. I took it. It was just one of the rumor students have before any kind of tests at any time.
Now, I do not support cheating, and I am fully awared of the situation. There were cheatings, a lot, the most common was time-zone cheating. There seemed to be also some serious scandals in China and Korea too. I’m pissed. (Let’s just say that I’m a hypocrite and I hate cheating just since I can’t, because I’m neither Korean/Chinese nor live in a late time-zone, for the sake of my argument). Cheating hurts virtuous hypocritical test-takers, like me.
But I also oppose making lies or making stupid assumptions and posting them on famous newspapers. We need to fight cheating. But not by lying. I know it doesn’t hurt you US applicants when journalists fabricate rubbish, but it still hurts me.
Liars fight liars.
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”.
Well guess what, “passing on a rumor” hurts people, as much as lying. Especially when you write an article about it.
If you don’t know the truth, better shut the fuck up than spreading it and say “it’s a fucking rumor”
And as @napat98 said, it was June 2014 International.
How did passing on the rumor hurt people? It’s the cheaters that are hurting people.
Strauss is not a great reporter and cannot be credited for unveiling the repeated cheating. She shows very poor judgment for relying on a crooked mercenary such as Schaeffer. But that is just the nature of reporting on the college process. Unqualified people who pick up stories they do not quite understand.
But let this NOT mask the simple fact that cheating on the SAT has been RAMPANT in various forms, and that ETS has mostly ignored the depth of the issues it has created by recycling unsecured tests.
Harping on details will not undo the dubious nature of many tests taken abroad.
Next!