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Again, Cambridge (that mind you, administers exams for the entire British Commonwealth) does it without complaint, and so does Singapore. Only in America do testmakers expect to get away with recycling test questions AND charging super-high test fees at the same time.
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And again, using your argument/rationale, new tests would have to be generated ON A DAILY BASIS. Cambridge and Singapore don't appear to be doing that, now do they?
Regardless, the bottom line is that if you're looking to attend a top business school (or even an AACSB accredited one at that), you'll have to take the GMAT. If not, you're more than welcome to join fellow conspiracy theorist Vyse at University of Phoenix or something :)</p>
<p>Perhaps the test calendar ought to be modified to have some sense in it. After all, far more people every year take the GCE/GCSE A-levels / O-levels than people entering business school. Real testmakers don't use the same question twice.</p>
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Perhaps the test calendar ought to be modified to have some sense in it. After all, far more people every year take the GCE/GCSE A-levels / O-levels than people entering business school.
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Great idea -- bring it up to GMAC and ETS. I'm sure once they have enough people with interests similar to yours, they'll change up the format. Until then, testing companies have absolutely no obligation to cater to the 1% of test-takers that decide the may want to discuss one or two questions out of the entire test. Talk about inefficiencies...</p>
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Real testmakers don't use the same question twice.
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Until then, testing companies have absolutely no obligation
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</p>
<p>The obligation is theirs to prevent cheating. Once outside of the testing room, in the comfort of my own home, I have the right to discuss ideas, and in no circumstances is it my fault if they are relying in using the same question twice, just as it is not my fault if I myself get tested on the same question twice.</p>
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Until then, testing companies have absolutely no obligation to cater to the 1% of test-takers that decide the may want to discuss one or two questions out of the entire test.
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<p>Um I'm sure the thing is closer to 30% or even 50%. How many times have you asked your friend, "So what did you think about the last question?" out of PURE INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY? ;)</p>
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Can you sign a contract that also makes you renounce your right to the fourteenth amendment, fifth amendment, or hell, sign a contract that legitimises your slavery? I don't think so. Freedom of thought is unconditional.
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<p>[Congress shall have the power...] "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"</p>
<p>That clause in the Constitution has been held to authorize the legislation of intellectual property rights. GMAC and ETS have created test questions which are original works of intellectual property. They have the right to defend that IP in court, and to authorize its release under any conditions they see fit.</p>
<p>In this case, they are letting you look at and answer their questions, in exchange for an agreement not to redistribute them in any form. Are they going to prosecute you for talking about a few questions with your friends later on? No. If you make a business of it, however, as with the test company, they will go after you for it because that's their whole business model. Let those out of the bag for anyone to see in advance and the whole testing paradigm is FUBAR.</p>
<p>If you don't like the conditions under which they offer their test, you don't have to take the test. You don't have to get an MBA. You can go start your own business and make your fortune, or anything else. You can go live in a hut in the woods and get back to nature, for all we care.</p>
<p>But spare me the whining about your constitutional rights. For chrissakes.</p>
<p>They own the rights to the EXPRESSION of the question, but they do not own the IDEA behind the question. </p>
<p>An agreement which forbids you to discuss an idea cannot be a sound agreement. You can however, be forbidden by contract to reproduce the expression because the company owns the expression. BUT not the idea. </p>
<p>I'm not supporting Scoretop; I'm saying people have a right to discuss the ideas in the questions (even very specific ideas specific to each problem) even online. If a standardised test asks me a question about a square inscribed by a circle of radius 4 cm, with some triangles of various angles in it, I have every right to discuss the idea behind a square inscribed by a circle of radius 4 cm with triangles of the angles I remembered in it. Depending on the originality of the image I may not have the right to reproduce the expression, however.</p>
<p>Of course they own the idea behind the question. Just like how (say) Dean Kamen owns the idea behind the Segway. And in return for sharing that idea with humanity, Kamen gets the exclusive right to sell that for a limited time. Likewise, in return for sharing the idea of "Layla" with humanity, Eric Clapton got the exclusive right to play and sell that song, under copyright, for a long long time. And with GMAC's idea - the particular formulation of a logic question or reading comprehension question or mathematical question - they are willing to sell you the right to answer the question, be graded on your answers to their questions, and have those grades reported to schools. They may not own the category of logic questions - you're welcome to author your own - but they definitely own their own questions.</p>
<p>You clearly don't understand the concepts behind copyright and intellectual property. I suggest you stop making a fool of yourself.</p>
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An agreement which forbids you to discuss an idea cannot be a sound agreement.
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<p>What the hell kind of pablum is that? I signed a non-disclosure agreement with my friend's tech startup company. That's damn sure an enforceable deal. It's hard to enforce, of course, because things are hard to prove, but he damn sure has the rights and can do his best (or his lawyer's best) to assert those rights.</p>
<p>edit: Someone gets into UVA and thinks they're a goddamn Constitutional Law Professor before taking a single class. Christ.</p>
<p>What? The idea-expression dichotomy is a key bedrock of copyright law. Oh, who's making a fool of himself by confusing patents with copyrights? No one legally owns the idea to Layla - they just own the expression. Please inform yourself of the legal difference between IDEA AND EXPRESSION.</p>
<p>You signed a non-disclosure agreement that's under the jurisdiction of trade secret law, not copyright. Note that legally your employer had a right to those in the first place, but not under copyright. Can you even be consistent? I'm not trying to be arrogant, but it's just that IP is a social issue for me, being both a Linux user and a Wikipedia admin, where the GFDL is key to the project's flourishing. Open-source is under attack by malformed IP statutes, so I have had a long self-study interest in IP.</p>
<p>Your analysis of the constitutional issues at play is stunted. The 1st amendment prohibits agents of the federal government (and, by extension through the 14th amendment, state and local governments) from interfering with the expressive rights of an individual or group. Extension to private actors has been by statute (primarily those regarding discriminatory practices). A private actor, such as ETS, can certainly present a contract restricting your speech in certain qualified ways (i.e. expression of a question's idea does not qualify as protected speech). You then have the opportunity to reject the contract in its entirety - responsibilities and benefits. [Whether this is just or not is a separate issue, but it is certainly both constitutional and legal]</p>
<p>Indeed, the premise upon which you base your objection is even more deeply flawed, as there are several constitutional rights presented to an individual which may be contractually renounced. While it is not the primary focus of most 14th amendment analysis, the 14th amendment provided an extension of the rights of citizenship. These may easily be renounced at any US consulate.</p>