if high-stakes admission is primarily high-stakes test-based, then the test will be cracked. Randomized tests is one possible part of the solution, but not a complete one. One reason I suspect that they reuse tests is because each question is vetted and scaled. This is how the test becomes “standardized”. You need internal validity and this is possible primarily through vetting individual questions with very specific wording and very specific order, I suspect. Creating these tests is costly because of that. Randomization is like flipping quarters. One kid could get 50 heads in a row and then 50 tails. Or one child could get 100 heads in a row and then the second child 100 tails. On average the tests equal the same thing. But the individual child’s experiences are vastly different. Weighting each question by difficulty might solve some of this, but not entirely.
Then you have the problem of the industry of people taking the tests for others. Security at testing sights globally is poor. If you travel to Hong Kong to take the test and there are several thousand people in a room, which is a common experience, cheating is impossible to monitor.
Now there are programs where you can photograph the math question and the computer will return not just the answer but will break down the steps to get the answer, in case you need to “show your work.” In a room of several thousand people monitoring such activities is very hard.
The fundamental issue it seems is that these test are given so much weight. Too much weight, in my opinion. The value of cheating is therefore high. If the weight of these tests were truly reduced, the value of cheating is lower.
Cheating is just the latest indicator of how invalid these tests are. They have been deemed invalid for a long time, in that they are strongly associated with income and race.
Confounding this is that universities that are now seeking tuition dollars from abroad will not vet students properly for cheating or for genuine ability to perform at that school beyond test scores. They rely on these tests to support “readiness” assessments and allow in the student and that cash flow. Students from away can pay as much as three times an in-state student. Public spending on college is lower than ever, caps on in-state tuition are set in place. Where else can public schools going to look for funding? Then the privates, on the small end, many are barely surviving. One life-line is foreign students as they pay top dollar. The tests help foreign students compete with other foreign students to gain entry to the US. The tests allow US institutions a way to approve one student over another perhaps domestic student who costs the college more. On the top end of schools, I know that it looks like colleges are lofty places where dollars, branding, and competition don’t seem to matter, but this is not true. Princeton competes with Harvard and Stanford for stop students. You betcha it’s holding onto that brand and its top rating partly through SAT scores, the higher the better in terms of perceived competitiveness. This perceived competitiveness based on scores is what brings in the next gen of uber competitive students, and maintain that school’s “brand.”