<p>Glad to see the College Board and ETS are looking into the, uh, irregularities. Thanks for posting the article @prefect.</p>
<p>Isn’t this happen every year?</p>
<p>Here we go again…</p>
<p>The entire thing is a joke. ETS and TCB are either dumb and deaf or cynical. Cheating has been widespread for years, and ETS is duplicitous as they are reusing older tests previously used in the US. This provides a huge incentive for outfits to capture such tests by all means. </p>
<p>The solution is simple. Since TCB is owned by the schools that accept the tests, it is up to the schools to … stop accepting Chinese and Korean tests or only accept students after verifying the scores to an additional in-house test. This might stop students posting close to perfect scores all the while having the verbal qualification of a fifth-grader. </p>
<p>Same old! </p>
<p>Aren’t U.S. colleges still viewing China as a source for full-pay undergrad students? Or, has that changed? </p>
<p>So which domestic test did the CB recycle this year?</p>
<p>When I was head of doctoral admissions for my department, we also had great problems with scores from China on TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). We ended up distrusting those scores completely. Since the most common source of financing of such students was teaching assistantships, the admitted students were often in effect put in quarantine (subjected to a full year of tutorial instruction in English) before they were given opportunities in the classroom. It didn’t help those students that they came from a country in which exposure to English-language media was far less common than for students from most other foreign countries. They might be able to read English reasonably well, but speaking grammatically correct and understandable English remained a challenge.</p>
<p>Years ago (decades, actually) there was a cheating scandal related to time differences. Someone in Europe, I think, who was bright, took the test and recorded the correct answers somehow during the exam. They got on the phone and relayed the information to someone in the US, who marked the answers on his wood pencil using a pin, and some kind of simple code. I can’t remember how they caught them…although it must have been by having a proctor who gave a damn about it. </p>
<p>An account of exactly how students cheated on SAT in Asia.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/30/an-account-of-exactly-how-students-cheated-on-sat-in-asia/”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/30/an-account-of-exactly-how-students-cheated-on-sat-in-asia/</a></p>
<p>So why do they recycle entire tests?</p>
<p>aw, come on, ucb. Isn’t it obvious? (Hint: $$$$)</p>
<p>Seems like they’d be better off administering the brand new test in Asia first, and never reusing it.</p>
<p>So the culture of profits at any costs meets the culture of high test scores at any cost. This is as good an argument for holistic admissions as any. </p>
<p>US schools should stop accepting SATs from outside the US until the testing companies stop recycling tests. </p>
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<p>When I started preparing for the SAT, there were lively discussions about the time zone “cheating.” Some was rather benign as people who took the test earlier might discuss the questions in chat rooms. A different level was attained by criminals and well-organized groups who would send emissaries at test centers who would steal the test and bolt out with it. The tests would be reviewed by a team of hired guns and the most challenging answers sent to the test takers who got a leg up on the hardest questions. The beneficiaries were in the later time zones and the US. </p>
<p>When TCB decided to augment the number of different tests and hinder the time zone cheating, some genius at ETS decided to ship recycled tests to the foreign centers in the erroneous belief that the same kids would not take the test again. Well, they were partly right but they overlooked that there is an entire network of people who are determined to reproduce all old and … current tests. </p>
<p>The decision to reuse tests that were administered previously in the US is simply crazy. They fed the exact same people the best cuts of red meat! The advantage of “working” through real tests is great. The advantage to take a past test in simply enormous, especially when you consider that the hardest parts have been reviewed and addressed by the armies of tutors and hired mercenaries. Such practices are an insult to all the honest test takers, and it makes the “enforcement” by ETS abroad appear entirely cynical. It is akin to distribute pounds of drugs at a party and then attempt to arrest the kids at the exit. It makes no sense. </p>
<p>And it does not help that getting supersonic scores in China or Korea means so much to the students and parents. Coupled with a culture that does not consider cheating on foreign tests all that bad, you end with a fertile terrain for all the profiteers from organized crime. There is simply a lot of money to earn and very little real enforcement. </p>
<p>Interesting that the article is quoted the infamous Bob Schaeffer. He is, of course, correct as that information has been known for a long time --and often decried on College Confidential, even if it tends to upset certain members. It would be nice if his organization actually tried to address the problem by reporting it before scandals are repeated. </p>
<p>For once, Bob Schaeffer, might have a cause to pursue instead of wasting his time and the money of his supporters on silly campaigns to abolish a test that serves many very well. Fighting TCB and ETS to ensure a higher integrity in the test is a noble cause, and surely a lot more noble than the “usual” agenda of Fair Test. </p>
<p>Due to time zone differences the tests are not administered simultaneously - this would be true in the US as well. Cell phones facilitate the copying of pages and the transmission to a different time zone. Metal detectors at the doors could reveal cell phones but would be an additional expense for the testing centers. Having multiple variations of the test would make the scores statistically less valid. </p>
<p>This type of story makes me furious on behalf of all the students who studied, didn’t cheat, and had their scores invalidated. It also makes me angry that students who get high scores by cheating may be admitted in place of another who did not cheat.</p>
<p>From post #9
I would memorize the whole old test, instead of using iPhone during the test.</p>
<p>Since the “old” test hasn’t been publicly released it has to be copied with a cell phone during the test administration. Cheaters can then cram for the test or bring cheat sheets or cell phones. Cell phones are the culprit.</p>