<p>Well, now we wait and see what happens. Does anyone do time? Is the test cancelled (screwing my students but also giving the cheaters what they deserve)? Does the CB respond and do the right thing (stop forever the practice of recycling tests)?</p>
<p>I’m constantly hearing more rumors and have my ear to the ground here in Seoul, but so far, it’s just rumors. I remember 2007 well, though, and I have really mixed feelings. I don’t want my hard-working, smart kids to lose their awesome scores, but I don’t want cheaters to benefit from their ill-gotten gains. If the test is cancelled and the CB does nothing, then it won’t be worth it. If the test is cancelled and the CB does make a change, well, I’ll sympathize with the victims but at least progress will have been made.</p>
<p>The work of Ambraseys and Bilham took it a step further. They saw a negative correlation between a nations wealth and its perceived level of corruption. Furthermore, they noted that some countries are more corrupt than their measure of wealth would indicate while others are less. In my opinion, the difference is a good measure of “culturally- based” corruption.</p>
<p>Figure 2 separates those who are less corrupt (above the doted line) from those who are more corrupt (below the line) relative to national wealth. There are a few surprises. Here is their excellent summary:</p>
<p>Others above the line include New Zealand, the United States, and Chile. Others below the line include Russia, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Mexico.</p>
<p>If I showed this thread to DS3, he would have been laughing all day long. His Common essay is on the ethic issues during the financial crisis which almost destroyed the world economy.</p>
<p>Well, apparently I was not too clever in deciding to stick to what the current news offered, as the usual suspects and shills still grabbed the typical sharp harpoons, and in a way that would have made Herman Melville’s Ahab rising above the sea proud. Ahumph!</p>
<p>Talking about gymnasts 11 years old and Apple fake stores is an equally dangerous exercise in these waters.</p>
<p>There is no country in the world that has anywhere near the corruption of the National Security State. It is so corrupt we don’t even bother to call it corruption anymore.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m stoopid, but I was talking about this thread with DD2 and she had an easy question - why not use the SAT writing score in the calculation? I assume the SAT writing includes, like, writing, and a review of said writing could be a decent indicator of whether applicant dude has a clue or not…</p>
<p>By default you know they’ll ace the “math” part and with good prep I could get Grandpa Turbo to pass the “reading” part. But the writing should be a wee bit harder to memorize against…</p>
<p>Edit: I still recall one of the funniest emails I received back in college from my (ethnic) partner in a CompSci project. He was good, no need to buy his way in, but the poor fella could not write to save his life. So he sends me an email that went:</p>
<p>“I will see you yesterday”</p>
<p>Speaking of prep - my fellow (ethnic) classmates had invested thousands of dollars to pass the dreaded TOEFL in countries where English is fairly common. Not so in Elbonia. I had to make do with six years of public school English (with the same awesome teacher). I scored a 610, and they scored a 610. Is the absolute 610 what matters in the grand scheme of things, or the fact that one walked up and took the test while the other spent a year preparing, even tho English is sort of the bleeping official language of his country?</p>
<p>I was not surprised when I took the placement test in (US)) college during orientation and was told that with this score if I was an American student I would have tested out…</p>
<p>Same could be said for American students, why not compare their SAT writing with their essays. Oh, but wait, American students don’t cheat, just the Asians.</p>
<p>What a patronizing tone, sosomenza. Maybe a little more education for you: South Korea is a wealthy, technologically-advanced country with a thriving middle class. Asian countries, as well as South Korea, include for example Taiwan, Japan and Singapore, where the middle class is also doing OK. </p>
<p>Yes, America does have its own world-class capabilities in dishonesty. And yes, many or even most Americans are honest, as are Koreans.</p>
How did we go from a small population of cheating on SAT to “cheating is a rampant in a particular nation.” That is a bit far stretch, isn’t it? It is almost as ignorant as some foreigners saying US is an unsafe place because of few crimes at some larger cities.</p>
<p>Looking at this in a macro sense reminds me of the comedian Chris Rock’s comments regarding married men and faithfulness, “men are only as faithful as their opportunities”. The same could be said for SAT test takers regardless of their nationality. If there is the opportunity to cheat be it by getting a copy of a recycled test or having someone else take the test for you, it will be attempted. The solution is to increase security as it being done with photo IDs and stopping the use of recycled exams internationally…Remove the opportunity and you reduce the probablity of cheating.</p>
<p>Oldfort, I hope you realize that the above was exactly what I tried to address with the “strawman argument.” Despite having googled the definition, you still revert to attack an argument nobody <em>as far as I know</em> has made in this thread. Here is an analogy. Reporting that the drug trade is rampant in Mexico and that the fight against the organized crime have resulted in 75,000 deaths in past few years is hardly the same as intimating that all Mexicans are narco-thugs. Reporting that cheating takes place on an unprecedented scale in Korea does not mean that all Koreans are cheaters. Nor does it mean that cheating is confined to hagwons in Seoul! </p>
<p>If I did not make it sufficiently clear in my posts that followed the OP, let me clear it for future references. American students DO cheat, and fwiw, also cheat themselves out of an education by doing so. I did mention the cases in New Jersey and you --correctly-- added the more recent cases in LI’s Great Neck that filled many pages on CC. </p>
<p>I also want to point to my original post as it contains a direct criticism of the lax approach by ETS/TCB since the reports of rampant cheating appeared a long while ago. In so many words, despite the culpability of the students who rely on organized cheating, one DOES have to consider the mitigating factors of the parental pressures and the tacit approval of those actions by … adults. It is one thing for a teenager to err, and quite another for doing so to please people around him or her and fall prey to the criminal organizations that have permeated official and parallel education.</p>
<p>In the past, I have expressed the view that the cheating is hurting students in the country where it happens regularly. I have also been highly critical of the decisions by ETS/TCB to rely on tests they KNOW have been hacked and available at the “tutoring” organizations. The fact that released tests such as the QAs are widely shared on the web should not come as a surprise to ETS/TCB, and neither should be the fact that the non-QAS tests represent a hard to resist target for the people with means and intentions to obtain them. </p>
<p>What we should all expect and request are fair and ethical rules. And we should also expect a standard and universal access to past tests. For instance, as it stands today, only people who did take a certain test can have access to the full QAs. As trivial as it sounds, this has created a market for people to acquire and sell them, especially since ETS/TCB stopped … selling them for 4 dollars each to anyone. Simply stated, all such tests should be made available from Seoul to Bhutan to … New York. </p>
<p>TCB should and could do more. And so should the member institutions that own The College Board. They are creating the incentives to cheat on the tests by make it worthwhile for thieves and criminals to prey on the misguided parental expectations and fears.</p>
<p>That did not take long! And speaking about long, someone who has been as long as you have should have learned that your “comments” and the repeated allegations of “ill-sentiments” that are proxies of allegations of racism are contrary to the spirit of this forum:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have no agenda. But, what I have is the right to express my opinions freely, especially when backed-up by evidence. Even if those opinions seem to annoy the few who would prefer to see opinions that are different from their own be censured. </p>
Here is their excellent summary:</p>