<p>So what you’re saying is Robert Frost hated Asians? ;)</p>
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<p>I completed engineering in my beloved Elbonia and never once wrote more than 2 pages lab report, and that included our required capstone. Lots of tables / diagrams / charts, but not a single “write 5 pages on why bunnies are better than ferrets” type assignment. </p>
<p>In high school, we had composition (where i did pretty badly mostly because I disagreed with what the political dogma de jour was) but again we’re talking a page or two at most where one was graded based on allegiance to the Beloved Leader and such…</p>
<p>To this day I remember my first ever term paper, in ESOL 101. I only had a vague idea of ‘library research’ and what the ‘card catalog’ was and somehow I wrote a 10 page term paper over Mardi Gras… </p>
<p>The professor rolled her eyes when I mentioned I did not know what an ‘outline’ was :). But all ended well as I met Mrs. Turbo in ESOL 102 31 years ago. Like me, she had never done a term paper in school out in Asia land, and even worse, she had not done very much composition either. So, yea, lots of us ethnics never did much writing before coming to the US…</p>
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<p>Once upon a time, and being the overhaul prompted by the cluelessness of UC’s Atkinson, et al, there was a rather trivial test called the SAT2 Writing. Trivial as it was directed at a very small group of students who targeted the most selective schools. When the undersued writing test got “elevated” to national prominence, The College Board had no other option than farm it out to a company that would in turn hire an army of readers who had to follow very strict rules. Very strict rules that had to be simplistic to ensure a … standardized grading. </p>
<p>If it was harder to “fool” the readers in the days of the SAT2, it was hardly impossible. A very successful tutor (N.C.) in Newton, MA developed a method (and a great following) for students who needed to ace the test. A simple description of the method is that students memorized a few examples and learned to write a virtually identical essay and this no matter what the prompt was, as the prompts were highly predictable.</p>
<p>Beating the current crop of readers has become even easier. However, it should be clear that an active and proactive preparation is vastly different from relying on organized cheating. If obtaining copies of released QAs for studying represents a very small transgression, arranging the leaking and copying of tests in a different jurisdiction is not! Officials who distribute questions prior to the test dates is not. And so on!</p>
<p>Anyone with the desire and willingness to research this issue can do so with little effort by using directed google searches, or … paying attention to people who have described it with some knowledge of the industry. </p>
<p>And, after cornering the problem of cheating, one might start wondering about the value and positive impact of what is called “shadow education.” How would parents of children react in the United States, if our government had to implement a 10PM curfew on “learning centers” to curb an explosion of “shadow education?” How would we react when reports of a country having more private tutors than official teachers surface? </p>
<p>All in all, great expectations come at a great cost.</p>
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<p>With enough imagination, everything is possible:</p>
<p>Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what Ive tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.</p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>Xiggi, as a child of immigrant parents yourself, let go of your racial bias.</p>
<p>i just googled elbonia. LOL, turbo! i kept reading it in your comments and thought “where the u-know-what is elbonia?!?” i get it now. funny.</p>
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<p>Oh, you had me at “I am sorry!”</p>
<p>Cbreeze, you make it extremely hard to keep this impersonal. After the “ill sentiments” we now have a full blown accusation of racism. This is getting offensive and uncalled for. </p>
<p>While you might not agree with my positions --or not clearly understand what they are-- you might try to recognize that I address issues that are not directly targeting a person here. This is different from relying on ad hominems, as you have done repeatedly, in addition to admitting to “track my posts down.” </p>
<p>Again, you are absolutely entitled to your opinions, but not to your own set of facts. Feel free to attack the contents of my posts, but stop making those unwarranted wholesale comments that are based on an erroneous perception of what I actually write. </p>
<p>Fwiw, it would be easy to cover my posts with ridicule by presenting evidence that dispels my information as incorrect and … biased. Since I appear to be so far off the mark, it would be a cinch for someone who obviously spends a huge amount of time reading the first line of my posts. </p>
<p>Ad hominems are weak sauce!</p>
<p>And, fwiw, some here thought that my parents emigrated from a very far and very high place:</p>
<p>[College</a> Confidential Discussion](<a href=“http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?69/49065]College”>http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?69/49065)</p>
<p>Elbonia is a magical place somewhere in Europe - somehow a member of the EU, but for all practical purposes, any country where the economy has tanked and will remain tanked for the foreseeable future because its residents are too busy arguing about the current version of apparatchik intelligentsia vs. the last version to actually do anything. And whose residents that could, bailed a long time ago.</p>
<p>Interestingly, cheating has never been an issue. The national entrance exam is insanely difficult and overall we don’t cheat very much. Not sure why. The test questions change yearly and are not leaked. Everyone does cram school but if everyone does it, one really does not get a leg up on anyone else. </p>
<p>The most cheating I ever did in college there was to receive a call the night before we were expected to design some hotel or dacha or what not and as the class expert in architecture design I’d get a call to help a friend, so we’d crash at his place, use our student ration coupons to eat and drink ourselves silly then stay up all night and design something. Not because we’re super honest or anything, it just does not happen all that much. Or did not.</p>
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<p>I always stop at a stop sign and I always see people stop (saying it understanding that I can only see them if I am there - thus there’s someone else there). Though I admit, I do the turn on red regardless of whether or not there’s a “No turn on red” sign. I always make sure it’s clear though. </p>
<p>I’m not really sure how that’s cheating though. There’s no assumption that you follow traffic “laws.” If there was, then there wouldn’t be traffic cops.</p>
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<p>Someone else watched Dilbert? </p>
<p>I always had the impression that it was in Central Asia or something.</p>
<p>xiggi: oh, lord!! hahaha</p>
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<p>That does not seem to deter lots of drivers from doing “rolling stops” (or the occasional driver behind who honks if I come to a complete stop and check for traffic before going).</p>
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<p>If you are there as a pedestrian, you will likely see a lot more “rolling stops”, as well as drivers who fail to notice that you as a pedestrian may have to be yielded to if you cross the street in the crosswalk.</p>
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<p>However, rolling through the required stop when doing right turn on red is common, as it is with stop signs.</p>
<p>turbo93:</p>
<p>The essay can be gamed so well that it’s basically a Madlibs: there are formulae that are so complete that the “writer” only has to make a few decisions (which examples) and then plug those relevant details into a completely memorized essay. If the formula is good and the student doesn’t make a grievous reasoning blunder, it guarantees a 10. This is how it’s done at the top prep places in Seoul, for example.</p>
<p>I know this firsthand from personal experience–10 years doing this in Seoul.</p>
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<p>Like h*** it doesn’t! :). If drivers are not being deterred it is because they are unaware of the penalty, or because where they live the penalty is not severe enough or they don’t think it will be enforced. Cheating on the SAT works the same way (although traffic violations are a bad analogy because most of them are strict liability offenses - no intent required). If where you live the reward outweighs the risks, you are more likely to cheat.</p>
<p>Marvin, since this is the case I assume the essays are graded based on content. There is absolutely no way that a student can ‘write’ one and stay on subject, set up his/her argument, present the case, write conclusions, etc. all related to the original topic. It will all be generalities that fail the Turing Test in a spectacular way.</p>
<p>If the topic is sufficiently general, and the grading parameters sufficiently strict, I can see how it works. However, I could also see how by changing those two and requiring that above all, the writer actually focuses on the subject, the technique can be defeated.</p>
<p>If not perhaps it could be renamed the “Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham” part of the SAT? :)</p>
<p>^ See here:</p>
<p>[Image</a> codes: 1348362 avatar pocahontas1 super](<a href=“http://postimage.org/image/jfhchaa5l/3bfe5bbc/]Image”>http://postimage.org/image/jfhchaa5l/3bfe5bbc/)</p>
<p>^Beyond funny :)</p>
<p>turbo93: </p>
<p>I understand it’s hard for you to believe, but I’ve been doing this for 10 years. You don’t have to take my word for it, but I’m not going to provide proof, sorry. Trade secrets & whatnot.</p>
<p>I remember reading about this memorization of stock essays being used in China.</p>
<p>What I find hard to believe is that the College Board has not figured it out yet… </p>
<p>I have seen 600+ TOEFL kids that cannot use proper grammar if their lives depended on it but grammar is mechanical. Writing is the essence of one’s communicative soul, a remarkable glimpse into their psyche.</p>
<p>I could think of several ways to improve the test, whether by grading guidelines, more intricate subjects and prompts, or via a combination of longer essays and paragraph sized answers to paragraph sized issues…</p>
<p>But again, do universities know what is going on and simply hush hush over it or do they play deer-in-headlights?</p>