<p>I know a lot of people that would cheat on the ACT. But they’re “daddy’s little angels” and would never do that. I’m not saying anyone cheated, but parents have to accept it as a possibility. Their children aren’t as perfect as they’d like to think. And if they’re innocent, they should have absolutely no problem scoring within 3 points of the original.</p>
<p>Does the ACT even collect racial information?</p>
<p>If it were racially motivated, I would expect that the test proctors would be the one calling people out since they would be influenced by appearances.</p>
<p>As to the letters, I think they are just generated based upon the ACT’s computers analysis of jumps in test scores and similarities in answers to nearby students.</p>
<p>Also, why in the world should someone agree to go through 3 more hours of testing, and the related prep work if they did not cheat?? Sure, if there were no cheating, they likely could get within 3 points of the original score, but there could be some fluke where you don’t.</p>
<p>Always try to justify the score before re-taking the test.</p>
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<p>So the “fluke” would be that there is nobody else to cheat off of?</p>
<p>i think she should study really hard take it again some time eaither in the summer or really late in the spring if it is anything like the sats</p>
<p>i dont really understand how they think people are cheating. if there isnt multiple versions and two extremely smart people who regularly miss only 1-2 questions sit next to each other, its not surprising that they will have similarities in their answers.</p>
<p>I think their system is a little more complicated than that.</p>
<p>guys. its not that hard to score within 3 points. the science section is really unpredictable. my score differed by 7 points between one take and the next for that section alone. </p>
<p>MamaDuke’s, since your son is in college, what happens? he doesnt really need the score anymore?</p>
<p>My son was in the exact situation your daughter is in now. He took the ACT in his junior year of high school and scored in the low 20’s. Over that summer he took an ACT prep course, studied on his own and a month or so before he took the ACT again he got private tutoring. He took the ACT in October of his senior year and scored several points higher. We sent his scores out to the universities he had applied to and acceptances came in. In January, he received a letter from ACT questioning his score and offering the three options. My son complied all the information to back up his higher score and sent it to ACT.
We had to wait another three weeks for a reply. ACT wrote back saying they were still questioning his score. He decided then to take the test again, which he did and received a score within the 3 points. ACT said his original score stood. I wish all the best for your daughter; it was the most trying time; but it turned out o.k.</p>
<p>To those observing that scoring very high inevitably means similar answers:</p>
<p>If you’re copying someone’s answers, you’re copying both the correct and incorrect ones. A series of correct answers on both tests suggests that you both knew the answer to that series of questions. A series of matching incorrect answers is much more interesting, as it’d be quite unusual for someone to get the same questions wrong with the same wrong answers as the person next to them.</p>
<p>Catching cheaters is just as much -if not more - about what they got wrong than it is about what they got right. Another tipoff is if you get easy questions wrong, but ace the hard questions.</p>
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<p>I’d definitely start with option #3. Explain everything that you did here, and stress the elements of the test center that make it implausible for her to have cheated. Fighting it does work sometimes, so it’s worth a try. I know someone who took the test with the flu and did poorly as a result, then retook it when healthy and improved considerably, but was questioned because the ACT didn’t believe such an improvement was realistic.</p>
<p>If option #3 fails, option #1 will most likely work if she didn’t cheat. Even without prepping the second time, 3 points is a lot. Most of the stuff she learned while prepping will probably come back when she needs it.</p>
<p>I would like to know the outcome of this. My daughter took the ACT in Jun 2010. ACT came back and accused her of cheating in May 2011. We chose option 3 because we thought options 1 and 2 were accepting guilt which is not the case. Her high school counselor even wrote a letter on her behalf. They rejected her letter and now we are going to arbitration. How can ACT wait almost a year to accuse her of cheating ? Time and money was spent looking at schools and a selection has been made and deposits were put down. This is not acting in good faith on ACT’s part. Now her high school principle is involved. This is just wrong.</p>
<p>Screw 'em . . . take the SAT and demand a refund.</p>
<p>I’d take a free test.</p>
<p>Wow, this is really scary stuff. A college student is suddenly apprised that he/she has been accused of cheating on a college entry exam???</p>
<p>And I didn’t really see any posts debunking the correlation between high school performance (e.g. GPA) and standardized tests. I was one of those high school students who had a very uneven and lacklustre high school performance and got a 1600/1600 on the SAT.</p>
<p>More recently, a dear friend of mine’s son, with some elusive learning disabilities (not quite categorizable despite sophisticated and successive testing) who happens to be utterly brilliant and who can hold compelling and detailed court from anything to epigenetics to string theory to Kierkegaard, had about a 2.5 GPA in high school, and got a perfect SAT score and Subject test scores. He is “at it again,” in college, in that he got an “A” in P-chem yet flunked a history class, for example. ACT would be so misguided were they to use grades as a legal barometer of one’s standardized test-taking abilities, in this student’s case.</p>
<p>Does anyone know the outcome of the ACT accusation/investigation??</p>
<p>Sorry if this is hurtful, but I truly believe your daughter cheated. First of all, I put myself in your daughters shoes and I would take option #1 without question. Second of all, your daughter’s excuse for not doing option #1, something about admitting guilt or something, is not even a good excuse. Like most people already mentioned, I have asked COUNTLESS amounts of people/friends their SAT scores on multiple test dates (1st/2nd time) and never have I once heard someone lose 200 points… its extremely rare and usually due to horrible luck or situation. Also, option #1 is in no way admitting guilt, if it were me, I would see it as an opportunity to say “I told you so” to the ACT test givers. And lastly, I put myself in your daughter’s shoes again and asked myself what I would say to my parents if I actually did cheat on the SAT’s and it would end up like something your daughter said to you.</p>
<p>^^^wow, glad you’re not sitting in on my jury.</p>
<p>What did your daughter end up doing?</p>
<p>I hope it all worked out, but at the same time I question whether or not she really did cheat … sorry … As RedSeven said:</p>
<p>“If you’re copying someone’s answers, you’re copying both the correct and incorrect ones. A series of correct answers on both tests suggests that you both knew the answer to that series of questions. A series of matching incorrect answers is much more interesting, as it’d be quite unusual for someone to get the same questions wrong with the same wrong answers as the person next to them.”</p>
<p>(This theory is also backed in Freakonomics (Great book! I recommend it to everyone) in the chapter entitled ‘What do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?’ in order to prove that teachers helped their students cheat on tests)</p>
<p>@ clueless I don’t believe she cheated. First of all it doesn’t matter if you, yourself in that situation would take option #1 because that proves nothing at all. I can say, that if I would in her shoes I’ll take option 3(which I would). Does that means anything? No if she refuse to do #1 it can be that she really did not cheat, and do not feel like that she need to justify her scores by taking the test again. And lastly, your last statement is once again base on nothing. Just because you would lie to your parents, doesn’t mean that she would. From the previous posts, it seems like there are just some incidents when people absolutely did not cheat, but still got accuse of.</p>
<p>Kinda curious myself now that I’ve read this.</p>
<p>There is a possible chance that she did not cheat and got lucky, and as we all know, lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice. Thus, I’d appeal to option 3 no matter what, and fight to innocence, all the way to the supreme court.</p>
<p>You are innocent until proven guilty.</p>
<p>a standardized test can not be compared to school performance. if the ACT/SAT tested straight forward school things (tests on certain books, calculus topics, in-depth chemistry/biology), and then they got a high score, yeah by all means sue em’. BUT…since the ACT/SAT are logical/reasoning tests, you can not assume they cheated since their grades do not support such scores.</p>
<p>A friend of mine gets Cs and Ds in school (hes super lazy), but got a 1930 on his SATs. No prep, no nothing, just his logic and reasoning.</p>