This one is even more comical – not to mention comical! From http://www.examiner.com/article/boycotting-the-sat
The reality is that is really OLD news and one that is reported many times on CC. So much, that it has repeatedly offended a particular group of posters who considered the reports of massive cheating in Asia as a form of … racist behavior.
Thanks for the chuckle, Valerie and Nancy!
^ The second comical should read pathetic!
Is WaPo going to break the news next that the Pope is Catholic?
Seems to be 100% the fault and responsibility of the College Board. If you recycle tests, or even individual questions, no matter how quickly, you have inherently lost control.
You’d think – by now – they’d offer the test FIRST in Asia – and set the time so that it is offered at the same GMT all in the most affected areas.
That would be fair to balance things out, offer the test first in Asia, so Americans will get the chance to cheat.
@sorghum, I was torn between giving u a “like” vs. a “helpful”
Maybe the fact that it made it into the national news will have some consequence? Well, one can dream.
Amusing that the second article claims cc has been used by some posters as a conduit for cheating. Eek! Hope not.
There was a post on the SAT subforum last week who named the person in South Korea who was distributing the tests. The post and several related posts have been deleted.
FYI, the tests used to be unveiled abroad before it hit the US and there were cases of cheating involving the sharing of questions in the morning of the tests. The attributes of the cheating rings were none too different. The policies of reusing the older US tests in Asia simply made their cheating life even easier and much larger. The recycling of the test is a tangible cause, but the cheating is hardly confined to the “entrepreneurial” spirit of analyzing the previous tests through participations in chat rooms. There is an element of outright theft and corruption.
My take on this is that the window of cheating that has benefitted Asian students will close for a large part with the new SAT test version. Not only will the test be much more challenging for internationals, but the pipeline for cheating tools will dry up substantially. The pendulum will swing the other way, and the number of dubious scores should plummet in 2016. This should also be VERY good news to the vast number of students abroad who do NOT cheat.
As far as the article and the expert quoted … meh!
Reusing tests in Asia, Europe, the US or anywhere is just lazy and stupid. Why on earth does ETS continue to do it even as they have to cancel international scores almost every month??
No good reasons but plenty of excuses. TCB is owned and controlled by its members and those are the colleges. The same colleges that are known to accept fake transcripts and scores from full paying Asians in UG and grad programs.
At some point constantly having to cancel/not release scores has to cost more than creating new tests.
Canceling tests costs something, but does canceling scores/delaying scores?
I have to admit that I simply don’t believe Asian test scores. My guess would be that elite college admissions folks don’t, either, without significant corroborating evidence (that the scores play a very limited role in international admissions).
On the other hand, I think the state universities are using the relatively high scores on standardized tests (the SAT, TOFL, etc.) as an excuse for ignoring the lack of English proficiency among students they are accepting.
“Seems to be 100% the fault and responsibility of the College Board. If you recycle tests, or even individual questions, no matter how quickly, you have inherently lost control.” Well, not “100%,” but certainly CB is 100% the enablers, yes. Individuals choose to take advantage of enablers or not. As others have said, sheer laziness on CB’s part, not to mention stupidity.
“Amusing that the second article claims cc has been used by some posters as a conduit for cheating. Eek! Hope not.” Oh, yes, jym. That’s been true for a long time on CC. That’s why all those huge warnings on the Testing subforums here. I remember several years ago a CC’er (student) contacted me, hoping to cheat with my help. (I think she thought I was a student, not an adult.)
In any case, this is just one more reason why, until the system changes --if it does-- the Elites should not assume that great scores have been gained legitimately and then use those supposedly great scores as determinative for admissions.
The new SAT will be in place soon. Let’s hope that for easily 10 years there are unduplicated tests. That would mean 70 of them. I wonder if CB is industrious enough to do that – and cares enough about integrity and credibility.
Hope you reported that poster, epiphany.
In theory, the answer should be yes. In practice, however, the cost of a “score cancel” is borne by the student. They already paid the fees, and the same student will have to take the test again with a new round of fees.
The recycling of US non-released tests has been going on for years, and it took years for ETS/TCB to pretend to address the issue. With the new test on the horizon, there is little chance that ETS will stop the practice, safe and except if they were to decide to empty the test banks and use all the tests that have passed the integrity measures so far. There is a small chance that ETS might use all of the tests that might have been US bound. It should not be that hard!
But again, it is pretty clear that they never cared too darn much about the integrity of the tests on foreign soil. Neither did their real customers.
I should have, jym, but it took me awhile before I myself realized what was going on. And at the time we were having a personal crisis at home, which overrode everything. I think later I contacted her to verify what it was she wanted from me (so I could then report her, or the general cc activity, if warranted), but she was nonresponsive, and I assume no longer needed the info. (There was a sense of her being very calendar-intense about this.)
Nonetheless, obviously cc admins got whiff of what was happening; hence, all the warnings on that page.
Yes, but there is another issue that should be addressed, namely the fact that not all tests are released in the same way. One of the surest ways to curb the appetite of some to find a way to acquire the past tests that were not part of the QAS would be to FORCE both the College Board and its poor cousin in Iowa to release every test given – as it happens with the PSAT. Most of the shenanigans would be hit where it hurts.
Years ago, TCB had an office where a lone ranger was helping people to acquired ALL past PSAT for the modest sum of 4 dollars. A few months after opening the store, someone decided to close it.
The answer to the cheating problem could be to have an open store where all the tests can be acquired by ANYONE at ANY TIME, as opposed to the QAS releases that require someone to have taken the test. Rest assured that the large companies --including the plain thieves in Asia-- have had no problems in “acquiring” all the QAS versions, as well as the “closed” version. This is the main attraction of the large “tutoring” companies abroad and many hagwons here.
As an alternative, in this day of open and easy communications, it should be a cinch for the SAT and the ACT older versions to be made available at every school that participates in the PSAT and the PLAN. This could be controlled easily and students could gain access after IDing themselves. Of course, this does not appear to be high on the list of the TCB as they prefer to delegate their work to outfits a la Khan Academy!
Simply stated, the access to all older versions should be universal and open to everyone.
I’m not following. How does universal access to all older versions prevent cheating, unless those older versions are not reused for a long time, or ever?