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How Asian Test-Prep Companies Swiftly Exposed the Brand-New SAT

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How Asian Test-Prep Companies Swiftly Exposed the Brand-New SAT 4/14/2016 How Asian test­prep companies quickly penetrated the new SAT Cheat Sheet How Asian test-prep companies swiftly exposed the brand-new SAT http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special­report/college­sat­two/ 1/18 4/14/2016 How Asian test­prep companies quickly penetrated the new SAT By Renee Dudley, Steve Stecklow, Alexandra Harney and Irene Jay Liu Filed March 28, 2016, 5:54 p.m. GMT Part Two: Booklets for the redesigned exam leaked online within days of the test. The ongoing failures to secure the SAT are prompting some college officials to question the validity of exam scores. 中文 (Chinese translation) On the morning of Saturday, March 5, students gathered at test centers around the United States to take the SAT, the all­ important college entrance exam. The day was momentous – not simply for the test­takers but also for the College Board, the not­for­profit that owns the exam. The organization was debuting an entirely new version of the SAT whose redesign was years in the making. In Asia, test­preparation companies were eager for information. Any details about what was on the new SAT might be invaluable to their clients. That’s especially true because for years, the College Board routinely has reused SAT tests overseas after first administering them in America. East Asian cram schools have repeatedly exploited that practice to breach the SAT, and the College Board has come to see the test­prep industry as a daunting adversary. For the first offering of the redesigned SAT this month, the organization imposed an added security measure: It banned tutors and other non­students from taking the exam that day. The battle to safeguard the new SAT was on. It was lost almost as soon as the test began. Test­prep companies had posted teachers outside U.S. test centers, ready to grill exiting students about what was on the exam. Within hours, American test­takers headed online to discuss the new SAT in detail. http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special­report/college­sat­two/ 2/18 4/14/2016 How Asian test­prep companies quickly penetrated the new SAT On the popular website College Confidential, students described portions of the reading section from exams given on March 5. There was an essay on plate tectonics. A letter by the 1960s labor activist Cesar Chavez. A scientific paper about baby fat. A passage from a Michael Chabon novel. And more. Test­prep companies in Asia picked up this chatter and reported back to clients. Then, last week, Reuters was shown two documents that reveal far more substantial holes in the SAT’s defenses. Both documents contained entire sections from exams given on March 5. The College Board said it has a “long­standing policy” not to comment on what may be on an exam. Reuters verified the authenticity of the documents nonetheless with people familiar with the new SAT’s content ­ including students who took the test. The first file, offered free by a Chinese online test­advice company called SAT Helper, reconstructs one version of that day’s exam booklet. It had a 52­question reading section with five text passages – including the Chavez letter and the plate tectonics essay. The second document was shown to Reuters by a Chinese tipster who had warned the College Board last year about security breaches. It contained images of another version of the March 5 test. Among its reading passages? The Chavez letter, the baby­fat paper, the plate tectonics piece and the Chabon novel. Three high school students reviewed the documents and confirmed that the material came from the actual March 5 SATs they had taken. Reuters is not naming them because test­takers agree when they register for the exam not to disclose what's on it. “That’s literally the one I took,” said one student, a high school junior in Maryland. “It would have been better if I’d seen it before the test,” another high school student, a junior in Texas, said laughing. “The questions started coming out as soon as I finished the test,” said a third student, a junior in Florida. “I thought this time the College Board had released them itself.” The College Board says that test security and delivering valid scores are central to its mission. In addition to barring non­student test­takers from the March 5 exam ­ a practice that will continue on most test dates ­ it has taken other measures in recent years http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special­report/college­sat­two/ 3/18 4/14/2016 How Asian test­prep companies quickly penetrated the new SAT to thwart the Asian prep industry. SATs are now shipped to and from some test sites in lock boxes, and the College Board regularly sends out “take­down notices” if it sees test material online. But as the brand­new bootleg test booklets show, the cram schools continue to find ways to subvert the defenses of the College Board and its security contractor, Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey. What has made such breaches especially damaging in recent years is the College Board’s routine reuse overseas of SAT test material previously given in America. The recycling of exam items has enabled test­prep operators to provide international students an advance look at reading passages, grammar problems and other material that may be on future tests. Sometimes, the cram schools even create answer keys for their clients. BOOTLEG: The cover of a test booklet from the March 5 exam. Reuters found this and another The College Board confirmed to Reuters that it authentic version of the brand­new SAT circulating online after the test. plans to continue recycling test material. The redesigned SAT will be administered for the first time overseas in May, and it’s unlikely that the first foreign tests will include material that was administered March 5 in America. Still, the fact that the new test booklets were so quickly circulated demonstrates that the redesigned SAT remains vulnerable. “We’re working against cartel­like companies in China and other countries that will stop at nothing to enrich themselves,” said John McGrath, the College Board’s senior vice president for communications and marketing. “These bad actors will continue to lie, cheat and steal to the detriment of students who work hard and play by the rules.” U.S. admissions officers who were briefed on what Reuters found said the College Board ought to stop recycling exam material. “What they should do, step one, is consider ending the practice of reusing test content,” said Joy St. John, dean of admission at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. If applicants have seen exam material before taking the test, St. John said, “our ability to select students who are the best fits for Wellesley is really compromised.” http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special­report/college­sat­two/ 4/18 4/14/2016 How Asian test­prep companies quickly penetrated the new SAT Even some cram­school operators agree, saying that the continued reuse of test material will make the new exam an easy mark. The redesigned SAT “won’t resolve the fundamental problem, unless they have a continual flow of new questions, and use every test only once,” said Peng Wu, a general manager at Sanli, a Shanghai­based test­prep chain. Sanli created booklets of past test material to help students prepare for the old SAT. One former client, now a student at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Reuters a Sanli booklet helped him score a perfect 800 on the critical reading section of the SAT. The likelihood that questions from the redesigned SAT will be recycled on future tests “is definitely a good thing for us,” Wu said. In a letter to Reuters, College Board vice president Stacy Caldwell defended the organization’s handling of security. The College Board and its contractor, ETS, stand behind the validity of the test scores sent to U.S. colleges and their actions “to protect the integrity of the exam,” she said. Ray Nicosia, who heads the Office of Testing Integrity at ETS, said the number of people who cheat on the SAT is “far less than 1 percent.” With the new test, Caldwell pledged that the College Board “will continue to take bold actions to stop cheating and theft.” How the College Board will succeed at that mission is unclear. Internal College Board documents show that test­preparation centers have been able to penetrate security for years, often by exploiting the routine reuse of test material overseas. Over the past three years, interviews and documents show, the College Board has often tried but failed to plug the flow of leaks. At other times, Reuters found, the College Board decided to go ahead with exams even after being warned that test material it had previously administered was in wide circulation. http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special­report/college­sat­two/ 5/18 4/14/2016 How Asian test­prep companies quickly penetrated the new SAT PREPARED: At a testing site last October in Hong Kong. This month, to gain insight into the new SAT, one test­prep firm says it sent 11 teachers to America to interview students after the test. REUTERS/Bobby Yip Some people in the testing and teaching professions say they were disheartened by how the College Board or ETS handled evidence of possible breaches. “What they should do, step one, is consider The tipster in China who provided Reuters with a copy of the new SAT ending the practice of booklet said he sent the same material to reusing test content.” an ETS investigator on March 18.
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