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Chinese Nationals Accused of Taking SATs For Others

Posted by samzenpus on from the grades-for-pay dept.

Vadim Makarov writes: Fifteen Chinese nationals living in the U.S. have been charged with creating an elaborate scheme to take U.S. college entrance exams on behalf of students. For the past four years, the accused provided counterfeit Chinese passports to impostors, who sneaked into testing centers where they took the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), and others, while claiming to be someone else, according to a federal grand jury indictment. Special Agent in Charge John Kelleghan for Homeland Security Investigations of Philadelphia said: "These students were not only cheating their way into the university, they were also cheating their way through our nation's immigration system."

6 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Hilarious! by Murdoch5 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The SAT is one of the most useless measures of knowledge or capability the world has ever seen. Standardized tests don't work, they've never worked and we know they don't tell us about a persons true intelligence. So if China wants to take a SAT for me, go ahead.

  2. Mildly ironic... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I find it mildly ironic that China's lengthy history of testing for public servants dating back millennia means they basically invented standardized testing...so they probably also invented cheating on standardized testing.

  3. What is all the fuss about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In China cheating your way into school, cheating your way through school, and cheating your way to a degree is perfectly normal. Anybody who does not do this is looked down upon as being dumber than a Greek who goes to a hospital and does not realise he has to bribe the doctor before he has any hope of getting his big bleeding open bone fracture treated.

    1. Re:What is all the fuss about? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I know many Latinos in my area that share drivers licenses. One girl that even went to court as another girl for a traffic ticket she got.

  4. Wait for further developements by Trachman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There were decades of twisted testing. Within graduate education world, I have personally met a large number of chinese nationals who barely could speak or write English, yet had perfect scores. Every graduate school knows this phenomena and this is the reason why certain asian related biases were formed. No doubt many of them are very smart people, but some just could not learn the language even in 3 or 4 years.

    Many graduate schools no longer pay significant attention to certain test and yes, unofficial quotes have been created to counter numerous candidates with perfect scores.

    I am waiting for further developments: perhaps a listing of thousands of people who benefited from imposter exam takers will be announced.

    1. Re:Wait for further developements by khchung · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Within graduate education world, I have personally met a large number of chinese nationals who barely could speak or write English, yet had perfect scores.

      Are you sure they also cannot READ English? Because READING is all you need to get perfect scores in GRE.

      I have met plenty of Chinese who can't speak or write English worth squat, and can't understand English spoken by the average American such as in the movies (cuz their teacher back in China mispronounced most of the words), BUT they can READ just fine.

      Reading is the only thing you can learn with only a dictionary and extreme discipline to study.

      --
      Oliver.