Chinese students in alleged SAT cheat scandal

Several thousand Chinese and South Korean students who took an admissions test for US colleges may not be able to see their results until November, due to claims of cheating.

"Based on specific, reliable information, we have placed the scores of all Chinese and South Korean students who sat for the October 11th international administration of the SAT on hold while we conduct an administrative review," Time magazine reported, quoting a statement from the College Board and Educational Testing Service (ETS).

The College Board has sent US universities letters to help affected candidates who wanted early enrolment, according to the magazine.

Several language training agencies in China received concerns from students.

"Around 30 of our students who took the October 11 SAT informed us about the results delay, and were worried that their results will be invalid," a teacher in charge of an SAT training center at the Shanghai New Channel International Education Group, surnamed Chen, told the Global Times.

She said the US College Board explained to them that those results were under administrative review due to possible cheating allegations.

Li Nannan, senior manager of the overseas testing management center with the New Oriental Group, also received the same explanation.

Li estimated that over 5,000 students from both China and South Korea were affected by this delay in receiving results.

However, some teachers rejected these allegations of cheating, and instead insisted that the fault lay with the ETS, claiming that their bank of questions had not been updated often enough, meaning that it was easy for the students to figure out what questions were likely to be asked.

"The students might not have cheated," said a former SAT teacher at the New Oriental Group surnamed Liu.

Both Chen and Li said these delays had occurred before, but it was the first time that such a large number of students in two countries was affected.

The widespread existence of cheating on exams is an open secret in China. If the terms "exam" and "cheat," are entered into a search engine, hundreds of entries about how to cheat in exams pop up, including many about cheating on the SAT test.

One simple method of cheating is to find someone to take the exams for students. The Global Times reporter reached a woman surnamed Zheng, who said she has been helping Chinese students cheat on exams including the SAT, TOEFL and IELTS since 2009.

"I usually find overseas Chinese students to take the exams for our clients, and I charge based on the scores they ask," she said.

She photoshops the photos of the overseas students over the students who are supposed to take the exam, and the students take a forged passport to the exam venue.

For the SAT test, she charges a minimum of 40,000 yuan ($6,540) every time.