Educational Testing Service recently announced a massive reduction in the availability of their new computerized Graduate Record Exam after a leading test preparation company suggested the test is vulnerable to cheating.
The GRE is used as a critical marker for evaluating students who wish to enter graduate school. ETS writes and administers the GRE and other standardized tests nationwide.
The problem does not affect most Dartmouth students, as most students who take the GRE at Dartmouth take the handwritten exam.
Kaplan Education Center released a statement on Dec. 9, reporting that Kaplan researchers were able to compile a large amount of the GRE question pool with the help of students who had taken the test.
Kaplan is a nationwide for-profit organization that prepares students to take standardized exams.
The investigation that Kaplan launched showed that a small pool of questions is used on the test for an extended period, making it easy for students to cheat.
ETS responded by reducing the number of weeks the exam will be available for computerized testing by close to 70 percent over the next six months. The introduction of computer GRE subject tests planned for Spring 1995 will be indefinitely postponed.
Kaplan GRE Study Programs Director Jose Ferreira said, "They knew cheating was a possibility and I think that they were just trying to cut corners while making the exam."
"It is irresponsible to have a test that is so easy to cheat on," he added.
Nancy Cole, president of ETS, told the Chronicle of Higher Education, "We made a conscious decision to not implement yet our full scale security protection procedures."
"We would have ended up using a lot of test questions for testing very few students," Cole added.
In May, Kaplan voiced concerns about the test's vulnerability at a hearing before the New York State Standing Committee on Higher Education.
"They added some questions after the first complaint, expanding the pool of questions from 600 to 1000," Ferreira said. "We wanted them to make the pool as large as 10,000 questions," he added.
Ferreira said allegations of previous resentment between Kaplan and ETS over the release of practice questions and grading methods were untrue.
"It didn't cause resentment on our part," he said. "But students have a right to see the types of questions they will be tested on."
Ferreira said Kaplan challenged the computerized GRE on educational grounds.
"With the paper and pencil test, they publish a table that tells you exactly why you got the score you got," Ferreira said. "With the computerized test you don't know why you got the score you got."
According to Kaplan President Jonathan Grayer, ETS has filed a suit in federal court to quiet Kaplan. He also said the announcement of the lawsuit stood in stark contrast to the quiet announcement of the tests pullback.
"The lawsuit is a frivolous attempt to prevent third party evaluation and criticism of its exams," Grayer said. "ETS is trying to divert attention away from the security flaws by shooting the messenger."
Ferreira commented, "I wish they would just fix the damn test."
In Nov. 1992, the GRE became the first national admissions test offered on computer. The following November, it was changed to an adaptive test. The adaptive procedure customizes the selection of the questions to match the skills of the test taker.
Of the 420,000 potential graduate students who will take the GRE this year, 100,000 people will take the test on a computer.
