Most students stare intently at their exam booklets when taking the Graduate Record Exam. But some students who took the test last month in Los Angeles were concentrating on something else -- their pencils.
On Saturday, federal agents broke up a cheating ring in which students allegedly paid $6,000 each to have answers to the GRE and other tests coded onto their pencils.
The scheme used time-zone differences to defeat the test.
Prosecutors allege a team of experts took exams in New York using assumed names, then telephoned the answers to Los Angeles
George Kobayshi, of Arcadia, Calif., was arrested Saturday on fraud charges for providing test-takers with answers to the GRE, the Graduate Management Admissions Test and the Test of English as a Foreign Language.
To identify the test-takers involved in the scheme, ETS will review confiscated records from Kobayshi's American Test Center and will investigate the center's clients, Kevin Gonzales, spokesman for the Educational Testing Service, the Princeton, N.J. company that administers the standardized tests, told The Dartmouth.
The scam was discovered by an undercover federal postal investigator posing as a student wanting to take the Oct. 19 GMAT. He was guaranteed a score of 650 out of 800 possible points for $6,000.
Students participating in the scam flew to Los Angeles and were transported to various test-taking sites to avoid suspicion of concentrated high scores, according to the Associated Press.
Gonzales said Kobayshi will be arraigned Thursday in Los Angeles federal court.
If convicted Kobayshi will face up to 10 years in prison for mail and wire fraud and a fine of $250,000, or twice his profit from the scheme -- whichever is greater, according to the AP.
Gonzales said the discovery of scheme is proof ETS's preventive measures work. He said while attempts to cheat are frequent, most are uncovered.
"We scramble the tests so that there are different questions on different pages," he said. "There is a division of ETS called Test Security which protects the integrity of the exams."
Most scams are uncovered by ETS or with the help of federal agents, he said.
"There is always a leak. It is not the type of thing you can keep secret," he said.
But others are not so confident in the methods ETS uses to prevent cheating.
Seppy Basili, director of pre-college programs for Kaplan Education Centers said he found the scam "shocking when it's so easy to fix" cheating problems.
Basili said there are three approaches to fixing the problem of time-zone cheating.
One way is to stagger the times at which students take the tests in different time zones.
ETS could also jumble questions and answer choices, he said.
The third option is to administer different tests in different time zones, he said.
Basili said ETS probably does not adopt these measures because they would be expensive to implement.
Organized cheating on standardized exams is not a new occurrence.
Basili said from 1988 to 1991 time-zone cheating compromised the Scholastic Aptitude Test in Los Angeles.
Gonzales said in New York in 1993, the Total Testing Corporation organized impersonators who took tests for students.
But he said ETS believes the majority of test-takers are honest.
"Those who took the test fairly have clean consciences. People who cheat pay the penalty," Gonzales said.
The scam is "frustrating to both students and organizations like ours that prepare students seriously," Basili said.
Evelyn Hornig, who proctors many of the graduate exams at Dartmouth, said the test-taking policies make it difficult for students to cheat.
"I've never been uncomfortable about the security of the tests at Dartmouth," Hornig said.
She said she proctors the exam by following ETS standards, which means allowing only students with an ETS admission ticket and picture identification to take exams.
The GRE scandal brings up questions regarding the integrity of the test and its effectiveness as a measure of student's progress.
"They are high stakes tests," Gonzales said. "The fact that people cheated shows how serious it is."
Susan Wright, associate director of Career Services, said this GRE scheme will not affect senior morale at the College.
"It never ceases to amaze me the lengths people go to do well on these tests," Wright said. "It will cause ETS to look at their procedures."
She said the confidence of ETS in their test is of the most importance.
