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US board rules out ‘questionable’ high school entrance test scores
2015/10/23 1:26:46

  MORE than 350 young people who last month sat the Upper Level Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT) for admission into high schools in the United States have had their scores canceled due to suspicions of cheating.

  The US-based test board said in an e-mail sent to the 357 examinees who sat the test on September 19 in Shanghai and Beijing that after “careful study and analysis” of the scores there was “a reasonable basis to question” their validity.

  According to a report by the Beijing Times, all of the examinees at one English-training school got a perfect score of 2,400 on the test.

  The organizer of the examination in Shanghai declined Shanghai Daily’s requests for a comment on the issue.

  Roger Deng, an English-language teacher at cramming school New Channel, said he wasn’t surprised at the ruling as there had been a lot of rumors of test-takers performing suspiciously well.

  “I heard that a lot of students got full marks. I’ve been teaching English for seven years and none of my students have ever done that,” he said.

  “It’s really suspicious,” he said, adding that it is possible the questions were leaked before the test.

  While no evidence of foul play has been provided, some language schools promote themselves by claiming to have access to “live” test questions, Deng said.

  The problem, he said, is that if students cheat in a test and then get accepted to a school in the US or Canada, it is inevitable that at some point they’ll get found out.

  “If their English is not good enough, they simply won’t be able to keep up with their classmates,” he said.

  Emily Wang, an education consultant at Wailian Overseas Consulting Group, agreed.

  “I had some students who gained admission to prestigious schools in America with very high scores in the SSAT and TOEFL tests, but they were later expelled as they didn’t do well in class and started skipping them,” she said.

  Deng said the problem with the alleged cheating scandal is that truly gifted children will be unfairly punished.

  “One of my students scored 2,050 in the (September) test, but he was also told that his score had also been ruled out,” he said.

  Wang said she advises parents who feel their children are capable of meeting the required standards — and assuming they can afford it — to sit the test overseas.

  “This reduces the risk of cheating and having genuine scores nullified,” she said.