Did a Test Company Mess Up Its Hopes to Go Global? | Newsweek Education

The Perfect Score
Emily Flynn Vencat
Diplomas For Dollars
Mail Call

Responding to our Sept. 6 cover story on testing, many readers deplored the emphasis schools place on standardized exams like the SAT. "Our world needs more creative, curious and engaged thinkers, not more people who are good at taking tests," wrote one. "The test can never measure character traits such as determination and a passion for learning," warned another. Still, one correspondent argued that "social mobility is greater with testing than without it." One letter took that thought a step further, suggesting that if U.S. leadership is based on meritocracy, "rather than hounding presidential candidates about past drug use, we should require them to reveal their SAT scores."
Behind The Sat
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For $6,000, You Get A Pencil With The Answers Inc

Three years into the con, it went sour. According to Mark Godsey, an assistant U.S. attorney, one of the clients for the Oct. 19 Graduate Management Admission Test was an undercover postal inspector. A week later, federal agents charged Po Chieng Ma, the owner of the American Test Center in El Monte, Calif., with two counts of mail and wire fraud--he could get out on bail this week. If convicted, Ma faces up to 10 years in prison and a hefty fine. But now, critics of the Educational Testing Service, which administers the tests, want to know how ETS could have missed the scheme for so long. And university deans are preparing for bad news, trying to decide what to do if they find that one of their students was an exam cheater.
The Search For The Elusive 1600

The biggest change in the SAT is the inclusion of 10 math questions for which students will have to write in the answers. (Fifty other math questions will still be multiple choice.) For the first time, students may use calculators. On the verbal section, there are no more "antonym' questions to test the vocabulary. Instead, students will now have to fill in blanks in sentences.