Smart enough to pass, but dumb enough to get caught cheating
The NYT has the scoop - two Columbia University undergrads have been charged with scheming to cheat on the GRE. The "high tech" plot involved "laptop computers, wireless microphones and a digital camera":
The scheme called for one man to take the test on a computer in a private room at the Sylvan Learning Center, then attach a transmitter to the computer and send images of test questions to a laptop in a van parked nearby, the police said. In the van, they said, the other student would save the images. He would also look up or calculate answers and radio them to the test taker, who would be wearing a wireless earpiece.
The police said the students told them they had designed the system, using equipment that Mr. Bakhru [one of the two men] said cost $12,000, in the hope that getting high scores on the test, known as the G.R.E., would earn them scholarships. But the police are investigating whether they were also going to sell exam questions to other prospective test takers.
I certainly hope the police are investigating that angle, because it's the only one that makes sense. No students who are smart enough to figure out such a high-tech scheme and willing to spend $12,000 to put it into place are doing so just to pass a simple test of verbal analogies and algebra questions. However, there's good money to be made in selling such items to students who aren't smart enough to know how to turn on a laptop computer, much less transmit items with one.
Earlier this year, the police said, both men signed up to take the examination at a testing center in Manhasset. They chose to retake it at the Garden City center, officials said, because it has a room where people with physical or learning disabilities can take the test privately.
Taking advantage of accommodated-testing loopholes - whoda thunk it?
Sergeant Bartkowski said investigators suspected that the men intended to make money from their scheme. He said that while questioning Mr. Bakhru, he had voiced sympathy about the difficulty of the test.
"He got very indignant and said, `I can ace this with my eyes closed,' " the sergeant recalled. "Common sense would tell you that they're in on this gold mine. If you could pass this test with your eyes closed, why set up this elaborate scheme?"
What a shmuck. Are we supposed to be in awe of Mr. Bakhru's intelligence? He's "smart" enough to pass the GRE with his eyes closed, yet not honest nor industrious enough to use that intelligence wisely and work for a living. Instead, he figures out the latest high-tech scheme to make money by stealing ETS's property, which belies any intelligence he might have. The difference between the brilliant Mr. Bakhru, and the scumbag who smashed my boyfriend's car window and stole his CD player last weekend, is one of degree, not of kind. Presumably, the only reason Mr. Bakhru didn't try to bilk a casino with this high-tech scheme is because he knows security would catch him on the spot and slam him into a Las Vegas jail cell, which makes him a louse AND a coward. Good riddance to bad rubbish.