Don Sorensen's weekly cheating new round-up is available here. He very graciously links to N2P - thanks!
I just have to comment on a couple of the stories he uncovered.
In Singapore, they take test security very seriously, it seems. Jail sentences for leaking test items are rare here in the US, but anyone who might be thinking of sneaking away with a test booklet or two should know that those crimes are often vigorously prosecuted as theft (of copyrighted material). The "amount" that is declared stolen is often calculated as the cost of development of every now-exposed and unusable item, and this value can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This FCAT cheating story broke when I was on vacation. The sticking point seems to be, as on the SAT, identical patterns of wrong answers. Students are being allowed retakes in June.
Finally, there are the cellphone cheaters. I've posted about this before. There's no reason on earth to allow students to have cellphones in class during exams, and it's hard to believe that teachers are paying so little attention that students have been able to cheat in this fashion. (Update: Devoted Reader Chris C points out that some schools haven't been ignoring the problem at all, and are in fact actively combating it.)
Thanks to Don for all these links. I plan to make my commentary on his weekly cheating roundup a regular feature here on N2P.
Posted by kswygert at June 18, 2004 10:23 AM