One enterprising would-be surgeon is described in this article as a "rectal specialist." I agree with the description, as anyone that steals high-stakes test items, only to offer them for relatively low dollars ona public forum like eBay, can be safely said to have his head planted firmly in his...
The American Board of Surgery has revised its testing policies after a doctor who failed a certification exam went back to review his test, wrote down the answers to dozens of questions and then put them up for sale on an Internet auction site. The Philadelphia-based board, which has certified tens of thousands of surgeons nationwide, found out last summer that 86 questions used on its 290-question multiple-choice exam were listed on eBay. Questions used on the exam are rotated from a large pool each year...Craig Edward Amshel, a rectal specialist out of St. Augustine, Fla., failed the 2002 exam. But, as was the practice at the time, he was later allowed to review his test, alone, at the board's offices in downtown Philadelphia for several hours.
"I was able to take notes very quickly and wrote down about 100 questions with the correct answer," Amshel wrote in an e-mail to a person posing, on the board's behalf, as someone preparing to take the 2004 exam. "Believe me, I was quite thrilled when I took the test last year as some questions were verbatim."
Amshel, who passed the 2003 test, has had his board certification revoked. Last fall, the board sued Amshel in federal court in Philadelphia, alleging copyright infringement and civil theft.
Helpful advice for would-be cheaters: Should you decide to steal items, please note that the value of the items includes the entire cost of developing, proofing, assembling, scoring, and using such items, not only on that particular exam but on future exams. For example, stealing a printed item form that cost over half a million dollars to develop will mean that you could be charged with stealing something worth over half a million dollars. Stealing expensive items and selling them for a paltry couple hundred per item bunch thus reflects an astonishing lack of economic sense to go along with the astonishing lack of intelligence and ethics.
Helpful advice for testing companies: Learn from the ABS's mistake and don't allow examinees to review complete test forms in private - not if you ever plan to use those items again.
Posted by kswygert at May 31, 2005 03:12 PM