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posted by martyb on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the leak:plumber-::-SAT:??? dept.

According to Reuters:

Just months after the College Board unveiled the new SAT* this March, a person with access to material for upcoming versions of the redesigned exam provided Reuters with hundreds of confidential test items. The questions and answers include 21 reading passages -- each with about a dozen questions -- and about 160 math problems.

Reuters doesn't know how widely the items have circulated. The news agency has no evidence that the material has fallen into the hands of what the College Board calls "bad actors" -- groups that the organization says "will lie, cheat and steal for personal gain." But independent testing specialists briefed on the matter said the breach represents one of the most serious security lapses that's come to light in the history of college-admissions testing.

To ensure the materials were authentic, Reuters provided copies to the College Board. In a subsequent letter to the news agency, an attorney for the College Board said publishing any of the items would have a dire impact, "destroying their value, rendering them unusable, and inflicting other injuries on the College Board and test takers."

College Board spokeswoman Sandra Riley said in a statement that the organization was moving to contain any damage from the leak. The College Board is "taking the test forms with stolen content off of the SAT administration schedule while we continue to monitor and analyze the situation," she said.

Then, of course, there's the problem of unprepared "students" clogging up the already sluggish educational system...

* [Editor's Note] The SAT is a standardized test widely used for college admissions in the United States. It was first introduced in 1926, and its name and scoring have changed several times, being originally called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, then the Scholastic Assessment Test, then the SAT I: Reasoning Test, then the SAT Reasoning Test, and now simply the SAT.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @09:42AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @09:42AM (#383986)

    This is true.

    Put differently, a test can be vulnerable to rote memorization of answers without being dependent on (or even testing) rote memorization.

    Unfortunately, standardized exams which are predominately multiple choice are very vulnerable to rote memorization if the test bank is compromised.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @10:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @10:25AM (#383998)

    Unfortunately, standardized exams which are predominately multiple choice are very vulnerable to rote memorization if the test bank is compromised.

    Current standardized tests are also very largely dependent on rote memorization. So that makes this problem even worse.