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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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday August 04 2016, @10:56AM
And of course add to that that most of the test is multiple-choice, which is the second-easiest kind of question to memorize and cheat with.
That said, college admissions officers won't be fooled if a real idiot somehow manages a very high score, because high school grades count far more than standardized tests in most colleges. They also look for other signs that you might be a good student, including your extracurriculars, what classes you took (e.g. AP physics good, remedial pre-algebra bad), your interview if you had one, and your essay. Cheating on the SAT would at best get you past the first screening where many applications are rejected outright for poor grades and test scores, before they've even bothered looking at anything else.
Even if you successfully cheat on everything and manage to get admitted to a school you are not qualified for, after 1 semester odds are you'll be unable to keep up and will end up on academic probation, and then after 2-3 semesters you'll be kicked out.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:28PM
This is why it will be bad for the cheater (unless they can keep cheating throughout college.) But it's also bad for the college and the person who doesn't get in. And, it makes the SATs less useful as a tool. Relying on the long-term self-realization of cheaters that in the long run they're screwed has quite high costs on everyone involved.