Dishonest Act on the Written Exam of the GRE

Owing to a dishonest act of 64 examinees of Korea, China and Taiwan who took the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) on November 23, they were found to have cheated on the written exam. Finally, their scores of all subjects were cancelled.

Supervising the GRE, ETS announced on January 21, “Among 6,000 examinees in three Asian countries including Korea, 64 examinees didn’t use their own creative sentences. So, we cancelled their scores of all subjects”. ETS executed a close investigation for 900 examinees who were suspected of a copy of writing.

ETS added, “We cannot say a nationality of examinees who did the dishonest act. We will send a record card to 800 examinees who were free from the suspicion.”

However, they have to study for a graduate school entrance exam because the time for application of the US graduate schools already expired.

Such the exam confiscation was caused by the dishonest act of some examinees who intended to have only good scores.

ETS decided to change the GRE of some Asian countries(Korea, China, Taiwan & Hong Kong) to a holograph test from a computer-based teat (CBT) from last October, because problems of the GRE were flowed through Internet last August.

As the CBT is changed to the holograph test, students of these Asian countries have received disadvantages such as the decrease of the exam chances.

When the GRE is taken through computer, examinees can take the test frequently at a desire data. However, after changed into the holograph test, examinees can take the test only one day of March 15 this year.

An official of the Korea-American Educational Commission(KAEC) said, “After the problems of the GRE test were flowed through Internet, a head office of ETS is watching some Asian countries carefully. We are worried about that there will be other restraints owing to the cheating.

As the dishonest acts are excessive to increase the records in India, the test of GRE was interrupted for several years. ETS sent a warning letter describing ‘we cannot believe TOEFL and GRE scores of Chinese students’ to each university of US in 2001. So, most of examinees were misunderstood.

Choi Jeong-Hwa, professor of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies indicated, “The scores of TOEIC or other English tests are high, but the actual life application capacity shows a tendency to decrease. In this case, it is not helpful to the studying abroad.”

Sun-Woo Kim sublime@donga.com