People’s Daily recently reported that the U.S. ACT exams were unexpectedly cancelled in Hong Kong and South Korea only a few hours before they were supposed to start, impacting 5,500 students in 56 test centers. ACT suspected a wide-spread leak of the exam contents. This is yet another example of an “East Asian Cheating Epidemic” which is polluting the U.S. higher education system. In Korea, SAT leaks have happened for several years. Chinese students were found cheating on the SAT too. The report pointed out that the United States does not have a government run national college entry exam. The public has accepted the ACT and the SAT as recognized exams for college entry. The organizations running the exams are partially responsible for leaks – maybe their libraries of tests are not big enough and the test patterns are too obvious to discourage guessing. The SAT significantly increased the toughness of this year’s exams, which resulted in more students taking the ACT.
Source: People’s Daily, June 12, 2016
http://world.people.com.cn/n1/2016/0612/c1002-28426642.html