Lawsuit against the Chinese Cheaters

Well, as a resident of Taiwan you understand that Beijing will not release anything too controvercial; I am impressed the article is out at all, but it is a general knowledge that these guys do sell real questions - they claim so at least.

Sorry, no contact info
-=-

Wow, that was an interesting article...

If they did steal real questions that would be really, really bad... I wonder how much it would actually help. Afterall, it's not like the test gives the same questions to every student... right? I always thought that the test gives random questions from various bins (each bin having a huge number of possible questions).

Along those lines, did you guys see the Dateline story on cheating in the US. Apparently, alot of students are using cell phones, graphing calculators, text messaging, etc. to pass classes in high school and college. One chronic cheater was on his way to a prestigious job on Wall Street or something like that. Another guy that writes papers and admissions essays for money is going to Med school. I think he wrote essays for his friend applying to Med school too. All the cheaters were showing off their techniques. Some of them can text message on cell phone about as fast as I can type... and with ONE hand! The students were really proud of the fact that they were able to beat the system and I think the reporter was kinda put off by how arrogant they were. I don't think they even gave a second though as to wether or not what they were doing was wrong.

I guess no matter where you are, there will always be some people will do anything to get ahead, right or wrong.

One of the methods that I heard of - somebody bribed the personnel working at the test center and they downloaded the question bins for a particular month. I have read something about GMAC changing and going away from ETS and this flaw being one of the reasons. The way tests are made, only a small number of questions is used each month and they never repeat in the future, thus if one downloads the bins in June, they are useless or supposed to be useless in July. Even if true, the company supposedly did this for years. The original litigation lasted 2.5 years and ended in Sept. 2003. This article is very vague about copyrighted material. It says they reprinted, but does not specify if it was only OG or actual questions. However due to the vagueness, it is reasonable to assume that they were re-printing the actual questions. They have a website: https://www.neworiental.org/ but it is all in Chinese.

Can you post a link to the Dateline story on cheating in the US?

-Bogdan.

Sure... I just have to make one correction, the show was PRIMETIME not Dateline... Primetime, Nightline, Dateline... they all sound the same

Here is the link:

https://abcnews.go.com/sections/Primetim ... 429-1.html

Really interesting stuff...

I think that the B-schools should not look at the GMAT of the Chinese applicants at all. My guess is that the majority of the Chinese applicants cheat. At least that's what I've heard from credible sources.

What is known is different from what is not being known. I have an Indian friend, who graduated from IIT and told me once they got set of questions tested on AGRE-math, AGRE-CS, and AGRE-Physics. How are they getting these questions? Just by remembering. Of course, 'are they really cheating' is a 'normative' question? Answers to such questions does 'not' produce knowledge, thanks to the normativity.

Wow, that's a very strong statement. Out of curiosity, what is your credible source?

In related articles, it's estimated that up to 7 out of 10 high school in the US have cheated on their exams. Shall we throw out these kids' applications as well? (Imagine how many students have plagarized work...)

Here's the link: https://www.familyeducation.com/article/ ... 68,00.html

As fair as that would be, I don't think it's really a viable option. Cheating exists everywhere at every level. The only thing we can do is to rise above it. The score means nothing if you didn't earn it...

Thanks for the information. Given everybody knows 'some cheat depending on the place, time, and context', then what conclusion has been reached here in disguise: 'Chinese are immoral'

Of course, the ethicists(moral philosophers) from the 'modern' culture that Western is concluded that 'others' are immoral.

Do such arguments pass intelligibility test? That is, if one says some culture, as a whole, is morally inferior, or stupid, such lost the 'explanatory force'. How come some cultures survived without the morals the 'modern' parrots for thousands of years?


Consider as a specific example the classical Chinese language in which the early Confucians wrote. Not merely does that language contain no lexical item for тАШmoralтАЩ, it also does not have terms corresponding to тАШfreedomтАЩ, тАШlibertyтАЩ, тАШautonomyтАЩ, тАШindividualтАЩ, тАШutilityтАЩ, тАШrationalityтАЩ, тАШobjectiveтАЩ, тАШsubjective, тАШchoiceтАЩ, тАШdilemmaтАЩ, тАШdutyтАЩ, тАШrightsтАЩ, and probably most eerie of all for a moralist, classical Chinese has no lexical item corresponding to тАШoughtтАЩ - prudential or obligatory (Rosemont, Jr., H., тАЬAgainst Relativism.тАЭ In Larson G. J. and E. Deutsch (eds.), *Interpreting Across Boundaries: New Essays in Comparative Philosophy*. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988, p:61)


This claim is as puzzling as it is startling: in classical Chinese it is not possible to speak of тАШmoral dutyтАЩ or тАШmoral dilemmasтАЩ or тАШmoral choicesтАЩ. It is not even possible to formulate a rule which uses the notions of тАШoughtтАЩ - either obligatory (тАЬAll ought to do XтАЭ) or prudentially (тАЬIf one desires X then one ought to do YтАЭ). In the western intellectual tradition, we believe it to be the тАШessenceтАЩ of a moral principle or norm that it is formulated using the тАШoughtтАЩ - either in obligatory or prudential form. Without тАШoughtтАЩ, there would be no difference in kind between factual and evaluative statements. Yet, it is impossible to do precisely that in Confucianism. The philosophical significance is immense:

Speakers (writers) of languages that have no terms (or concept clusters) corresponding to тАШmoralтАЩ cannot logically have any moral principles (ibid.: 60).

But, rightly enough, we take Confucianism at least as an example of a moral system. What is the upshot of the above remark? Rosemont formulates the issue as follows:

If one grants that in contemporary western moral philosophy тАШmoralsтАЩ is intimately linked with the concept cluster elaborated above, and if none of that concept cluster can be found in the Confucian lexicon, then the Confucians not only cannot be moral philosophers, they cannot be ethical philosophers either. But this contention is absurd; by any account of the Confucians, they were clearly concerned about the human conduct, and what constituted the good life. If these are not ethical considerations, what are? (ibid.: 64).

The intriguing question, apart from the truth-value of these claims, is about their intelligibility. What is the structure of the moral domain if it is not defined by norms? If one does not act morally simply by тАШfollowing rulesтАЩ, how does one learn to act in a moral way? How is an ethical judgment possible without referring to norms? How are ethical disputes settled? And, above all, how is an identification of such a domain possible at all?

The universalisability of norms does not mean that the western people all factually follow these norms. Even if everyone were to lie, the ethical statement тАЬNo one ought to lieтАЭ is a universal moral statement.

The existence of *debates* about abortion, war, etc. are indicative of the nature of normative rules. Because тАЬone ought not to killтАЭ, debates and doctrines about тАЬjustified warтАЭ come into being. It is important to note that these doctrines do not contradict the injunction not to kill but provide justifications for undertaking such an immoral action. (They provide, so to speak, the mitigating circumstances.)

A weakness or strength? :-)

Somebody has been doing their homework. I would not want to argue agains you

The facts are very interesting about concepts and words; Russian does not have many of them either e.g. privacy, copyright, and all other things that are not being enforced....

I completely agree... going up against Halle in a debate would be a humbling experience.

Halle, you write really well. I wish I could write like that!

At any rate, I think statements like those made by sebl will always generate a spirited discussion. Afterall, our nationality is a part of who we are...

It's interesting how far people will go to beat the system these days. They had this really cool demo of one student who would wear rubber bands around his wrist. It looked like the student was wearing them for aesthetic purposes, but in reality, he had written notes on the rubber bands. In order to increase the data storage capacity of the rubber bands, he copied notes on rubber bands while they were stretched. To read the notes he'd simply stretch the rubber bands under his desk.

and i've known of americans who cheat. it's also from a credible source. let's invalidate all their scores as well. that's a very ignorant statement to write.

What he was trying to say is this: Of course, some Americans do cheat yet they are moral. That is to say, 'some American's cheating' is not an counter instance to the holy 'normative' cliche--'One ought not to cheat'.

What is at stake is: Except for Americans/Westerners, or 'Englightened' ones, all others are morally deficient. Simply put, the chinese-way of going-out breeds such behavior. The latter has been validated by 'the majority' vote of Journalists and Social Scientists. That is the state of 'human sciences!'

Of course there are Americans who cheat in the GMAT. However, that is not the majority. I didn't say that the schools should ignore the chinese GMAT just because there are chinese people out there who cheat in the GMAT. I said they should do that because "the majority" cheat. That's in fact why the ETS sent letters to all of the US schools warning them not to give credit to the previously administered GRE scores from China. So, in your perspective, the ETS must be very ignorant to do that.

But the by the poll on the site I gave previously, the "majority" (7 out of 10) of american students admit to cheating on exams in high school... because they do this to increase their GPA's to get into college, shouldn't we invalidate their GPAs to be fair?

Cheating is rampant in American universities as well. I just did a simple search and I found a whole bunch of articles on the topic. What's even more sad is that educators are helping students cheat on standardized tests to secure more money for their districts... I know your argument is limited to the GMAT, but I just thought a more general discussion would be intersting to throw into the discussion...

I'm not taking sides because cheating is wrong, and those who do it don't deserve to succeed. But we shouldn't single out one group, especially when the problem is so wide spread. I just disagree to your statement that the majority of americans don't cheat (just good timing that I saw that segment on Primetime).

Fun reading!
https://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/colleg ... _brief.php

https://www.glass-castle.com/clients/www ... under.html

Oldie but a goodie!
https://archives.thedaily.washington.edu ... 10196.html
https://www.eagleforum.org/educate/2000/jan00/cheat.html

Whoa, talk about generalizations and stereotypes. Americans in the "majority" don't cheat and Chinese in the "majority" cheat? so you're saying that ETS should not just invalidate the scores of chinese people based on the case at new oriental school but on the fact that the "majority" of chinese are cheaters.

heres another website that details the cheating in america. add this to the list given by jo1to6:
https://www.wokr13.tv/news/local/story.a ... E4EFE02C21

theres the website https://www.realtestquestion.com and the rumor that there may be "real" test questions in the gmat plus, i think those are considered cheating as well. so if americans are caught cheating using those services, then should all scores of american students be invalidated.

and how do you qualified "majority" when you say the "majority" of chinese in china cheated. can you back that up with statistics or some authoritative articles, instead of just using your "credible" sources. and also, can you give a link to the article that say that ETS wrote to U.S. schools requesting that the schools not honor the chinese students' GRE scores. I find that unbelievable. it's so unfair to punish every chinese who took the test because ETS failed to secure its questions. If anything, it's the ETS's fault. So now, should chinese people in china even bother to take the test because if they score well then that score will be called into question because the "majority" of chinese people cheat right?

i find it unbelievable that some people are so quick to label a whole group of people due to a few bad apples and yet when there are a few bad apples in their own groups then they are so quick to point out that people are individuals and should not be judged by those few bad apples.

Cheating in American High school is wide spread. However, the colleges still use their GPA. Why is this so? That is because there is a difference in impact between cheating in 1-2 classes out of 30-40 classes one will take during high school and cheating in one single standarized test which carries
at least as much weight as all the grades of 30-40 classes together.
If the majority of the American students cheated for "most" of the classes they were taking, then the college would invalidate their GPAs.

As for your request of the link regarding GRE score warning :

https://www.hothousemedia.com/etm/etmbac ... 04news.htm

Crackdown on test fraud

The New Oriental School in China was ordered to pay the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) US$1.21 million in compensation at the end of last year for stealing test questions, according to a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

The two companies, which between them own and administrate the Toefl and Gmat tests, sued the school in 2001 for selling pirated copies of copyrighted tests to students and hiring test-takers to sit the examinations solely to memorise test questions. The Toefl and Gmat tests are used by many universities and management education institutions in English speaking destinations as admissions criteria.

New Oriental School, which claimed a nine-month waiting list in China, denied stealing tests and said the verdict was unfair. It is appealing against the ruling.

Detecting test cheats has long been a problem for test authorities as well as university admissions officers, and the Chinese market in particular has presented significant challenges. In 2001 and 2002, ETS warned institutions in the USA that scores on the GRE and Toefl tests earned by students in China may have been inflated by cheating.

Kurt Landgraf, Chief Executive Officer of ETS, said in a statement, 'The court's rulings' help to ensure that Chinese students will receive fair and accurate test scores that will enable them to obtain educational opportunities based on their merit.'

Staying one step ahead of cheats is a priority for all test coordinators. In March last year, administrators of the Ielts test started printing candidate photographs on all test report forms in an effort to crack down on cheating, after reports emerged that test takers were paying other people to sit the test on their behalf (see Language Travel Magazine, August, page 5). And the test material for each of the 48 annual dates is now used once only.

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Also, the "rumor" that https://www.realtestquestion.com actually has the real test problems is wrong. The site claims they have, but it turned out that they are merely just modifying the OG by themselves. That's old news.


HTH