Another Cheating in South Korea?

[marvin100]

@AlfredoKim‌

Well, okay, we can indeed be civil, but only if you would acknowledge your mistakes without trying to sidestep the truth and justify your inconsistencies with feeble explanations to the contrary or digressing from the argument at hand.

That’s not very civil at all, but I’ll respond anyway, since I have a little time right now.

You acknowledge that your discrepancy was perhaps a minor mistake, but still assert that there might be a modicum of truth underlying it. The June 2014 domestic exam and the June 2014 international exam are two very different exams; hence, the fact that the College Board issued an exam from the same month and year is indeed purely coincidence. It’s like trying to say that the “Koreans” were responsible for the terrorist attacks or that the “New York” team won the World Series. There are, since you live on the Korean peninsula, two very different types of Koreans – the North Koreans and the South Koreans, and one should clearly distinguish between the two.

That’s an unreasonable analogy. It’s more like saying “I hated that class with Professor Wood” when you meant “I hated that class with Professor Woods.” June 2014 Domestic isn’t a subset of June 2014 International (or vice versa), and neither is a broader generalization than the other. They’re the same year, the same month, but different administrations. Your view that it’s a coincidence is, as I’ve said before, reasonable; my view that it’s a minor inaccuracy is also reasonable. What’s unreasonable is your unmitigated certainty that only your interpretation is correct.

Have I not made it clear throughout almost every single one of my prior posts that it is “grossly discriminatory” to generalize and lump all the Koreans into the same category as all the cheaters without providing some type of concrete proof instead of spreading an unsubstantiated, bogus rumor? The harm is as clear as night and day! Obviously, if I’m an innocent Korean test-taker, but everyone else around me is saying that the “Koreans” are cheating yet again, it’s safe to say that I may indeed be suspected without any warranted justification and lumped together into the same group. Such harm can come in the form of another mass score delay or a test cancellation or even in the college admissions process, where admissions officers may not believe that my scores are legitimate.

The rumor did not lump all the Koreans into the same category, nor have any of my comments. I work with hundreds of innocent, hard-working Korean students every year, so I know better than most what a small minority the cheaters represent. And even the original rumor said that “Some Korean private SAT prep companies” had the test (and it qualified its claim by stating clearly that “this may be a rumor without substance”).

History has shown that non-cheaters don’t actually suffer from skepticism–year after year there are cheating rumors and even actual, proven cheating scandals (I’ve been here for all of them), and year after year colleges keep accepting Korean students (although the rise of China is eating into that number somewhat, which only goes to show that rumors about Chinese cheating aren’t hurting Chinese applicants either!).

As for the more concrete forms of harm–“mass score delay or a test cancellation”–these only occur when cheating is found to have happened, in which case you can’t blame the rumor because it is the known existence of cheating that has caused the delay or cancellation. No scores have been delayed and no tests have been canceled because of rumors, and this won’t be the first.

Believe me when I say that my investment, my bias, is on the side of the innocent Korean test takers. I’ve been helping them reach their goals without cheating since 2002. It absolutely makes my blood boil when tests are canceled, but I’m mad at the cheaters and those who helped them cheat (obviously) and at the College Board (which is very aware of the problems with recycling tests and has chosen to do nothing about it). You’re mad at the OP, who–in good faith and with ample qualification/caveats–passed on a rumor that turned out to be not quite provably true. You can go ahead and feel that way, but I continue to believe your anger is misdirected.

Based on your prior posts, I can see that you are a well-respected and conscientious poster who would like to put an end to all the cheating, but I cringe everytime you adamantly assert something that is, once again, completely false.

Thanks for acknowledging my good faith and posting history.

The College Board did indeed recycle a test domestically (yes, that means in the U.S.!) just last month in December, when it reused the 2013 November domestic exam in 2014 December in the UNITED STATES! So, obviously, this disgusting practice of recycling exams is not just happening internationally, but also domestically.

That’s one time, whereas almost all the international tests in the last 6 years have been recycled.

My point of contention was simply that we shouldn’t start to generalize and accuse “the Koreans” of cheating when it didn’t even occur!

Neither I nor the OP is doing so. In fact, I couldn’t agree more that it’s unfair to judge all Koreans by the presence of a small minority of cheaters.