Changes in GMAT Security

[sallyawp]

<p>The following are some quotes from today’s WSJ about new measures being undertaken to prevent cheating on the GMAT:</p>

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Business Schools
Try Palm Scans
To Finger Cheats
By JOHN HECHINGER

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In a sign of increasing concern about cheating, the nation’s top business schools will soon require a high-tech identity check for standardized admissions tests.</p>

<p>Aspiring corporate executives taking the Graduate Management Admission Test, or GMAT, will have to undergo a “palm vein” scan, which takes an infrared picture of the blood coursing through their hands. The image – which resembles a highway interchange in a major city – is unique to every individual. The scans are used widely in Japan among users of automated teller machines but only recently have appeared in the U.S.</p>

<p>Palm-vein scanning on GMAT test takers will begin next month in Korea and India, with U.S. centers starting as early as this fall and a world-wide rollout by May.</p>

<p>The technology targets “proxy” test taking, a fraud in which applicants hire high-scoring imposters to take the exam in their place. Five years ago, federal authorities broke up a ring of six fraudsters who took more than 590 exams, including GMATs, for customers who paid at least $3,000.</p>

<p>David Wilson, president of the Graduate Management Admission Council, which represents top business schools and oversees the test, won’t disclose the level of cheating today but says the case underscored the potential. Since 2006, test takers have been required to undergo digital fingerprinting to validate their identity. They are also photographed, and videotaped taking the exam. The council says the new vein-scan technology is superior and will be more acceptable to consumers, who often associate fingerprinting with the police.</p>

<p>With the palm scan, students will let their hands hover for a few seconds over the device – a roughly 1.4-inch cube – which captures the vein patterns in their palms for an image that is archived along with test results.

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Donald L. McCabe, a Rutgers University professor of management, says it is understandable that business schools are now “protecting the integrity of their test, whatever it takes.”</p>

<p>Professor McCabe has surveyed more than 200,000 students over 19 years and concluded that those in business school cheat more than their peers in other disciplines. He says business-school students often cite instances of corporations’ “bottom-line mentality” and ethical lapses to justify their own dishonesty.

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Other admissions tests employ a variety of security methods. Last year, the administrator of the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, began requiring digital fingerprinting. Would-be attorneys who take the Law School Admission Test, or LSAT, submit to old-fashioned ink fingerprinting. Scholars seeking a Ph.D. and sitting for the Graduate Record Examinations, or GRE, need only show a government-issued ID.

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High-school students sweating the SAT and ACT, the two main college-entrance exams, don’t have to submit to fingerprinting. They are required to show only standard ID. The test administrators say many parents would resist the fingerprinting of their kids, and high-tech solutions would be too costly given what families can afford. Students pay $45, less than a fifth of the cost of the business-school exam, to take the SAT.</p>

<p>Ray Nicosia, head of security for the Educational Testing Service, which administers the SAT, says the Princeton, N.J., nonprofit relies on several other procedures to catch cheating. ETS collects handwriting samples and relies on high-school teachers to identify test takers. Mr. Nicosia says the company also uses computer analysis to flag possible fraud, a practice also used for the ACT. He says ETS has considered more high-tech methods, but “right now, we feel like we’ve got the right checks and controls in place.” Cheating occurs in about one-tenth of 1% of SATs, he says.

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[sallyawp]

<p>Someone just PMed me about this article. I’ll push it up by posting again here.</p>