I don’t want to diminish high abilities of students in Asian countries and their amazing dedication to work. Nevertheless, the fact is that the ETS and CB, who collectively fill their coffers with millions of dollars every year (yawn), brazenly continue recycling old SATs.
Another fact. It’s not that hard, from what I heard from Chinese students, to buy in China multi-volume compendiums of all the SATs ever administered. The result? A record percentage of students with stellar scores in China.
What’s surprising is that nobody is raising an issue of the ETS’s and CB’s using same old SAT Subject Tests over and over in the US. I am not familiar with Subject Tests other than Literature and Math Levels 1 and 2, but the following examples, I believe, can be extrapolated across the board to all Subject Tests.
.
Literature: January 2016 = October 2014 = December 2013 = June 2011;
January 2013 = December 2007(and likely some years in between).
Some passages and poems seem to be included in different tests repeatedly.
Math Level 2: January 2016 = May 2014 = October 2011.
Some questions in both Math Levels 1 and 2 migrate from one test into another as parts of amalgamations.
Math Level 1: October 2009 → October 2011 → January 2016.
Math Level 2: June 2006 → January 2009 → January 2016.
Of course, it’s impossible to prove those repeats by other than analyzing online discussions and personal notes, which are obviously done in violation of the College Board 's policies; that evidence thus is inadmissible.
No wonder that the College Board, since the inception of the Subject Tests in 1937, has released a whooping whole of one real SAT Subject Test per subject (generously adding in 2006 the second one to each of Math Levels 1 and 2, US History, and World History, and publishing two separate books - Math and History).
There is no such thing as QASs and SASs for Subject Tests - why do the ETS and College Board get away with that? (another yawn)
Anyway, back to the original topic. If only a very limited number of Subject Tests are being in circulation, there is no doubt that their copies made it into the hands of test prep companies as well as individuals across the globe, and most definitely in China and South Korea.
No wonder 800 on Subject SATs is so common in Asia.