Test of credibility: How Chinese exam 'cheats' threaten students' dreams of studying abroad

The actions of mainland students punished for cheating in English language tests for admission to foreign secondary schools after memorising the answers have cast doubts on the ability of all Chinese youngsters hoping to study abroad, education analysts say. In the most recent case, a group of 357 students had their examination scores cancelled after taking the Upper Level Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT) on September 19 in Beijing and Shanghai. However, many mainland students do not believe the practice of memorising old exam questions and learning them by rote at crammer colleges and institutes – in the hope that they will appear in their all-important standardised test of English language ability – is cheating. For them the practice is simply a way to prepare for a game of probability. Read more: English exam body withholds results from 350 Chinese students over violations One mainland English-language cramming centre, which offered coaching for the SSAT taken on September 19, boasted on its website that it had coached its students on up to 95 per cent of the test questions. Some of the students accused of cheating have been told they must take the exam again, but complained on social media that they had done nothing wrong. However, one Chinese education analyst Dr Miao Lu believes such practices are putting at risk future applications by mainland youngsters keen to study abroad. After the September 19 test, the SSAT Board sent out emails to the 357 mainland students on October 20 telling them their scores had been cancelled. Miao, executive secretary general of the Centre for China and Globalisation think-tank, said international schools and universities were likely to pay much closer scrutiny to Chinese student’s application, and could even cut enrolment quotas for mainland youngsters, because of worries over their genuine academic abilities. Students accused of cheating in one SAT – originally known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test – had scored high marks of 2,300 out of 2,400 in the test, but had been unable to speak in English to foreigners, Miao told the South China Morning Post. “Such incidents cast real doubts on the credibility of all Chinese students sitting exams. It impacts not only on their own studies, but also on future admission rates of all Chinese students in future. “This scrutiny of their exam scores is only the beginning: it’s likely the whole international education community will have doubts about the ability of mainland students in future.” The students accused of cheating – and many others that were not penalised – will spend days beforehand memorising hundreds of authentic examination questions and answers from past examination papers collected together by English language crammers. Hundreds of thousands of students on the mainland have done the same thing for the past couple of decades; they focus on memorising as many standard answers to old exam questions as they can. Most standardised tests feature past questions with a smaller number new ones included each time. Read more: What did we do wrong? Chinese students demand explanation from British Council for nullifying language exam results Tests such as the SSAT, the SAT – originally known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test – assessing a student’s writing, critical reading and mathematics – the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and the IELTS (International English Language Testing Service) are taken by overseas applicants wishing to study at universities or middle schools in the US, UK and other parts of the English-speaking world. So many mainland language centres and other cramming centres earn their living by compiling test questions and then signing up students, who memorise the answers rather than understand them. The SSAT examination, a relatively new examination on the mainland that only about 2,000 Chinese students have taken so far every year, is the required admission test for many of the best independent schools in the world. The board said in its email: “Following careful analysis of the scoring data, SSATB has concluded that there is a reasonable basis to question the validity of the test scores.” This follows a recent decision by the IELTS to permanently withhold the scores of 350 other Chinese students that took its tests and were suspected of violating the rules. However, the lack of tough penalties against students and cramming centres that flaunt the rules by memorising answers means many students and test centres continue using this practice. Many parents were keen to enrol their children at such crammer centres so they could pass the tests, Miao said. Over the past decade an increasing number of mainland families have opted to send their children abroad to study. The numbers of students attending colleges and universities in the US each year has increased from about 10,000 in 2006 to 110,000 last year, the education news portal Eol.cn reported, Over the same period, the number of students entering independent high schools in the US has risen from 65 to 23,795. Such demand has fired the flourishing industry in crammer centres and institutions across the country that teach students how to memorise test answers. Zhang Wei, a Shanghai-based teacher who specialises in helping students prepare for the TOEFL and SSAT exams, said none of these crammer institutions would be able to survive without selling students the authentic questions and answers to old tests as part of their course fees. “Such institutions often obtain the test questions by bribing mainland test administrators, or hiring people to take the tests and memorise the questions and answers,” Zhang said. “There are also incidents of Chinese students in the US publishing test papers they have just taken on online chatroom websites. “Institutions charge between 10,000 yuan (HK$12,000) and 20,000 yuan per head for teaching students English,” he said. “But if students demand authentic test content, called the Jijing in Chinese then they will charge at least 50,000 yuan, even though the class will last for only a few days.” Xu Yi, cofounder of Beijing-based Focus Class Education – an institution helping students prepare for tests required by foreign universities as application prerequisite – said local parents asked him every day whether it was teaching Jijing. “Some Chinese parents’ moral bottom line is very low,” he said. “I always reject their requests because my institution targets only elite students and we hope to help students enhance their comprehensive English ability.” Xu added: “Rampant test cheating in China may force overseas testing authorities to introduce reforms, such as making tests more difficult, But I believe that Chinese people will simply think of new ways to cheat.”