Chicago Tribune
December 16, 1994 Friday, EVENING UPDATE EDITION
Security flaw cancels graduate record exam
Educational Testing Service suspended giving the Graduate Record Examination by computer until Jan. 3 after learning how some students could memorize questions to help others cheat later.
ETS said Thursday it had no evidence that any students have used memorization to cheat.
The action came in response to an investigation by Kaplan Educational Centers of New York. Kaplan sent about 20 of its representatives to take computerized GREs over a period of several weeks. The test-takers then got together and were able to re-create portions of the test.
"While Kaplan conducted this investigation with the resources of the nation's leading test preparation company, any student could improve the scores of a peer simply by remembering some of the questions and communicating them to others," said Melissa Mack, a spokeswoman for Kaplan.
Kaplan Educational Centers shared its results with ETS and did not divulge any of the information to students, said company President and Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Grayer.
Some 420,000 students will have taken the GRE this year, 100,000 of them by computer. Cole said withholding the computerized tests until Jan. 3 will affect only about 1,000 students.
Copyright 1994 Chicago Tribune Company
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