The Philadelphia Inquirer
January 1, 1995 Sunday FINAL EDITION
Computerized GRE at suit's center a test-preparation firm found the electronic version could be duplicated.
Call it the war between the titans of standardized testing.
Educational Testing Service, based in Princeton, has filed a federal suit against Kaplan Education Centers for allegedly stealing questions from its high-tech version of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE).
A little over a month ago, Kaplan sent 20 undercover employees to take the $96 computerized version of the GRE, which is required of graduate school applicants. The computerized exam was introduced two years ago.
The test was thought to be foolproof. Kaplan demonstrated otherwise.
Kaplan's employees not only memorized questions, they duplicated the test, proving that students conceivably can cheat.
Kaplan president Jonathan Grayer then called ETS president Nancy Cole and told her what it did. Kaplan, a New York-based test preparation firm, even presented the testing service with a copy of the duplicated exam and locked up its original in a vault. It was a giant "Gotcha."
At first the testing service behaved like a dog with its tail between its legs. In a press release, ETS officials wrote that they appreciated the opportunity to meet with Kaplan officials. They suspended their test for a week at the end of December - the test will be offered again Tuesday - and scaled back their testing schedule.
Now ETS is swinging back with a solid legal punch. Late Friday, the testing service filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Maryland against Kaplan to prevent it, according to ETS, "from continuing to steal questions."
The suit cited the federal electronic communication privacy act, copyright laws, breach of contract and fraud.
"They have done lots of nasty things, which you don't need to do to educate someone if there is a reasonable flaw in the system," Robert Altman, ETS vice president responsible for the graduate exam and computerized testing, said yesterday.
Kaplan president Grayer called the suit "completely frivolous" and "a monumental waste of time."
"We set out to identify a problem, and we identified the problem and brought it to ETS. We said, 'You're for fairness in testing, we would expect you would want to know this problem existed,' " Grayer said yesterday. "The issue is not Kaplan versus ETS. The issue is ETS creating secured exams."
Grayer said the suit took him by surprise because the testing service had praised Kaplan for the findings.
"It's nothing to do with us," he said. "Its attempt to shoot the messenger is not going to solve the problem. It needs to be fixed. But they chose to make it a different kind of issue."
ETS estimates that 100,000 people will take the electronic version of the test in the 1995 academic year. About 420,000 applicants annually take one version of the test.
RAVES FOR NEW TEST
Just a month ago, things couldn't have been better for the computerized version of the graduate exam. It was ballyhooed as the start of the electronic age in standardized testing. No more bubble sheets, ever.
There were raves. Test-takers can take the exam virtually any day of the week. And students and admission officers get instant results from the electronic exams instead of waiting for weeks for results from the $56 pencil versions.
Confident of the exams, ETS began phasing out the pencil version of the exam and had planned to computerize its other tests, including the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), which is taken by 1.8 million high school students annually.
But Kaplan's findings seemingly short-circuited the plans. Suddenly, standardized testing's age of electronics was bogged down, and No. 2 pencils looked good again.
Until now.
The heart of the testing service's suit relies on Kaplan's duplication of the exam. Even the copy Kaplan sent to ETS could be used as evidence against the test preparation firm.
ETS officials say Kaplan's feat was theft, plain and simple. Kaplan officials say they sent employees to see whether the exam really was foolproof.
"There was no organized plan," said Jose Ferreira, a national director for Kaplan. "The key was, 'Can people cheat?' "
The computerized test was flawed because the testing service didn't develop enough questions, even though it was on a very aggressive timetable to convert its exams, Ferreira said.
QUESTIONS RECYCLED
Questions on the pencil tests, which are scheduled only a few times a year, are discarded. Not so with the electronic version. The same questions may pop up over and over again. By memorizing and pooling questions, students can boost their scores.
Altman said ETS officials decided to sue to prevent Kaplan from sending more undercover testers in the future.
"If they can steal large numbers of questions, we can't replace them quickly," Altman said. "The security system is created for students who remember the occasional question, it is not to thwart . . . a concerted, organized, high cost, fraudulent effort to steal the entire pool of questions."
Even before the suit was filed, higher education observers said the flap illustrated the long history of antagonism between the testing service and Kaplan.
Kaplan is the "spy that came in from the cold," said David Merkowitz, a spokesman for the American Council on Education. "If they cracked the code, there's tremendous publicity for them. This is great for them."
But it doesn't mean that computerized testing should be put on permanent hold, Merkowitz said.
"If there are bugs in the system, it's not a surprise," he said. "There are bugs in the national missiles defense. It's not long term. It's not going to change the course of the educational testing industry."
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