The SAT Scam

“I cheated on the SAT in Islamabad by using my mobile phone which they allow one to take inside the centre,” says Waqar who is a student at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). “You can safely say that students who opt to take the test in Islamabad cheat on their SAT as not only the centre allows the use of mobile phones but longer breaks are given in which the students are allowed to go outside the centre premises.”

“The Holiday Inn centre in Islamabad is much more relaxed than the other centres and sometimes even the invigilators encourage you to cheat,” says Usman* who took his SAT exam last year in Islamabad and is now studying in LUMS. “They made me swap my seat with someone and people exchanged answer slips during the break. Some people even erased their names and exchanged the exam copy after they were done with the paper because the names were never checked in the first place.”

This is further confirmed by an official from a prestigious US based organisation which conducts preparatory tests in Lahore, “In Islamabad, they allow students longer breaks and they also allow them to go out, anything can happen. Furthermore, mobile phones should not be allowed.”

The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is taken worldwide as entry criteria by many colleges. This test is administrated by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in the US and all over the world by its authorised agencies. Out of 1.8 million students who take SAT every year, ETS challenges about 1,800 scores. About 540 of these scores are cancelled.

“From what I remember there have been two to three such cases in the past three years in which students have been expelled when their SAT scores were found to be invalid,” says Mohammad Ali Khan from the LUMS administration. “Usually the SAT reports such cases to us and we immediately expel a student after such a case is reported.”

When asked about the verification or cross-checking of the SAT scores submitted by prospective students, Khan said, “We do not accept scores students send to us online but accept them only if they are mailed to us by the College Board. What other way is there to verify it except for looking at the original SAT result?”