Index Last Week Contact DQ News Latest Issue
Giant of Exam Business Keeps Quiet on Cheating
A front-page report in the September 28th issue of The New York Times scrutinized the Educational Testing Service, the world's largest and most influential testing organization. After four months of investigation, Times journalists discovered numerous instances where the E.T.S. confronted case after case of test cheating but witheld information from the public and failed to take aggressive action to insure the accuracy of its tests. The E.T.S. gives over 9 million tests each year in areas ranging from college admission to a basic test of civics and English given to recent immigrants.
According to the article, the most serious instances of wide-spread test cheating involve the civics and basic English test for recent immigrants, graduate school admissions tests, and tests required for professional advancement. The usual method E.T.S. uses to combat test cheating is to invalidate the test scores of groups of persons where cheating is thought to be widespread. Those persons are then retested using another version of the same test.
The article states that there are many ways to cheat on standardized tests. Professional test takers memorize test questions and provide the questions and answers to later groups taking the test. Test administrators with early access to the test may sell or give questions to those being tested. E.T.S. contractors who grade tests at the test site (such as the test for recent immigrants) may be bribed. The article states that test preparation firms often gain significant information about the contents of E.T.S tests, including many test questions. The article was written by Douglas Frantz and Jon Nordheimer.
Childhood Cancer Incidence Rising?
A front page article in The New York Times on September 29th discusses the rise in the rate of cancer among American children. The Times article quotes a National Cancer Institute estimate that the rate of increase for some types of childhood cancer is about 1% per year. The Times article speculates that the rise in childhood cancer is correlated with an increase in toxins in the air, food, and drinking water, as well as changes in lifestyle - especially diet.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is formulating a research plan to determine the causes of childhood cancer. Included in the plan are provisions for a national childhood cancer registry, which would be a comprehensive database seeking to include information about almost every child with cancer in the country.
Fortunately, the graphs used to illustrate the article show that the U.S. childhood cancer rate has remained about the same for the past decade, and cancer deaths among children have significantly decreased during the same period. The article was written by Times journalist John H. Cushman, Jr.