US test board has canceled results of over 350 Chinese students for admission into American high schools following suspicion of cheating after they secured a perfect score in the examination.
Students, who took the Upper Level Secondary School Admission Test (SSAT), were informed of the cancellation through e-mail from the Secondary School Admission Test Board (SSATB), state-run Global Times reported.
According to a snapshot of the e-mail posted by the New Oriental Education and Technology Group, a provider of private English training services in China, on Sina Weibo yesterday, the test was administered on September 19 in Shanghai and Beijing to 357 students.
All examinees at a Shenzhen-based English training institution got a perfect score of 2,400 on the test, the Beijing Times reported.
"Most American students get 1,600 to 1,900 points on the test, so it's understandable that the SSATB would be suspicious of the results," said Cheng Xi, an English teacher who has taught for five years at the New Oriental.
Besides, many training institutions collect SSAT questions through different channels, such as sending their employees to take the test and then copy the questions, said an SSAT trainer from a Beijing-based English training center who requested anonymity.
"Examinees may score higher if the questions are repeated," he said.
"The SSATB has concluded that there is a reasonable basis to question the validity of the test scores... We are canceling all the Upper Level test scores from this administration," the email communication said.
The SSATB has not made any official announcement as of press time. Regulations state that examinees can generally get their test results two weeks after the test is taken.
The SSAT attracted nearly 2,000 people to take the test in January, with 500 examinees in Beijing, the largest test site in the world.
