U.S. students will take the SAT online • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#11

Post by icyfox » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:12 PM UTC

When I took the GRE in 2017, everything was digital as well. But I couldn't believe how locked down the experience was. The testing center in downtown SF had no windows, a metal detector, and you had to check all food outside of the testing room. Just in case you were going to try to cheat off of your banana. I think each computer was also recording a video of you taking the test although I might be mistaken here. Certainly there were cameras set up all around the perimeter.

I'm shocked at how laissez-faire we've gotten for college entrance exams, which I'd arguably say are much more important at getting you _into_ the graduate programs than the actual graduate program exams are themselves.

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#12

Post by tehjoker » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:12 PM UTC

screamingninja wrote: post #4

null0ranje wrote: post #2

This sounds more about cuttings costs than anything else.

Agreed; this will further devalue these standardized tests when the results cannot be fully trusted and stop correlating with academic success.

all true, but at least there will be one fewer setting students are forcibly exposed to COVID-19 in

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#13

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:13 PM UTC

axus wrote: post #6

"This week, students in the U.S. will begin taking the new SAT on their own devices — including a tablet or a laptop — or on school devices." I'd thought "never trust the client device" was the golden rule to prevent cheating. A background process that reads the display and fills in the field when you start typing would be difficult to detect.

[deleted]

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#14

Post by gedy » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:14 PM UTC

AustinDev wrote: post #9

axus wrote: post #6

"This week, students in the U.S. will begin taking the new SAT on their own devices — including a tablet or a laptop — or on school devices." I'd thought "never trust the client device" was the golden rule to prevent cheating. A background process that reads the display and fills in the field when you start typing would be difficult to detect.

I don't know if they'll have a software based 'anti-cheat' but you could be completely undetectable using this method: HDMI out into splitter from graphics card or tablet, whatever. Use secondary box to ingest video and spit out answers on an alternate display.

Some of the online proctored tests complain about external monitors. It's goofy, but I guess most students use laptops

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#15

Post by dgfitz » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:14 PM UTC

AustinDev wrote: post #9

axus wrote: post #6

"This week, students in the U.S. will begin taking the new SAT on their own devices — including a tablet or a laptop — or on school devices." I'd thought "never trust the client device" was the golden rule to prevent cheating. A background process that reads the display and fills in the field when you start typing would be difficult to detect.

I don't know if they'll have a software based 'anti-cheat' but you could be completely undetectable using this method: HDMI out into splitter from graphics card or tablet, whatever. Use secondary box to ingest video and spit out answers on an alternate display.

Or, just use a second device, no? Or read the questions out loud and someone else assists in the background?

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#16

Post by pc86 » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:19 PM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #12

screamingninja wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed; this will further devalue these standardized tests when the results cannot be fully trusted and stop correlating with academic success.

all true, but at least there will be one fewer setting students are forcibly exposed to COVID-19 in

It's 2024, the pandemic has been over for a number of years now.

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#17

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:19 PM UTC

In the noughties, at my Bay Area high school, students had a microphone wired up to their cell phone to someone they paid outside to Google answers, who was watching a feed of stills relayed via MMS every few seconds from a camera hidden in their hoodie. (Or, alternatively, the room was pre-bugged.)

I wonder if colleges will begin differentiating between at-home and trusted-facility scores.

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#18

Post by autoexec » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:19 PM UTC

I'd rather go into a testing center and use someone else's device than infect my own system with whatever spyware they'll insist students install to try and prevent cheaters.

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#19

Post by RheingoldRiver » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:19 PM UTC

tbh I'm most interested by this:

> "Today's students, they do a lot of their living digitally, they do a lot of their learning digitally and they do a lot of their test taking digitally," says Priscilla Rodriguez, who oversees the SAT for the College Board, the organization behind the test.

How do kids work out math problems these days? Do they draw equations with their finger on a tablet/phone? Tablet pen on tablet? Are they learning math typesetting at a young age?

I used to use huge amounts of scratch paper, in college I had a convertible laptop/tablet that I used for taking notes in class, sometimes handwriting everything, sometimes LaTeX & import the generated pdf into onenote where my handdrawn figures were.

But I never used that setup for scratch paper, scratch paper was something sacred and always paper + pencil.

But, now paper is nonexistent and I use a wacom tablet with OneNote when I need scratch paper. So there's been a huge revolution in my life and I'm curious what today's kids do.

Re: U.S. students will take the SAT online

#20

Post by bee_rider » Wed, Mar 06, 2024, 6:20 PM UTC

AustinDev wrote: post #9

axus wrote: post #6

"This week, students in the U.S. will begin taking the new SAT on their own devices — including a tablet or a laptop — or on school devices." I'd thought "never trust the client device" was the golden rule to prevent cheating. A background process that reads the display and fills in the field when you start typing would be difficult to detect.

I don't know if they'll have a software based 'anti-cheat' but you could be completely undetectable using this method: HDMI out into splitter from graphics card or tablet, whatever. Use secondary box to ingest video and spit out answers on an alternate display.

Hypothetically they could require that you use a device with an included monitor (laptop, tablet) and require that no HDMI cable is plugged it.

This won’t protect against somebody who is willing to open the device up and probe the embedded DisplayPort (or whatever standard) pins, but that’s probably beyond the ability or interest of most people.

I don’t like any of this; if I were asked to install some school spyware I would refuse. But it looks like the plan is for the schools to also allow the students to take the tests there. People should do that instead. Hopefully some parents will be super pedantic and require schools to provide accessible testing space and not use the “you can test at home” option as an out.