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U.S. students will take the SAT online

npr.org

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

#111

Post by orochimaaru »

gnicholas wrote: post #23
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

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.

The article doesn’t indicate that students will be allowed to take the SAT at home, does it? Test centers and high schools is all I saw mentioned.

So my kid (7th grade) was taking a standardized test yesterday at her school. School rules have them keep their phones in the locker - not allowed in class. Locker is far away from testing room so that blue tooth is ineffective and they cut the wifi during test time so watches cannot be used to cheat.

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

#112

Post by orochimaaru »

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

I have news for you. That ship has sailed and all kids have had multiple infections of the virus.

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

#113

Post by ok123456 »

Atotalnoob wrote: post #101
tiffanyh wrote: post #98

VM? Folks are talking about how you have to install privacy invading software that monitors down to the OS kernel. What prevents someone from just using a VM for the exam and a VM for cheating?

You can detect if you are running in a VM

VM detection is pretty weak. In most cases, it looks for magic strings.

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

#114

Post by gnicholas »

goryramsy wrote: post #91
gnicholas wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this cut costs? I would think they'll be spending a ton on online security and such. Imagine the fallout if this is hacked or goes down on test day. They will save some money on proctoring, since the exam is much shorter in duration.

It would not surprise me if the test was delayed last minute due to a security issue. I've seen firsthand the level of security in the testing application, and it is worryingly lacking. Did you know that they literally link 'desmos.com/calculator' as the calculator in the math section? That's opening the door to all sorts of security issues. And they're certainly saving money, the digital is the same cost as the pape…

They've already rolled out in international testing, but yeah the comments here make me think there are going to be some massive cheating if they don't tighten things up.

"you are not allowed to bring any electronics into the testing center (except a computer that you own, possibly running a VM)!" isn't likely to deter cheaters.

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

#115

Post by fallingknife »

itishappy wrote: post #33

My friend took an important law school exam (GRE or BAR, not sure which) in the past 2 years that was self administered, and she described her experience as "harrowing." The kernel level malware they installed to monitor the exam crashed her device 4 times during the exam. This was after she got it running on a secondary device because it wouldn't even start on her M1 MacBook Air. The software recorded her screen and…

And for all that nothing can stop anybody from just googling the answers on another device.

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

#116

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

ok123456 wrote: post #113
Atotalnoob wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can detect if you are running in a VM

VM detection is pretty weak. In most cases, it looks for magic strings.

That, plus worst case, you can pass through a lot of what be used for VM id.

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

#117

Post by preinheimer »

jrockway wrote: post #107
Atotalnoob wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can detect if you are running in a VM

You can run your VM such that VM detection can't detect it. It's an arms race. The mouse is always ahead.

If the software doesn’t report that it suspects it’s in a vm at test taking time, but instead records data for later analysis the test taker is leaving themselves open for a lot of problems months down the road.

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

#118

Post by johntiger1 »

itishappy wrote: post #33

My friend took an important law school exam (GRE or BAR, not sure which) in the past 2 years that was self administered, and she described her experience as "harrowing." The kernel level malware they installed to monitor the exam crashed her device 4 times during the exam. This was after she got it running on a secondary device because it wouldn't even start on her M1 MacBook Air. The software recorded her screen and…

Can't her husband just stand in front of her, behind the laptop webcam? There's often ridiculously simple real-world workarounds these complex device security process

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

#119

Post by dandesim »

nothercastle wrote: post #59
dandesim wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This are big statements to be making with no rationale. These will still be proctored exams in person, so there is no reason to believe that cheating will increase . Additionally, there is low indicators from the start that standardized tests correlate with academic success, hence the number of higher ed institutions no longer requiring them. People who want to cheat will always find a way to cheat. All you need to d…

Doing these online will create Lots of opportunities to cheat. You guys underestimate how much money there is in cheating these tests. It’s easily worth 100k per head maybe more.

It’s worth a lot to a small subset of people, but that’s an issue today. The biggest way the group you’re referring to cheats will not be made worse by having the system online (bribe proctors, have someone else take the test, SAT training, etc.)

Your average high school student does not have thousands, let alone tens of thousands, of dollars at their disposal to cheat on the SATs.

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

#120

Post by jmeyer2k »

germinalphrase wrote: post #110

As a former educator, I look forward to the day that we can simply track student ability in a trustable manner based on long term data collection in the classroom rather than requiring these additional, often expensive, exams. We would need to mediate our classroom interactions more than we do now - but the tools do so usefully are there if packaged correctly.

This is what we're working on building at AutoMark (https://automark.io). We're currently building grading tools for teachers, but eventually want to build out a tool to accurately monitor a student's performance over time. There's a lot of potential for AI to disrupt the education system from high school to college to a career.

Currently, a GPA and a few test scores (SAT, ACT, etc) are the most in depth view into a student's high school performance that colleges have, but in the future, we hope to see continuous tests throughout high school that don't just show a single letter/number, but a holistic view of a student's progress, effort, etc. (Obviously the data should be controlled by the student) These could also help a student decide where to focus their study efforts.

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