Just months after the College Board unveiled the new SAT this March, a
person with access to material for upcoming versions of the redesigned exam has
provided hundreds of confidential test items.
The questions and answers include 21 reading passages - each with about a
dozen questions - and about 160 math problems.
Reuters doesn't know how widely the items have circulated, and has no
evidence that the material has fallen into the hands of what the College Board
calls 'bad actors' - groups that the organization says 'will lie, cheat and
steal for personal gain'.
Shortly after David Coleman took over as CEO in 2012, the College Board
began redesigning its signature product, the SAT college entrance exam. The
testing company also hired a consultancy to identify the risks associated with
the monumental undertaking.
Among the red flags that consultant Gartner Inc raised in an October 2013
report: The not-for-profit College Board needed to better protect the material
being developed for the new SAT.
Plans to secure the new test from leaks or theft had 'not been developed'
by the organization, the consultancy wrote in the report. At risk were
thousands of items, or questions, that were being prepared for the redesigned
SAT.
In 2014, employees at the New York-based College Board also raised
concerns, arguing for limits on who could access items and answer keys for the
revamped SAT, an email shows.
They were right to be worried.
Independent testing specialists briefed on the matter said the breach
represents one of the most serious security lapses that's come to light in the
history of college-admissions testing.
To ensure the materials were authentic, copies were provided to the
College Board.
In a subsequent letter, an attorney for the College Board said publishing
any of the items would have a dire impact, 'destroying their value, rendering
them unusable, and inflicting other injuries on the College Board and test
takers'.
College Board spokeswoman Sandra Riley said in a statement that the
organization was moving to contain any damage from the leak.
The College Board is 'taking the test forms with stolen content off of
the SAT administration schedule while we continue to monitor and analyze the
situation', she said.
Riley declined to say whether those steps would involve cancelling or
delaying upcoming tests. The next sitting of the SAT is October 1.
The breach is 'a serious criminal matter', Riley wrote. 'A thorough
investigation is ongoing, therefore our comments must be limited.'
The College Board did not grant requests for interviews with CEO Coleman
and other employees named in this article.
The SAT is used by US universities to help evaluate more than a million
college applicants a year, and so a major security lapse could cause havoc for
admissions officers and students alike.
That College Board security was breached is 'a problem of a massive
level', one that could 'put into question the credibility of the exam', said
Neal Kingston, who heads the Achievement and Assessment Institute at the
University of Kansas.
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