July 22, 2008 4:30 PM

Cheating on tests – it's not just for high school anymore
Posted by Jesse Nunesat 4:30 PM

Does your next raise depend on passing a certification exam? Are you worried you won't get the job you covet if you are unable to pass a skills test? Do you get the jitters when quizzed?

Well, apparently there's an underground industry out there that is thriving on people like you. "Proxy test-takers" are a worldwide problem, the Globe reports, especially in countries with a high population of technology workers.

Cisco Systems Inc., the Silicon Valley firm behind some of the world's biggest computer networks, and Pearson VUE, one of the world's largest test administrators, recently conducted a trial run of an anticheating system intended to identify and crack down on "proxy test takers," people who impersonate others to take exams for them.

Officials at Cisco and Pearson VUE told The Boston Globe this week that during an eight-month span ended in June 2008, they monitored hundreds of thousands of exams given in eight countries in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Cisco said it had confirmed that one in 200 of those exams was taken by a proxy, and not the actual enrollee.

Randall T. Trask, a vice president at Pearson VUE which administers some of Cisco's tests, said he suspected the numbers were "the tip of the iceberg" because they only measured a limited number of one company's tests. Cisco's exams are given in 4,400 test centers in more than 160 countries, according to Pearson VUE's website.

In many white-collar fields, certification tests have taken on growing significance as a prerequisite for many well-paying jobs and proof that employees are maintaining their skills. In the highly competitive technology industry, surveys have shown that technicians with enough certifications can add up to $35,000 to their annual salary.

However, the story notes that Cisco is launching a new test-security system that includes software to help catch test abnormalities, as well as procedures for having each test-taker's photograph taken and stored with their test scores in a database.

Cheating on job certification exams is nothing new. The Globe reported in December that a growing number of websites were offering "cheat sheets" that essentially held the questions and answers to a variety of tests. From the article:

Pirated answers to hundreds of professional qualifying exams, in fields ranging from school-bus driving to medical technicians, are openly available, sometimes for as little as $4 each, from a thriving network of cheating websites, The Boston Globe has found.

As many industries move to require certification by examination, the trade in crib sheets has emerged as a lucrative and well-organized global black market. One operator in Oregon made $700,000 in about nine months before his arrest; the owner of the Ohio website pocketed more than $300,000. A Pakistani who sells stolen answers for computer technician exams proudly displays photos of a stable of luxury cars on his website.

Recently, the dangers of Internet-based cheating have become more apparent. The Globe reported earlier this month that tens of thousands of soldiers obtained answers to tests in a range of military skills from websites. The Army case was especially egregious, testing specialists said, because even modest measures that are widely used to prevent cheating weren't in place. The sheer number of Army cheaters also surprised some testing specialists.

So, what do you think about the proliferation of ways to cheat on exams? Are you confident that new anti-cheating measures will help curb the problem? Or do companies place too much emphasis on these tests that are administered by third parties? Share your thoughts in our forums.