More bad news from Hyderabad, as reports indicate that suspected test cheat Guna Sekhar has departed India for the United States of America. It is unclear what Mr. Sekhar is doing in America, but he may be cheating on tests.
Thankfully, though, police have nabbed Sekhar’s associate, A Kiran Kumar. They’ve also collared five members of an unrelated gang of test cheats.
Meanwhile, authorities have pieced together the modus operandi of these cheats. Says the Times of India:
“Once a client contacted them, Shravan and Aditya collected their details and arranged an at-home test at their friend’s place in Hasthinapuram in the city. Sai Santosh and Kishore hid under the table of the candidate and clicked photos of the questions appearing on the computer screen on their cell phone. They shared these with Aditya and Shravan via WhatsApp. The duo provided the answers which would be shown to the candidate, Cyber Crime ACP KVM Prasad said.”
In case you have trouble following that, here’s how it may have worked:
- The cheats advertised their services.
- When contacted by a test-taker, the cheats arranged for the test-taker to take the test at a special home.
- Two cheats hid under the desk during the test. They took photos of the test questions.
- The photos were quickly sent to two other cheats who solved the questions and sent back the answers.
- The answers were communicated to the test-taker.
Two questions are left unanswered. How could the cheats take pictures of the test questions from under the desk? How could they communicate answers without detection from under the desk?
I don’t want to give anyone bad ideas, so I won’t answer the first question. But I suspect the answer to the second question involves gentle tugging of the test-taker’s toes. Remember that there are five answer choices for each question on the GRE.