Distressing news today regarding Pearson’s PTE Academic Test. Everyone ought to read this report in The PIE News, but I’ll provide a few highlights:
- Some universities have raised concern about test-takers getting “full or very high scores” on the at-home version of the PTE Academic Test.
- Pearson has begun withdrawing and cancelling scores of some test-takers.
- Some universities in the UK have withdrawn offers from applicants with canceled scores. Students in China and South Asia seem most heavily impacted.
- Several universities in the UK have stopped accepting scores from the at-home version of the PTE Academic test, including the University of Edinburgh, the University of Sussex and the University of Southampton.
- Pearson has stopped offering the at-home PTE test in China.
There is a lot of cheating on high stakes tests taken at home. Not just for English tests, of course, but for all tests. Testing companies are working hard to stop it, but I’m not sure it will ever be eliminated completely. As long as test-takers are using their own Windows or Apple machines to take the tests, remote access will be an ongoing concern. Even Amazon, which obviously has access to infinitely more resources and talent than Pearson, has been pretty frank about the amount of cheating that goes on in its at-home AWS certification exams.