I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Education
Report.
About five hundred thousand students took the SAT college-admissions test
last October. The College Board, which owns the test, says about five thousand
of them received wrong scores.
The problem became known after two students questioned their scores. They
asked to have their tests scored again, this time by hand instead of by
computer. Further investigation led to more and more wrongly scored tests. Most
of the scores were too low.
College Board spokesman Brian O'Reilly says only four students gained 300
points or more. He says most gained 90 points or less.
A perfect SAT score is two thousand four hundred points.
The College Board is not telling students or colleges about scores that were
too high. Mister O'Reilly says students should not be punished for something out
of their control.
He says the scores were no more than 50 points too high. He tells us
correcting them would not have affected college acceptance decisions.
The tests went to a processing center in Texas. Pearson Educational
Measurement has scored the SAT for the College Board since March of last year.
The company took the place of E.T.S., the Educational Testing Service.
The College Board says humidity in the air caused the paper to expand and
change the position of the answers. It says the problem affected tests with
light or incomplete answer marks.
Mister O'Reilly says Pearson has
already corrected the problem. He says the company has improved its computer
systems and will now scan all answers two times.
The College Board has asked schools to reconsider any students they rejected
before their SAT scores were increased. Higher education officials say
acceptance decisions are based only partly on test scores. But higher scores can
mean more financial aid.
Now, lawyers are reportedly looking to represent people who want to take the
College Board to court.
Students are not the only ones who have been affected by testing mistakes
recently. E.T.S. has just agreed to pay 11 million dollars to settle cases
involving a test for teachers.
Thousands who took the Praxis in 2003 and 2004 four received scores
that were too low. More than four thousand of them were told they had failed
when they had passed.
This VOA Special English Education Report was written by Nancy Steinbach. Read and
listen to our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.
