High-Tech High School Cheats

Perhaps it seems like an undeniable modern truism: as long as there are tests in schools, students will find ways to cheat on them. But with today’s tech-savvy kids, cheating on exams has become much more sophisticated -- and harder to catch.

The Educational Testing Service is investigating the possibility that students taking the Advanced Placement history exam on May 11 may have used the Internet to pass questions on to fellow test-takers.

Kevin Gonzalez, a spokesman for ETS in Princeton, N.J., says it opened an investigation a week ago when ETS officials heard rumors students on the East Coast used the time difference to give West Coast students an advance look at the test.

Although he wouldn’t mention specific details of which schools and students allegedly were involved, he said, “It does involve the bicoastal use of the Internet to share questions.”

The test is given once a year to approximately 176,000 students who can earn college credit if their scores are high enough. “We’re very serious about investigating any rumors in which one test-taker receives an unfair advantage over another test-taker,” said Gonzalez.

The Cheats Are Out There

Such high-tech means of deceitful educational advancement doesn’t surprise many. Donald L. McCabe, a professor of management at Rutgers University in New Jersey, has been studying student cheating on college campuses for more than 20 years and recently completed his first survey of high school cheaters.

Through a survey of nearly 4,500 students from 25 high schools nationwide, McCabe found that nearly half of the students — who responded anonymously — claim to have used either the Internet or other means to cheat on a test or plagiarize a paper.

“People can find answers to tests that friends [who have taken the test] have posted [on the Net],” wrote one student, a junior at a Midwestern high school.

And McCabe noted that “quite a few” respondents from one “prestigious private school in the Mid-Atlantic region” have responded that answers to standardized tests such as ETS’s Advanced Placement exams can be found on the Internet.

'If Clinton Can Do It ....'

But perhaps more telling about how widespread cheating may become are some of the other anonymous student comments.

“The harder they make school, the harder kids will cheat,” wrote one high school student in Massachusetts.

“Cheating is what makes America great,” said another.

And, “If [former President] Clinton can do it and get away with it, why can’t we?” asked another.

McCabe said this doesn't bode well for the future. “My concern is that the kids growing up with this kind of attitude in high school, the problem is going to graduate to the college level.”

ABCNEWS Radio contributed to this report.

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