SAT Instructor Busted for Helping Students Cheat

Police arrested an SAT prep instructor yesterday who allegedly helped test-takers cheat on the test by exploiting the time difference between Asia and North America.

The arrest is the first of its kind, though rumors of cheating on the exam have been around for a long time.

Speculation is also rising that cheating also occurred in Korea on other international tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign Language, or TOEFL, and the Test of English for International Communication, or TOEIC.

The fear is that Korean students will face discrimination when applying to American universities because of tainted credibility through scandals like this.

Police in Seoul’s southern district of Suseo said, “We arrested the instructor, who was working at an English institute in Seoul’s Gangnam district, for helping Korean test-takers cheat on the SAT by getting test and answer sheets from Thailand.”

The instructor is known to have paid 15,000 won (13.40 U.S. dollars) to a Thai national who took the SAT Jan. 24 last year in Thailand. Then, he e-mailed the test sheets to two Korean students, who took the test in Connecticut 12 hours later.

Reportedly a graduate from a prestigious private university in the U.S., the instructor is well-known as an effective lecturer on SAT reading. The two students took his class over school vacations.

The instructor reportedly told police, “The institute I worked for charged a student 2.8 million to three million won (2,500 to 2,670 dollars) per class or more than 30 million won (26,700 dollars) for 12 classes on the promise of substantially raising their SAT scores.”

“I cheated because I was very worried over failing to raise my students’ scores in light of the hefty tuition.”

Police also said the test sheets might have also been forwarded through e-mail to 20 other students who also took the instructor’s class and the same test taken by one of the two students.

minki@donga.com