hankyoreh

Agencies operating international standardized tests are moving to counter classes at private Korean study academies that teach students to prepare for tests based on "jokbos," literally "family histories," or collections of previous test questions.

A jokbo is an official family geology maintained over many generations. Korean students use the term to refer to a shared pool of possible questions collected by people who have already taken the test. Most often questions are reconstructed from memory immediately after a test is over, since usually not allowed to take question packets from test sites. However, some testing agencies suspect test packets are being leaked once tests are over, for people who take the same tests later on.

South Korea's Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korean Nurses Association have revealed that the U.S. National Council of State Nursing Boards is considering canceling recent American nursing tests in Seoul after allegedly learning that South Korean private test-preparation institutes have been systematically sneaking out questions from the previous tests and providing lectures based on them. They said the are going to make it harder to qualify to take the test, so as to weed out people from applying to take it expressly to gather information.

Questions from the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), as well as the American nursing test, are taken from question pools. As a result, test administering organizations are very sensitive about the leakage of the questions in South Korea.

Korea has already been the scene of "jokbo incidents" at SAT and TOEIC test sites. American testing agencies have called on educational institutions that host test sites to fight leaks, saying it is illegal to make "jokbos" and give lectures based on them either through the internet or at on-site locations.

The U.S. nursing test is given in South Korea, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico and Thailand. In Korea, the test was first offered in May 2004 and the number of test takers has increased approximately 20 percent every year. Performing well can guarantee employment overseas.



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