As You Struggle With Mwakenya,Chinese Teens are Pulling Some High-Tech Tricks To Cheat On Tests

China’s students have apparently developed skills for building cheating devices to use during an SAT-like exam that look like they have been pulled straight from a James Bond movie.
Ahead of China’s massive college entrance exam — the Gaokao — that took place on Saturday and Sunday, local media outlets released photos of cheating devices confiscated by police around the country in recent weeks.

The photos show intricate cheating equipment, a majority of which were created by students in the southwestern city of Chengdu before taking a different test, the National Professional and Technological Personnel Qualification Examination.
Around 40 students, all originally from Shanghai, were reportedly caught with the devices, which were disguised to look like everyday objects.

Some of the uncovered equipment included miniature cameras installed into both a pen
Students take pictures of test papers and questions using button-hole cameras hidden in pens (pictured, camera circled) which are then sent to someone outside the hall using an antenna


wireless earphones resembling small earplugs.

The mobile is connected to a hidden earpiece which allows the pupil to listen to the answer without attracting attention from exam invigilators

A much less sophisticated system has pupils writing on their hands with ultraviolet pens, then using a tiny black-light hidden in a different pen to reveal the answers in the exam hall

Cheating happens in every country, but it’s extremely rampant in China.
Ahead of this year’s exam, which was taken by nearly 9.4 million students across the country, Beijing was preparing to send police out to monitor and handle cheating incidents.  In fact, students practically expect to be able to cheat on exams.

During protests last summer against a crackdown on Gaokao cheating, students chanted, "We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat."
The Gaokao is China’s SAT or A-level equivalent, with many students' chances at matriculating into college reliant on their exam results.

He said the government and Chinese people have tried to implement changes by taking pressure off of how students are evaluated and diluting the importance of standardized testing, but these efforts have not been very successful.

"Test scores are a very poor measure of a person's future, they're a very poor measure of a country's future," he said.