TEST FRAUD ON SAT
NEW YORK - Test fraud is alive and well and a sports magazine reports that top high school basketball recruits such as Zendon Hamilton of St. John's and Avondre Jones of Fresno State cheated on their college entrance exams.
In this week's Sports Illustrated, an article titled "Troubling Questions" details how several high school stars managed to cheat on their SATs and ACTs with the help of high school coaches, recruiters and "middlemen."
While most of the people involved in the Hamilton and Jones cheating scenarios deny wrongdoing, Nate Cebrun, a self-described "sports consultant" who spent 30 days in jail for his part in providing merchandise to Florida State athletes in the 1994 Foot Locker scandal, says he was the "middleman."
In Hamilton's case, SI reported that on nine occasions in 1993-94, the highly-recruited 6-foot-11 center from Floral Park, N.Y., failed to score the minimum on his SATs the NCAA required for freshman eligibility.
On the 10th try, Hamilton passed, but only after he traveled from New York to Los Angeles, met with Cebrun for his "SAT tutoring program" the night before the test and took the exam at Lynwood High School, where Cebrun's brother once served as principal.
Cebrun told SI he had "passed on the name of this 'tutoree' to someone who works in Lynwood's testing program so there would be a safety net." Cebrun told SI that the insider would make the proper adjustments or additions to Hamilton's answer sheet before it was sealed and returned to the Educational Testing Service (ETS).
Cebrun said he was paid $2,000 for making sure Hamilton passed the test. SI also reported that two other men were with Cebrun and Hamilton the night before he took his final SAT -- Greg "Shoes" Vetrone, then an assistant at Cal-Irvine and now in the same position with UNLV, and Gary Charles, coach of Hamilton's AAU team.
Hamilton's father George told SI "the allegation that Zendon was involved in any wrongdoing with SAT tests is totally false."
Jim Wallace, a vice principal who has supervised the administration of the SAT at Lynwood for 14 years, told the magazine that orchestrated fraud at his testing center was "impossible. Ridiculous. This is a test center, not a cheat center."
Vetrone, and several unnamed coaches, told SI that Lynwood was notorious for test fraud.
Cebrun told SI he also helped Jones, a 1993 McDonald's High School All-America, pass his SAT. Jones has gone from Southern California to Chaffey College in California back to USC and is now set to play for Fresno State this season.
SI says Jones took his SAT at Lynwood, improving a non-qualifying score of 630 by 460 points in two months. Jones told SI his test score was investigated and validated by ETS.
According to ETS, about 1,000 of the two million SAT answer sheets it processes each year are invalidated on suspicion of cheating. American College Testing (ACT) told SI is has a similar rate.

CHEATING IN THE AIR FORCE
LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. (ACCNS) - A technical sergeant assigned to the Air Combat Command Inspector General Team was convicted in a general court-martial May 31 of cheating before taking the Promotion Fitness Examination in 1997 to test for master sergeant.
There were two specifications alleged against the member, both for violation of a lawful general regulation under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The regulation was Air Force Instruction 36-2605, Air Force Military Personnel Testing System, which sets forth the rules for preparing for the PFE.
The technical sergeant was acquitted of possessing an actual copy of the 1996 E-7 PFE, but convicted of using or reviewing actual test material and/or illegal study materials in the time period leading up to the 1997 E-7 exam. The jury sentenced him to 90 days hard labor without confinement, a reduction in rank to staff sergeant, and a reprimand from the commander, Ninth Air Force.
"This case will have consequences for the member even beyond the sentence imposed," said Capt. Wendy Carroll, 1st Fighter Wing Staff Judge Advocate chief of military justice. "He is a convicted felon, and that may have an impact later on in his life."

Marcia Hilsabeck, an English teacher at Round Rock High School in Texas, chuckles when recalling how one of her students printed a research paper off the Internet, created a title page, and turned in the assignment. He was unaware the web address (URL) of the site he plagiarized was printed in the top corner of every page he downloaded. Hilsabeck nabbed him.

ETHICS STUDENTS CAUGHT CHEATING
25 San Diego State Students Caught Using Quiz Answers; All Given 'F' In Biz Ethics Class
SAN DIEGO, Calif., Posted 12:29 p.m. April 30, 1999 -- Twenty-five San Diego State University business students got an "F" for cheating. The class? Ethics. About a third of those enrolled in a business ethics course were caught using answers to a quiz last month. All were given failing grades for the course and most were placed on probation. The scandal was reported this week in the student newspaper, The Daily Aztec, and in today's San Diego Union-Tribune.
"What did I learn? Obviously not to cheat. It's not worth it," one student told the Union-Tribune. Lecturer Brian D. Cornforth said he set a trap to catch cheaters after receiving a tip that students were using answers they culled from tests given to an earlier session of the class. "A line must be drawn in the sand," he said. "This is just too egregious, it's too heinous a cheating scandal."
Julie Logan, the university's judicial procedures officer, said the case was unusual because of the number of students involved. "Most of my cheating cases are just one person making the decision to cheat on their own," Logan said.

COLD-BLOODED CHEATING
There is nothing funny about drug abuse. And nobody takes it more seriously than Beth Lindamood. Really she does. Even if she makes you laugh at the same time. She has compiled a Letterman-esque list of the Top 10 Dumbest Ways Employees Try to Disguise Drug Abuse. "Everything on the list is something people have actually tried," she says. Here’s one from the list: Substituting a "fresh" 40-degree urine sample. "The lab concluded that either he was submitting someone else's refrigerated urine or he was a corpse."