Job Discussion Forums

[johnchina]

Bribery, with regard to IELTS, does happen in China.

There was an interesting incident last year when an IELTS school got hold of the question papers the day before a test. That couldn't have been the examiners, because they don't have access to them before tests.

Bribing an examiner to get a higher score in the speaking test is incredibly easy and, no, very often the listening and reading scores do not match the speaking one. It's a well-known fact that candidates generally do better on the 'passive' test components.

Take a typical candidate who needs a 6.5 overall score to get into a UK/Australian uni. If a candidate feels they've achieved 6.5 on listening and reading, the speaking examiner's score will not be checked unless it is higher than 8 (very unlikely) or lower than 5 (possible, but unlikely after the BC ... oh, i'll save that one for another time).

Therefore, the examiner can quite happily accept a bribe to give the candidate a 6.5, say instead of a 5.5, knowing that the chances of being caught through the checks on marking are ... calculator please ... oh, about 1 in 300 - 0.3%. Sounds like good odds to me.

Remember, the best situations to get away with taking a bribe are those that require the least fiddling. Nudging a candidate up two bands, as in clarries example, is risky. Nudging them up one band is far less so.

The 'warnings' for examiners that clarrie mentions do exist. The only thing is that an examiner has to recertificate every two years and is unlikely to get checked more than three times during that period. And you have to be given three warnings before you are forced to recertificate, so it rarely makes a difference.

How much will bribers pay? Well, remember that you're dealing mainly with kids from wealthy families here. If, as often happens, they leave their IELTS test to the last minute, paying a bribe can easily save several thousand dollars and a year waiting to reapply to unis. They'll pay.

Bribery involving the writing module is virtually impossible, but then candidates often get away with very formulaic answers where a smattering of words can be changed to suit whichever question comes up.

clarrie raises an interesting point about whether the claims of bribery result from the fact that Chinese IELTS candidates do well in the IELTS test and can hardly communicate when they arrive abroad. I'd say that has little to do with bribery. Bribery does happen, but it's probably rare. Nor do I think it's the lag time between taking the test and going abroad.

I think the real reason is that candidates know that the examiner can't mark them down for not answering the question. This means that candidates can memorise whole answers and simply spout them out regardless of what the examiner actually asks about.

Candidates are told at IELTS prep schools to simply keep talking. A candidate who does this with reasonable pronunciation and minimal grammar can easily achieve a 6, regardless of whether the candidate is actually answering the question posed by the examiner.

As I said before, bribery certainly does happen in IELTS tests in China, but it's certainly not common.

[clarrie]

OK, I've stated that I agree that bribes happen in China in relation to the IELTS exam, but I said that it is more than likely to be Chinese people some how associated with the exam and sell themselves as saviours ... for the right money!

OK, a band score difference of one won't be flagged, but in reality ... in most instances that won't do the candidate any favours anyway when the scores are averaged out!

Statistically candidates actually do better on speaking than the other skills and whilst there is little variation across the other skills, writing is the lowest, listening is second lowest and reading just below speaking. (Chinese) Candidates/students believe their speaking results will be worst because they hear it so often and they believe their writing will be best because they have Chinese expert teachers talking about the skill!

The notion that all the cadidate has to do is keeping talkng with reasonable fluency and vocabulary variation to get a six is quite clearly nonsense! If they prattle on ... about anything, they are not indicating that they have adequate language to discuss a topic and follow-up questions in these situations usually bring the prattle to a halt!


Mmmm, formulaic answers and good results ... ! By their very definition formulaic answers will flag themselves and candidates will be marked down for ... 'copied' scripts rather be marked up for spouting what hundreds of others have spouted!!!

I think it was you who used the commonly-used expression, 'every coin has two sides' in your posting. Indeed, not bad the first time you hear/read it, but after several hundred times it means nothing and simply becomes an indicator of language ability!

OK, about arriving abroad! What I suggested here was that candidates with legitimate scores who have been accepted into courses abroad sometimes/often/usually/nearly always arrive with a lower language level than indicated by their application level because of time factors and the fact that many students once they have achieved the result they want, will not do any more English study to maintain competency!

I also suggested that amongst these students may be people who are providing falsified documents, not falsified by means of bribe through the British Council, but copied/counterfeit documents! I think this point was misunderstood.

The poster suggests that bribes (to examiners) are rare but do happen, but I would suggest that with examiners it is INCREDIBLY rare! What I have said that I strongly believe is that Chinese administrators in various test centres might take bribes by over-inflating their ability to have an impact on final results. By test centres I am not including BC offices in this, because as I intimated about the amount of bride required to tempt a person to risk losing a reasonably well-paid job for the sake of a one-off payment, it would have to be a really significant amount!!

In short: bribes happen I'm sure, but not to the people who could possibly sway an outcome.

[johnchina]

I think I broadly agree with what clarrie says, except the last sentence!

clarrie - "OK, a band score difference of one won't be flagged, but in reality ... in most instances that won't do the candidate any favours anyway when the scores are averaged out!"

Yes, mostly, and that's probably one reason bribery is so rare.

clarrie - "Candidates/students believe their speaking results will be worst because they hear it so often"

This is one reason candidates might be tempted to consider bribery.

clarrie - "The notion that all the cadidate has to do is keeping talkng with reasonable fluency and vocabulary variation to get a six is quite clearly nonsense! If they prattle on ... about anything, they are not indicating that they have adequate language to discuss a topic and follow-up questions in these situations usually bring the prattle to a halt!

Mmmm, formulaic answers and good results ... ! By their very definition formulaic answers will flag themselves and candidates will be marked down for ... 'copied' scripts rather be marked up for spouting what hundreds of others have spouted!!!

I think it was you who used the commonly-used expression, 'every coin has two sides' in your posting. Indeed, not bad the first time you hear/read it, but after several hundred times it means nothing and simply becomes an indicator of language ability!"

I agree with you, clarrie, but most IELTS examiners and, more importantly, those supervising the examiners (i.e. checking scores) do NOT believe this. If there is a dispute between the score an examiner gives and the score a supervising examiner gives, the situation is mediated by a close colleague of the supervising examiner and it's much easier to 'warn' an ordinary examiner than a supervising one.

As an example, I know of several examiners who gave low writing scores (well, fives - not that low, really) to candidates and were told to 'bump them up' (to sixes and even sevens) despite the fact that even the supervising examiner agreed the essays contained "extensive formulaic language".

I think the time lag factor is there, but we'll have to agree to disagree on the relative importance of those influences.

I very much doubt that anyone at the BC would falsify documents. Very hard to do and a high chance of getting caught. Totally agree with clarrie on that. Document falsification is a problem, but when the candidates try to get visas, not when they take IELTS.