Chinese media reported that a Chinese graduate student studying in Japan was caught cheating for more than 800 TOEIC applicants over two years.
According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency on the 9th, a Chinese man attending the graduate school of Kyoto University in Japan was arrested in May on charges of helping cheat on the TOEIC test.
He was arrested on charges of hiding a small microphone in a mask and possessing items such as ‘smart glasses’, a glasses-type electronic device, to deliver the answer to other candidates in the TOEIC test held in Itabashi-gu, Tokyo.
An official from the International Business Exchange Association (IIBC), which oversees Japan’s TOEIC test, said that after May 2023, a total of 803 applicants wrote the same address as men or different addresses.
The association judged, “It is an abuse of the determination of the test site by address,” adding, “These applicants may have received the man’s answer at the test site.”
He added that all of the past test scores of 803 applicants will be invalidated and will be disqualified from taking the test for the next five years.
According to Hong Kong’s Sungdo Daily, the man told police he intervened in the test last winter after receiving a message in Chinese saying, “You can get paid if you go to the test site,” and Japanese police suspect a Chinese group may have manipulated Wang behind the scenes.
The issue was reported to have surfaced when IIBC informed the police of the “abnormal situation.”
IIBC informed the Japanese police that there were exceptionally many Chinese applicants who received 900 points (990 points), that there were people who heard small Chinese during the TOEIC test, and that the same person was found to have taken the test several times, and that the police were preparing, according to the Sungdo Ilbo.
EJ SONG
US ASIA JOURNAL
