LAST UPDATED OCTOBER 2022
In yet another example of the College Board's pathetic exam security — especially when it comes to international SAT versions — each of the last 3 international SAT forms have been leaked online prior to the day of the test.
Let's start with the December 2021 International "Soy Sauce" SAT. Here's a post on Reddit's r/SAT subreddit, on the evening of 12/3/21 (note the timestamp highlighted in black):
You can see from the screenshot that this particular post was quickly removed from the "main feed" of r/SAT, but it was up long enough for me to read the post's title (which in fact can never be deleted or changed on Reddit), savethe link (uncensored version) to the post on r/SAT, and note the author's Reddit username.
I immediately contacted this user. I was skeptical of their claim, but they soon shared a link to a full PDF copy of the exam, with answers. I will not publicly post the full exam, of course — nor did I share the link with any of my private tutoring students before the test — but here is a snippet as proof:
Yes, you read that correctly: an unknown number of people, including me, had access to full PDF copies of the 2021 December 4th International SAT (and answer key!) a day before the exam.
Although these posts and comments were quickly removed from the r/SAT home feed, they survived on Reddit backup sites such as Reveddit (see below for more on this), as did their post's titles, as well as direct links to the posts and the exam itself.
The rumor online is that students in Lebanon and/or Turkey were the source of this leak, but I have no way to verify this claim. Either way, once an exam is posted on the internet, it's instantly everywhere, so surely some technologically adept students in other countries have unduly benefited from this leak as well. In fact, there is still an active link (as of 12/14) on r/SAT to a full PDF of the exam and its answers, which I won't include here.
Sadly, this is not the first time that international SATs have leaked: I was also sent copies of leaked SATs prior to the December 2018 International, May 2021 International, and August 2021 International exam dates.
Will the College Board cancel student December 2021 International scores in response? Obviously, it should, but based on prior experience, I wouldn't necessarily expect the Board to do so, as it usually prefers to ignore these types of glaring test-security lapses than act on them, thus drawing further attention to its own embarrassments.
-Brian
UPDATE #1, 12/14/21: r/SAT moderator "Internationalist Gam" is flat wrong when they claim thatthis post never appeared on the r/SAT subreddit, and that is "fake," whatever that is supposed to mean.
If the post never appeared on r/SAT, then how did I (and probably hundreds or thousands of others) read the post's title, save the direct link, comment on the post, award it, contact the OP, and quickly obtain a link to the full PDF with answers? Not coincidentally, direct links to copies of the exam were soon posted to the r/SAT subreddit by other users, helping show that this post was no joke, and that the author of the original post, u/Organic-Inevitable-9, did in fact possess an advance copy of the exam.
I also have more hard evidence, in the form of a backup of the original post, which has been active on the Reveddit website since nearly the moment it was originally posted to r/SAT on 12/3, thus proving that many others (not just the author, or "OP") had access to the original post:
https://www.reveddit.com/v/Sat/comments/r8eccv/respond_asap_who_is_doing_sat_at_december_4th_i/
Again, if this post never appeared on the r/SAT subreddit in the first place, as Gam claims in their and stickied comment and elsewhere (uncensored version), then how could the post's title and author possibly have been copied, saved, and archived on a Reddit backup site such as Reveddit? This claim — an obvious attempt to save face by deflecting the r/SAT moderation team's responsibility for the leak — is patently and provably incorrect, not to mention logically impossible.
What Gam clearly fails to understand is that thanks to a project called Pushshift, entire websites such as Unndit and Reveddit are now dedicated to saving and archiving removed and deleted Reddit posts and comments in real-time—in particular, those that are removed by moderators and automoderators, but also those comments and posts that are deleted by the authors ("OP"s) themselves.
Thus, there is a huge difference between a post not appearing on the subreddit whatsoever (Gam's false and wholly unsupported claim), and the post appearing on r/SAT for less than 10 seconds, which — although brief — is more than enough time for Pushshift and the Reveddit bots to make a record of the post's title and author, and to save the direct link, at the very least, before the moderators can choose to remove it.
With regard to Gam's so-called evidence: all that the provided r/SATmoderation log screenshot shows us is that the post was removed, not that it was instantly removed. As any good SAT tutor will tell you, noting the subtle differences between words such as "quickly" and "instantly" is key to a great SAT score.
Again, computers and bots are fast — very, very fast — and they will catch any almost anything that's posted to Reddit and other popular websites, even for a fraction of a second (comments take longer to save than posts). Even when the body of a post is not archived in time due to automatic removal ("automoderator"), the post's title and a direct link to the post will still be auto-saved by Reveddit, as is the case with the post in question.
Notice that this particular power-tripping moderator has removed all comments on the original r/SAT post to silence dissent. Well, that's why sites like Reveddit and Unndit exist in the first place. It must be embarrassing to be the mod of a subreddit with nearly 250k members, and yet still be entirely ignorant about the existence of these types of "reveal edit" websites, which allow public access to the once-confidential moderation logs of any subreddit.
For example, if you would like to read all of the moderator-removed and user-deleted posts on the home feed of r/SAT, then here you go: https://www.reveddit.com/v/sat/
Likewise, feel free to check out the many removed/deleted posts and comments on another popular subreddit for high schoolers, r/ApplyingToCollege:https://www.reveddit.com/v/ApplyingToCollege
In fact, you can do the same to any Reddit post by simply adding a "ve" between the "e" and "d" in "Reddit" to any Reddit URL.
Live and learn, Gam: the iron fist of Reddit moderation is softer than you think.
UPDATE #2, 3/10/22: Various attempts are yet again being made on Reddit and other websites to leak, sell, and acquire SAT exams in advance: this time, it's the March 12, 2022 SATs (both US and international forms).
Example 1 (uncensored version) /Example 2 (uncensored version) / Example 3 / Example 4 (uncensored version) / Example 5 / Example 6 /Example 7 /Example 8 /Example 9
I can now personally confirm that around 5 pm MST on Friday evening (3/11/22), one of the March 2022 International / Middle East SAT forms was leaked on Reddit and elsewhere, after it was (correctly!) identified as a reuse of the previously leaked March 2021 International SAT exam form.
UPDATE #3, 5/7/22: Unsurprisingly, the May 2022 International SAT was also leaked on Reddit the evening before.
Here's the original post on Reddit, archived via the WayBack Machine and originally posted on r/SAT at https://www.reddit.com/r/Sat/comments/uk3dck/the_may_2022_international_sat_has_leaked/
Below are some images from the exam, which was leaked in its entirety on r/SAT and elsewhere around 5 pm MST on Friday 5/6.
UPDATE #4, 12/12/22: Predictably, there have been additional leaks of the International SAT in June 2022, August 2022, October 2022, and December 2022. The debut of the March 2023 International digital SAT—which promises superior test security and protection against exam leaks—certainly can't come soon enough.
Good luck to all honest students!
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