I receive regular updates from ATA which is the largest testing company in China (and also happens to trade on the NASDAQ as ATAI). Last month, they administered the National Judicial Examination in China to more than 350,00 candidates. An individual must pass this exam to work in Chinese legal system and is a requirement for lawyers, prosecutors, and judges. Due to the high stakes nature of this exam, there were major concerns about cheating. (Cheating on exams in China has been an issue for over 2000 years with reports dating back to at least the Han Dynasty. There are a number of cultural factors which contribute to this which I hope to find the time to blog about fairly soon.)

In addition to taking candidates’ temperatures to make sure no one was ill, many test centers were also outfitted with handheld devices to detect the presence of wireless earphones well as equipment to block mobile phone signals. Additionally, 8 fixed monitoring stations and 2 mobile signal detection vehicles (labeled “Signal Detection”) were used to identify “suspicious” signals in the proximity of testing centers in  Beijing. In at least one instance, a test taker was discovered to have a wrist watch which could send and receive data. 

Reid Klion