I recently wrote an article proving how test-takers worldwide are cheating on their “GRE at Home” tests. It is quite disappointing how ETS’s home-based GRE service is so vulnerable to fraudulent activity. ETS first introduced the home-based test a year ago after the pandemic broke out, and there is no telling how many of the test results have been fraudulent so far.

It is equally alarming that there hasn’t been a more significant backlash by people regarding the rampant cheating, but that might be due to the lack of coverage on the issue. Anyway, it is no secret now that ETS’s “proctor U” software is obnoxiously easy to cheat. Since ETS plans on keeping the home-based test around for the foreseeable future, it is paramount that they fix the issues so that decent people who take the test legitimately don’t get affected.

In this article, I will go over some of the home-based test vulnerabilities and what ETS can do to fix them.

The testing environment

One of the biggest challenges to any home-based test service is that it must rely on a particular software to deliver the test. No software can be perfect, and those who have skin in the game will eventually find ways to work around the safeguards that are put in place by the developers.

Unlike an in-person test, no one is physically present in a home-based test to monitor the test-takers, which is perhaps the most crucial problem. Instead, a proctor supervises the test over the internet by monitoring the test taker’s webcam feed.

Take what is happening with home-based GRE, test-takers manage to mirror their computer screens to secondary displays outside their rooms. This allows test-takers to get their friends to help them by watching the questions in another room, solving them, and then sneaking into the test taker’s room to show them the answer choices written on a piece of paper.

The proctor fails to suspect anything because, from their perspective, the test-taker isn’t doing anything unusual, not knowing that their friends are feeding them the answer choices by carefully holding up the papers right next to the display from behind.

The test taker doesn’t have to make much head movement to read the answers, and hence there is nothing to suspect.

Here are some ways that can make the testing requirement more secure.

• A requirement for the doors to be locked from the inside: At the start of the test, the proctor will ask you to show them your room by rotating your webcam 360°. This only prevents other people from being in the room at the beginning. However, what is stopping them from sneaking in during the test? Proctor will ask you to show them that your door is closed at the start of the test, but again, the door can be opened by anyone from the outside.To fix this, ETS should implement a rule that the door must be locked from the inside of the room by the test-taker. Moreover, only a bolt lock would work here because a key-lock can still be opened from the outside by whoever has the keys. The proctor must ask the test taker to show them that the door is locked before the test starts. This will prevent non-test takers from entering the room and passing information to the test-taker.
• A Room with Only Single Entrance Should Be Approved: Cheaters can choose to take the test in a room that has multiple doors. Even if ETS makes locking the door from the inside a requirement, the proctor may not know that there are various entrances. An effective way to eliminate this problem is only to allow the test in a room with a single entry. This will prevent people from entering the room using a different entrance than the one shown to the proctor.At the start of the test, the proctor should ask the test taker to show them the entire room by moving their laptop or external camera. If they detect multiple entries, then the test should not be allowed in that room.
• Camera Position: Currently, there is no requirement that the camera is pointed towards the door. Sure, the camera won’t be able to pick up the entire door because of the test-taker sitting in front of it. However, even if only the top half of the door is visible to the proctor, it would be enough to tell whether it is closed the entire time or not.
• Desk Placement: There are no specific requirements as to where in the room the computer desk should be placed. Some locations are worse than the others in that written information can be passed to the test taker without being noticed by the proctor.For example, if you place the desk against a wall and in front of the door, anyone trying to sneak into the room would have to walk in front of the camera to hand the test taker the answers. This arrangement would depend on the layout of a specific room but generally, you would want the test-taker to face a wall with the door in sight of the camera.
• Unnecessary Display Connections: If you have read my article on how people manage to cheat on their at-home GRE test then you know that a secondary display connection is established for the whole thing to work. The most common way to do this is to use an HDMI splitter that gives cheaters the ability to mirror their displays in another room. To prevent this, a proctor would need to be familiar with the different ports on a computer. They can ask the test-taker to show them all the wires plugged into the computer by video calling them on their smartphone. If there are any additional wires or devices used to cheat, the proctor will detect them.
• Improvements in AI: ETS claims that the “Proctor U” software uses AI to detect suspicious activity. This can be opening the internet browser on your computer during the test or opening another software that may allow the test-taker to cheat. While this is a good measure, it is still not perfect. I think that the AI should be trained to track the eye-movement of the test-taker. For example, developers can build a feature into the software that can detect patterns in eye movement. Suspicious eye movement such as continually looking to the side or over the screen should be a cause for concern. Once notified, the proctor can ask the test-taker to turn their camera around to ensure no one has entered the room and that the door is still closed.