On occasion, a student may take the phrase “work smarter, not harder” a little too far in an attempt to reach their goal score on the ACT. However, this can create several problems for educators: it not only leaves you with inaccurate data, but it also demands behavioral intervention.
We find that it’s best to preempt any test-taking misconduct by addressing the most common ways students fall prey to this moral dilemma.
When you schedule a practice test for your students, ensure that they cannot access answers from these sources:
- A previous test attempt. If students have taken the text in a previous year, they can view the correct answers on their progress reports. By monitoring screens during the testing period, you can confirm that students are not navigating away from their test and accessing these reports.
- Google. We use unpublished ACT practice tests licensed directly from ACT. Though we obscure the original test code to ensure students cannot use it as search terms, it’s possible that a student could google an unofficial copy of the test if they are clever enough in their searches.
- Another student. If one student completes the test, they have immediate access to the correct answers. Students may be tempted to sneak a peek if their neighbor has the answers visible on-screen. Though allowing students instant access to their results is one of the features MasteryPrep is proud to offer, we also understand that students who have finished a subtest could potentially share answers with a student who has not finished. If you'd like to prevent this possibility, we can enable an ANSWER KEY REVEAL date. This allows students to view their scores but does not allow students to review the questions and their answers. Please reach out to us to request this service; you can email us directly at support@masteryprep.zendesk.com or reach out via chat.
To ensure that students are putting in their best efforts and that score results are representative of those efforts, we recommend assigning test monitors to proctor the exam and ensure that everyone is looking at their test—and only at their test—for the duration of the exam.
If there are staff limitations, we recommend implementing a lockdown browser to prevent students from cheating. Be sure to test your lockdown browser with a small group of student accounts before test day to confirm that the process runs smoothly and that the lockdown browser does not create any unforeseen issues. If you are using actual student accounts to test the lockdown browser, be sure to reset those students’ tests so they’re ready for test day.
Have more questions about this? Contact your school support manager or visit us at MasteryPrep.com to access our help chat.