The Graduate Management Admission Council has been awarded $2.3-million in damages in a copyright-infringement lawsuit against the operator of a Web site that posted real questions and unauthorized study materials to help students pass the council’s business-school entrance examination, the GMAT, the council announced on Friday.
Students who used the site, ScoreTop.com, to try to improve their scores on the Graduate Management Admission Test may regret it. The council has seized a hard drive from a server used to run the Web site, and says it will notify business schools of anyone who violated its testing policies by using the site. The council, which administers the admission test, will also cancel those students’ scores.
Students looking for the Web site this week instead read the following: “Warning! If You Are Looking for ‘Real’ GMAT® Exam Questions, Think Again!” A series of threats against cheaters followed. That set off a flurry of panicked e-mail messages and blog entries.
More than 4,000 graduate business and management programs worldwide use the GMAT to assess the qualifications of M.B.A. candidates.
The council was given control of the Web site by a U.S. District Court in Virginia, which also ruled that Lei Shi and other operators of the site must pay the council legal fees, court costs, and other relief. The council sued Mr. Shi, who was living in the United States at the time but has since returned to his native China, for distributing copyrighted GMAT-related materials through the site without the council’s permission. —Katherine Mangan
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One Response to Web Site That Gave Illicit GMAT Study Tips Is Hit With Huge Fine
csrealist - January 18, 2011 at 10:54 pm
So this is the study program that got caught, but how many others are out there? How many students, who had the money/family/connections to access exceptionally “accurate” study programs, were accepted over students who took pains to study for the tests, presented a robust academic profile, and were passed over? How many of these “successful” students take what they learn back to their countries’ of origin; leaving dejected students in the United States to struggle with the divisive politics and evaporating economic and geopolitical stability?