BTech student, 3 others held for malpractice in TOEFL, GRE exams

Four people, including a final year engineering student, have been arrested for allegedly indulging in malpractice in collusion with a few candidates appearing for global exams like the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) taken at home, police said. 

The four persons were committing fraud by giving advertisements on social media to enable the candidates to get good marks in GRE and TOEFL exams, said a release from Hyderabad police on Tuesday, February 7, as per a report by PTI. Two of the accused used to help their friends by writing the exam.

They lured students who have applied for the exam by giving advertisements on social media to get a good score by charging them Rs 20,000 each. Students applying for the exam have the option to attend from home, the police said.

During the exam, the other two accused secretly used to take a photo of the exam paper and send it to their associates, including a BTech final year student (of NIT Raipur), through an instant messaging platform. The BTech student would prepare the answers and send the answer sheet back to them and they would give it to the students taking the exam, the police said.

In the same way, another accused from Hyderabad, who is absconding, also posted advertisements on social media and with the help of one of the arrested persons and helped the students/candidates cheat their way in, and collected money from them, the police said.

Following a complaint regarding malpractice in Hyderabad, the city police registered a case and arrested the four persons from different places while some other accused involved in the case are absconding, the police added.

The TOEFL and GRE are crucial exams for securing admissions to top universities across the world.