A high school student studies for an exam. A Chinese court barred an Internet site from selling materials such as questions from the Graduate Management Admission Test to stop online cheating by students. Asianewsphoto

A Chinese court barred a Beijing-based Internet site from selling materials such as questions from the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), bolstering efforts by business schools to combat cheating by applicants.

Beijing Passion Consultancy Ltd, a Web-based test-preparation site, was ordered to stop using the materials, to apologize in a national newspaper, to post a warning about cheating and pay 520,000 yuan to the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), the McLean, Virginia-based group said in a statement.

Thirty-two GMAT scores from students in China were revoked this year, and 24 Chinese test takers were blocked from taking the exam again for five years, said David A. Wilson, president of GMAC.

The Chinese court ruling "will scare some people from cheating in the short term, now that they realize they could be affected by this and have their GMAT score canceled," said Donald McCabe, a professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

"But I worry that students, if they want to cheat, will find another way around it if they are so anxious to do so," McCabe added.

GMAC, an association of graduate management schools, owns and administers the GMAT standardized admission test available to students in nearly 100 countries and required by more than 4,700 business school programs.

The group is also attempting to curtail cheating with methods such as Web scanning software.

GMAC has increased security at testing centers, including palm-vein readers that capture each test takers' imprints, Wilson said in an interview.

                                                                                                    Source: China Daily