People take the national judicial examination in Chongqing on Sept 17.[Photo/China Daily]

 

Answers leaked on Internet amid questions over integrity, Cui Jia, Li Jing and Duan Yan report in Beijing.

The credibility of exams for professionals is being questioned after answers were leaked ahead of tests for accountants, legal personnel, architects and doctors.

Just before this year's exam for certified public accountants (CPA) on Sept 17 and 18, five multiple-choice questions and answers were posted on an Internet forum popular with those taking the exam. The same questions appeared in the test, in the auditing section.

Similar leaks occurred covering material in two other sections of the exam, which was taken by 552,000 people this year. The auditing section, one of six, contained 47 questions worth a total of 105 points; 60 are required to pass. The average pass rate for the full CPA exam is 10 to 15 percent.

"I began to receive at least five text messages a day selling exam questions a month before the exam took place. All of them claimed they could provide genuine questions and answers. They also promised a full refund if the questions were not genuine," said Zhu Hua, 28, who sat for this year's CPA exam in Beijing after failing it last year. "I wonder how they got my number in the first place, because I only provided my contact information when I registered for the exam."

A wave of comment has unfolded about the impact of the exam leaks and cheating by some candidates. Some say they will erode public trust in these qualification tests and in professions that value accuracy and justice.

Ma Jinghao, who works for the accounting division in the Ministry of Finance, said those who passed the CPA exam will likely become the future watchdogs of the economy. "If the exam cannot be conducted fairly, how can people trust the signatures on financial statements and reports?"

"I am furious and feel that it is really unfair for examinees like me who work extremely hard on this," Zhu said. "Is the CPA exam a joke? If anyone could get questions and answers before the exam, then anyone could become a qualified accountant. If that's the case, it is a disaster for the country."

Warnings of fakery

Zhu said she had heard that some questions were leaked last year but the scale this year was far greater. "I heard that for about 1,000 yuan, people could get the contents of the whole paper."

On Sept 8, an office of the Certified Public Accountant Examination Board had warned students to avoid the illegal offers of exam answers and called them a fraud.

The day the exam concluded, the Chinese Institute of Certified Public Accountants announced on its website that the leaks would be investigated and that anyone found responsible would be held to account legally. The institute declined to give further details.

A similar warning to students, that exam answers being sold online were bogus, was made on Sept 15 by the National Medical Examination Center. The center advised students to focus on exam preparation by sticking to professional ethics and to comply with the exam rules with integrity.

But during the medical licensing examination, also on Sept 17 and 18, China Youth Daily reported that one Internet user received 20 questions from a source 90 minutes before a test on the second day and found them to be identical to questions in the test. Similar leaks had been reported in 2007 and 2009, the report said

After the leak was brought to the spotlight, a user of Sina's micro-blogging service wrote, "If the doctor I'm seeing got his/her qualification by cheating, what can I do? I don't want to risk my health, if not my life."