American Notes NEW YORK

For high school students in New York State, the Regents exams are a crucial rite of passage: doing well greatly improves their chances of getting into college. Last week thousands of students learned that much of their cramming would go to waste, when the New York Post splashed the answer sheet to the Regents chemistry exam across its front page. An angry state education commissioner, Thomas Sobol, postponed the test.

The Post claimed that thousands of bootleg copies of answers to various Regents exams were being sold for as much as $2,000 a copy. A reporter was able to obtain the chemistry answer sheet in 15 minutes by placing two telephone calls. This was not the first case of exam scam. A former yeshiva student was recently arrested for selling copies of tests last year. If convicted, he could be sentenced to twelve years in prison.