替考 Replace Test

I was having dinner with a student of mine the other day, and we were making plans this coming weekend because we have Friday off. Its Qing ming (清明节) Festival, which is also known as, Tomb Sweeping Day. This day is for remembering and honoring ones' ancestors, which includes visiting their tombs.

My student invited me to his home in the countryside, but we have to come back on Saturday because he has to take a test. I prodded a bit and found out that the test he's taking the test for someone else! The non-test taker works at a company and is looking to get a promotion. In order to accomplish this, he has to take a test and pass to get a certificate to help him obtain this advancement at work. He is paying my student to take the test for him since it is in English and my student's major is English. Here, they call this 替考 (ti kao), which literally means replace test.

I was pretty amazed at this underground business, but then again, I was not that surprised because cheating on tests is rampant and everyone and their mother manages to sneak in a crib sheet or blatantly take someone else's paper in the middle of the test and copies it (this happened in my class last semester).

It was actually very amusing. I went up to the student and said, "Oh, where's your test paper? Are you finished with it already?" She was a little verklempt but managed to spit out a few lame questions about Thanksgiving, hoping that I didn't notice that the boy behind us had her test paper. I let it go since I don't want to fail the students out of school.

Anyhoo, back to this 替考 business. It pays well, compared to the living standards here and I thought, oh my goodness, I would rock an English test (not that I support cheating, but I get easily excited). But then, I found out that there's a translation part. Um, yeah, I'm going to have to pass.