Scalpers made good bargains over the weekend at the Shanghai Foreign Language Institute thanks to the great demand in the application forms for the international English language test --TOEFL, the Xinwen Evening News reported.
On average,they profited 100 yuan(US$12.10) for one position in the long queue and 180 yuan(US$21.77) for one piece of the application forms.
Since the testing center of the TOEFL restricts the number of people taking part in the test each year and each time, only those who get the genuine application forms distributed by the center on certain day will be eligible for the international test.
As more people are eager to go abroad,the application forms become hot sales.
Sunday's long queue targeted at the form for the May test. And these forms were scheduled to be handed out from 8 a.m.to 11 a.m. Sunday morning.
Two hours ahead of 8 a.m., as the reported depicted,the number of applicants had reached 800. A winding queue as long as 200 meters was formed alongside the outer wall of the university. Some students said they rushed all the way from other provinces,the farthest coming from Nanjing. Other said they had started queueing for nearly 10 hours.Those who spent the whole night outside the school gate were holding woolen sheets and overcoats in hand.
The scalpers had two ways to earn money in the form rush. They either sell the front positions to the late comers, or sell the forms.The first method earns them 100 yuan on average, while the second makes 200 yuan(US$24.20) at most.
(eastday.com January 14, 2002)
