American Test Center

It was a test cramming service unlike any other. Forget the reams of study materials and the diagrams explaining the Pythagorean theorem. The American Test Center in El Monte promised a stellar score without any study whatsoever. It delivered you to your exam in a Mercedes-Benz. And, once you got there, it provided you with magical little pencils that had all the right answers.

It was a test cramming service unlike any other. Forget the reams of study materials and the diagrams explaining the Pythagorean theorem. The American Test Center in El Monte promised a stellar score without any study whatsoever. It delivered you to your exam in a Mercedes-Benz. And, once you got there, it provided you with magical little pencils that had all the right answers.

Hyundai Motor Co. said Monday that it would begin construction this year on a $50-million center in the Mojave Desert near California City to test vehicles being designed for North America. The facility, to be operated by the South Korean automaker's Hyundai American Test Center Inc., will be used by Hyundai and its Kia subsidiary and is expected to employ 40 people. Construction is expected to be completed late next year.

An Arcadia man was arrested in connection with a scheme that allegedly beat graduate school admission exams by paying experts to take the tests in New York and phone answers to California, to be provided to students for $6,000 a person. The scheme took advantage of the three-hour time difference and the fact that the same test is administered nationwide on the same day, prosecutors said Monday.

German automaker BMW said Tuesday that it would begin distributing the world's first hydrogen-burning cars to selected users in the U.S. and Europe next year. The cars are 7-Series sedans powered by 12-cylinder internal-combustion engines capable of burning gasoline or liquefied hydrogen.

Gregg Colton likes to recall a minor case of deja vu that he was forced to endure a couple of years ago. The private investigator and former director of test security for an examination firm was reading an advertisement that guaranteed a passing grade on a state contractor's exam after just two days of study. He'd seen hundreds of similar ads from such "cram schools" but after further scrutiny, he had to admit this one was special.