Episodes of cheating that you have known and loved

[socca]

OK, I’m being a tad facetious - we aren’t supposed to love cheating. However, I have to admit to a grudging admiration for the pretty young lady who showed up for a Computer Science exam at a major Midwestern university back in the ‘80s for which I was a proctor. She managed to score an 85 despite flagrantly copying answers from the two students seated in front of her. My fellow proctors and I seized her exam when she tried to turn it in; we also seized the exams of her two victims. What’s it like to show up for an exam knowing that the only way you are going to succeed is through theft of intellectual property from fellow students? I can’t imagine. Back then, I thought this young lady had a bright future in American society: combine exceptionally good looks, moral “flexibility”, and the innate ability to identify appropriate victims, and you’ll go far. The only thing lacking was the ability to steal without getting caught - a skill that can be learned through practice.

A favorite quote relevant to this case:

The secret of great fortunes with no apparent source is a forgotten crime, forgotten because it was properly carried out. - de Balzac

So … anyone else directly witnessed cheating?

 

[easysurfer]

I thought you were describing the college admissions scandal going on in the news. Parents (and perhaps potential students) behaving badly. When I first heard of the news, I nearly checked my calendar to make sure it wasn't April fools.

The only witnessed cheating I remember was in high school history class. Not one of my best classes. The teacher, for whatever reason, decided to leave the class room after handing out the test. So, there I was sweating trying my best to answer questions when this classmate surely rubber necked looking over my shoulder at my answers. Little did she know, she was probably copying the wrong answers .

 

[LOL!]

A grad student had school subsidized housing in NYC. He turned it into an AirBNB and just doubled up with friends when renting it out.

 

[Texas Proud]

I will add a bit on the proctor and cheating...


When I was in college I went to see a classmate during his time proctoring an exam... we had things to go over... well, I kept looking to the back of the room and saw this guy who was cheating from two other peoples test...


I brought it up to my classmate and his response was.... "those two do not know the answer to anything so I do not know why he is cheating off them"... which leads to another I guess rule of cheating... make sure the person you are cheating from actually knows the subject!!

 

[MRG]

We had a teacher, "Eagle Eye Ames" she had a face and stare similar to an eagle. When she caught someone cheating you knew it. Her eyes would burn a hole in the offender's soul.

I never bothered to cheat. Expending all that energy when I could study. I really never studied, I didn't care. Fortunately I could just walk in and pull the 85.

 

[CaptTom]

Not exactly "cheating," but I have to give grudging respect to the scammers who come up with the new social engineering scams we all get via our e-mail inboxes and phones.

If it weren't for the fact that they're targeting vulnerable people, you almost have to admire the way they figure out how to manipulate people.

And the ones who do the scams where the victim thinks they're going to illegally obtain some large amount of money, well, there's some poetic justice there. Being a sucker is one thing; being a greedy, dishonest sucker is a little different.

Having said all that, I admire the honest folks who scam the scammers even more. Now that's poetic justice.

 

[brucethebroker]

Boy am I embarrassed....thought this was about affairs....

 

[4legsgood]

I remember late in the quarter of an upper division math class that consisted of nothing but doing proofs a fellow student said to me, "Why don't I ever see you in the library?", and I said I like doing assignments at home. She said, "But all the proofs are in books at the library...". WHAAAAA!!! I'd spent entire weekends on a single proof.

 

[Gumby]

Long ago, when the young wife was just starting out as a teacher, she showed me two tests she was grading. One girl had obviously copied from another, but could not properly read the first girl's handwriting. The resulting mishmash of incomprehensible words was hilarious.

 

[Mdlerth]

Under 17 not admitted without parent

Boy am I embarrassed....thought this was about affairs....

I thought the same thing. Now that I find it isn't, I'm not embarrassed, just disappointed.

Maybe thread titles should include ratings like movies have: "Rated R for adult content". I wonder how quickly the spicy threads would overtake the money threads in popularity. I'll be conservative and say it'd take at least a couple of days.

 

[bushpilot]

Teacher here - have seen work copied word for word from another, including spelling errors.

 

[robnplunder]

So … anyone else directly witnessed cheating?

It's pretty common. I've seen blatant cheating many times, as a student and then as an employee. Most get away with it.

 

[justlikebike]

Ha, I was never one to respect authority too much. I remember in college, the student next to me was one of the smartest in the class, but tended to think too literally for the tests. We both had notepads on our desks. We would help each other out by asking and answering each other's questions on the notepads. Worked like a charm. I considered it team building

 

[N02L84ER]

When I did my student teaching at my old home town over spring break, one of the students in the front row was blatantly looking at the answers being put down by his classmate. I called him on it by saying "'John', please keep you eyes on your own test paper." This happened during 4th period. My younger brother, a sophomore, told me that evening that by the end of the school day, everyone knew that I had caught "John" cheating. Apparently, all the kids knew "John" cheated, but none of the teachers would call him on it.

 

[Lewis Clark]

I'm a teacher and have seen hundreds of written assignments that were obviously copied and pasted from the Internet. One student copied a page from Wikipedia and managed to include the advertisements on the page in addition to the text that was the target of the copying.

I teach online classes and have students post an introduction at the start of the semester. One student actually copied the introduction from a classmate. That's about as lazy as it gets.

I have also proctored computerized tests in a testing center on campus. I would catch at least one student trying to look up answers on the computer when they thought I was not looking.

Cheating is happening at epidemic levels in my experience.

 

[Beststash]

Pursuing an MBA in my early 50's while working and traveling, I had my DW do several of my papers for a couple of classes. She enjoyed doing them and did excellent work. I couldn't have done it without her. I considered it "helping" not cheating. I retired 2 months after graduating.

 

[mh]

Pursuing an MBA in my early 50's while working and traveling, I had my DW do several of my papers for a couple of classes. She enjoyed doing them and did excellent work. I couldn't have done it without her. I considered it "helping" not cheating. I retired 2 months after graduating.

Well , since she enjoyed it .... [emoji1782]

 

[Lewis Clark]

Pursuing an MBA in my early 50's while working and traveling, I had my DW do several of my papers for a couple of classes. She enjoyed doing them and did excellent work. I couldn't have done it without her. I considered it "helping" not cheating. I retired 2 months after graduating.

You may consider it "helping". But you submitted work that was not your own. Everybody in academia would consider it cheating. At least be honest with yourself about what you were doing.

 

[Koolau]

I rarely even felt the "need" to cheat on exams (and would have felt too guilty to do it.) Having said that, I got through a number of lab courses by "dry labing" them as the crappy equipment we had and worse TAs meant nothing ever worked in the allotted time. I learned FAR more by figuring out how the labs SHOULD have worked and adapting data to fit. I salved any pangs of conscience by the knowledge that I had actually learned the material. When I got to the "real" world of laboratories, it was quite simple to adapt to equipment that actually worked and came with manuals that were appropriate. On the rare occasion where I needed help, there were always folks more experienced who were (more or less) happy to train me.

I guess I wouldn't even call what I did cheating, but those with differing points of view on the subject are welcome to their own opinions as YMMV.

 

[Badger]

You may consider it "helping". But you submitted work that was not your own. Everybody in academia would consider it cheating. At least be honest with yourself about what you were doing.

I retired from academia where I taught Anatomy/Physiology to potential medical career students. It was very competitive. There were a few students who were not prepared for the challenge and tried to improve their GPA by cheating. I viewed that as they were cheating a more knowledgeable student from obtaining a place in their medical program. I would not want to think my doctor, nurse, physical therapist, etc. got through their program that way. I believe I was saving lives by suggesting the cheaters find a different career path. I hope they didn't become your FA.


Cheers!

 

[MichaelB]

Cheating isn’t limited to students or school. It infected the workplace, and seems to be pretty common in sports and dating sites.

 

[JoeWras]

Near fatal victim in college

One of my "good friends" copied a computer program, unknown to me. He had the ability to know how to steal my disk while I slept and copy it using an obscure non-standard operating system. But he didn't have the wherewithal to actually program. He was in trouble. Computers were his major and he didn't "get it."

The TAs did byte checks for this kind of perfect copy. My program and his were exact. We were both called into the professor's office and told this is the death penalty for one of us, i.e. an F on the class, no chance for drop or anything else.

I looked at him. He sat firm, then crumbled and admitted everything. The professor took my printout and wrote "A" on it and dismissed me. After I was dismissed, my friend was told the details of his execution which he later shared with me. Pretty severe mark on his record.

We remained friends. I was even invited to his wedding. He manned up, and I appreciated that. But oh man, that was pretty scary for about 1 day. It would have changed my life because computers were my thing.

It changed his. He dropped out for a while and changed majors to something in the fine arts.
​

 

[flintnational]

I cheated at fraternity spade card games while in college. We would pass cards clutched between our toes under the table. However, that type of behavior was held in high esteem in that setting. Only the best could get away with it. Come to think of it, my partner and I rarely lost!

 

[Winemaker]

During first undergrad chemistry lab class for engineers, I had to stop my lab experiment and visit the little boys room to "check my makeup". When I came back, the lab instructor was standing at my station and he warned me not to leave my station again. He said none of my classmates attempted or tried, but sometimes classmates will sabotage experiments so that you would get a worse grade than everyone else. The competition for higher better grades had started and I was just forewarned, for the 2nd time. The first time occurred during orientation, when our class mentor/adviser told us that up to 33% of us would not graduate in engineering because we couldn't keep up the academic pace. We did do a lot of group homework sessions for four years.

 

[jjquantz]

When I was in grad school I was proctoring a history exam when I noticed a young woman constantly looking down into her lap. A common cheating method (male and female) is to have note cards on your lap during an exam. However, when I did a circuit around the room, I saw nothing untoward. After I got back to the front, the lap referrals began again. I am convinced that the young lady either had note cards under her skirt or had written notes on her thigh. But I was NOT going to confront her. What would I say, "Young lady, what are you hiding under your skirt?"