Episodes of cheating that you have known and loved

[Gumby]

Had a similar experience, but in law school. The #1 ranked student in our class would walk around before finals "sabotaging" people by telling them he'd learned that the exam would contain a question about some esoteric topic when it didn't. Those who fell for it would spend inordinate amounts of time studying niche material that was never going to be tested.

This is why I am so glad I went to law school where I did. There were no class ranks. And although we received a grade in each class after the first semester, there was an unbreakable social code that one did not ever tell one's grade, nor ask that information of anyone else. So, to all of the students and to the world outside, we were all equal - tied for both first and last in the class, with 174 others. This removed the competitive incentive to do such horrible things. It was, all in all, a very civilized place and I greatly enjoyed my time there.

 

[unclemick]

Grin. 1958 High School Geometry. Instructor was ex WW II Artilleryman/G.I. Bill teacher with the appropriate missing fingers.

Could turn at the Blackboard and throw a perfect curved eraser down a row of desks and smack an errant student(talking/sleeping/ or cheating).

I kid you not.

heh heh heh - hmmm the story and the memory gets 'better' each time I tell it. Way to go Walt.

 

[socca]

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.​

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Postscript: the young lady's exam and those of her two victims were given to the prof; she received a 0 on the exam and was sent to the engineering dean's office. I don't know what happened after that - I never saw her again. What's she been up to these last 33 years? Retired from a successful career as a supermodel? Member of Congress? Founder and CEO of a Silicon Valley startup? The possibilities are endless ...

 

[CaptTom]

UncleMick reminded me of my 6th grade typing teacher. That's what they called it back then, not "keyboarding." It's probably not even taught any more. We were the first "progressive" class where boys had to take one semester of typing and girls took Shop ("Industrial Arts" to you more recent grads.)

Anyway, our teacher was a very large, German woman who had six toes on each foot. The #1 rule in typing was you were not allowed to look at the keys. And believe me, you didn't want that teacher to catch you cheating! So I was forced to learn to type.

I'm probably among the last who have that dying skill. It's helped me enormously throughout my career, and even now it allows me to participate in forums like this effortlessly. No doubt I would have cheated (peeked at the keys) had the teacher been less intimidating. I wonder where I'd be now?

 

[Lsbcal]

Regarding typing, I never got that top row down right. I still make a lot of mistakes with the numbers and have to peak or correct a lot.

 

[rayinpenn]

He stormed into his 9th grade English classroom un expectantly. He wasn’t a big man, perhaps 5’4” with a slight frame. He had referred to his time in the ‘ring’; I suspect he was a lightweight. He had left the the class unsupervised, even during tests. <b>In retrospect the cheating that went on was pervasive, shameful and made me uncomfortable. With no supervision during the test nearly every kid was sharing answers. I didnt because it wasnt in me to cheat. </b> He was the football coach and apparently a busy man with things to do; Teaching english clearly wasn’t a priority. This memorable day the un supervised students were in a particularly rowdy mood. Screaming and carrying on like kids will do. He caught them at it, he was immediately angry and out of control. I was a quiet guy, not participating in the ruckus and was taught cheating wasn’t something good people did. I was sitting there quietly, doing nothing in particular, when he walked in -I made a regrettable mistake -I opened the textbook. He looked at me He said “its too late for that now”. I was a little guy, my growth spurt would come over the next three years - 50lbs and several inches. He approached grabbed me by the collar, lifted me and proceeded to throw me around the room.

My desk was overturned during the fray. I can’t say he hurt me; I was more shocked than anything. Growing up with 3 brothers meant I had learned to ‘mix it up’ and be sturdy. A friend who sat behind me later confessed “I almost wet myself because I thought he was coming for me”. Thanks Frank. It was over in a few seconds and then, amazingly, the lightweight left. I dusted myself off, righted my desk and did what people in shock often do..sat silently as did the rest of the class. When I got home my Dad shocked me and said “I hear you had a little run in with Mr. Weiss”. No more was said by anyone about the misadventure.

You can imagine I’ve pondered about the incident for years- I didn’t know it at the time but the damage done by Mr. Weiss did wasn’t solely to me . We all had been cheated of precious time to learn on what 9th graders should lean..how better to communicate with the written word. I’ve come to learn there are few things as more important.

Six years later a gifted and dedicated A PhD from the university of Illinois would do a line by line, word by word review of my fist real college paper. Only then did i realize just how unskilled a communicator I was. You see my University had decided no one would graduate who couldn’t write a decent essay. Amazingly I made it through, thought I took great effort with considerable stress.

 

[Pellice]

I tried to give tests that were "uncheatable." I'd give out 5 essay questions the class BEFORE the test and tell them that I would be asking 3 of them. I'd put some effort into designing questions that would really encompass what I wanted students to take away from the class. Students were welcome to study together - and they had the questions ahead - BUT they had to write out the responses in class. (This was partly to prevent the 30 page mini-books that some students were prone to producing if given enough time). That particular number of questions forced them to look at all of them.

This seemed to me a more real world way of testing. I hope it prevented cheating, though I suppose someone could have brought along a prepared blue book and switched it when I wasn't looking. Of course, it works better for humanities courses than science courses, I think.

 

[Texas Proud]

UncleMick reminded me of my 6th grade typing teacher. That's what they called it back then, not "keyboarding." It's probably not even taught any more. We were the first "progressive" class where boys had to take one semester of typing and girls took Shop ("Industrial Arts" to you more recent grads.)

Anyway, our teacher was a very large, German woman who had six toes on each foot. The #1 rule in typing was you were not allowed to look at the keys. And believe me, you didn't want that teacher to catch you cheating! So I was forced to learn to type.

I'm probably among the last who have that dying skill. It's helped me enormously throughout my career, and even now it allows me to participate in forums like this effortlessly. No doubt I would have cheated (peeked at the keys) had the teacher been less intimidating. I wonder where I'd be now?

Well they do teach keyboarding and they also do not allow you to look at your keys... they have a piece of cloth covering it and you have to type without cheating unless you move the cloth which is easily seen...


BTW, I remember when my son was taking it and was very proud that he had hit 30 wpm... I asked what they expected you to get to at the end... it was like 35 to 40 IIRC... I said that was slow and I could do that easily...


Well, DS said he could beat me... we brought up a typing program on the computer and my first try I got 76 wpm... he just turned and walked away... funny, I never did find out his final speed... not my daughters speed either...

 

[CaptTom]

Wow, 76 WPM is good!

I haven't timed myself since high school, but I'm sure I could hit 60 EPM (errors per minute) now.

 

[Junior]

I tried to give tests that were "uncheatable." I'd give out 5 essay questions the class BEFORE the test and tell them that I would be asking 3 of them. I'd put some effort into designing questions that would really encompass what I wanted students to take away from the class. Students were welcome to study together - and they had the questions ahead - BUT they had to write out the responses in class. (This was partly to prevent the 30 page mini-books that some students were prone to producing if given enough time). That particular number of questions forced them to look at all of them.

This seemed to me a more real world way of testing. I hope it prevented cheating, though I suppose someone could have brought along a prepared blue book and switched it when I wasn't looking. Of course, it works better for humanities courses than science courses, I think.

That reminded me of an electronics teacher that gave us access to all previous years exams, so people could practice before the exam. He was retiring that year.

Instead of doing every exam, people applied statistics to them and just studied the elements that were more frequent. The lowest score a person got that year on that subject was an 85%, there were lots of 100%.

 

[Nick12]

Not sure if it's cheating but became more efficient in my time in college by reading CliffNotes instead of reading the entire assigned book. Allowed me more time to spend on more social activities.

 

[kcowan]

That reminded me of an electronics teacher that gave us access to all previous years exams, so people could practice before the exam. He was retiring that year...

We had a guy who was teaching his first year so I studied reprints from his predecessor. The exam was 6 questions worth 20 points each and the results scaled. It was 2.5 hours long. All the questions were from previous exams with just the numbers changed. I had finished in 1 hour and spent .5 hour checking and rechecking then left. I scored 99! That meant I scaled to over 100 but did not get perfect.

Taking exams is a skill all its own.

 

[HadEnuff]

one of my favorites: a college classmate of mine got a copy of "the old exam" from a frat brother. He memorized the multiple choice answers. After the test he told me he didn't even bother reading the questions. He just wrote down the answers. He didn't believe me when I told him it was a True-False test. He failed the test, and the course. As far as I know he never got any grief for answering "C" or "D" on a T-F test.
BTW, I did everything by the book and also failed the course. It was a required course, and about 20% of the class failed it. Word was that the administration was not pleased with the instructor who was a flaming ass.
He had to teach a special make-up course for all of us who failed it. Instead of his normal 200 students, he only had to deal with 40 or so. It was remarkable how much nicer he was the second time around. I don't know if was because of the administration's conversation with him, or some self-appraisal, or if he was just a lot more comfortable with the smaller group.
In the small group the class went from being hell, to actually a pleasant learning experience.

 

[kgtest]

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

I had an old boss copy my linkedin profile word for word. I just stumbled upon it like a year after I left the company, thought to myself gee that looks familiar, then said wait...this is analyst verbiage on a manager's profile. Wowsas...still wonder if he ever made that big leap down a rung or not...

 

[NYEXPAT]

I attended college over a 24 year period. I did 1 1/2 years then dropped out and went to work for a Fortune 50 company. They wanted me to finish my degree and paid for my night classes. After a few years I quit my job and school and went to work for another fortune 50. They assumed I had a Bachelor and wanted me to get my Masters in Finance. I put them off for 18 mos before moving to a private company who also assumed I had my Masters. Each job change involved a promotion and a 20%-50% raise in salary. After I was retired for 10 years I decided to finish my Bachelor and meet some pretty coed's at the same time. Never needed to cheat in college, suppose I cheated the system!

 

[cyber888]

As a teacher, i had a college girl student who copied from a classmate. The name of the classmate was in the electronic file submitted digitally. I failed her. She was a graduating student, so she could not graduate. She told her parents that there was an error in her grade, and her mom stormed into the Dean’s office threatening to have the Dean arrested by the police if the kid cant graduate LOL [emoji23]. Of course, all proof was there to prove she cheated.