Saw the news yesterday and with the new cell phones that can send pictures, students are using high tech to cheap on exams. Cheating on exams is nothing new. However, the replies by the students are a reflect of our degnerate society with low moral and greed. The students said they are no different from the CEOs' who cheat the companies and stockholders, and the politician who lie to the people and cheat the government. Although I do not condone cheating, these replies are valid to the extent that they are a reflection of our so called leaders in business and government. It is hard to refute these claims because they are true. This is sad What kind role model and examples are these high profile people portraiting.

I think the situation has to roll with the punches. When I was in college, there was no test quite as difficult as an open book test. Cell phones bring the dimension of collaboration to a test that is otherwise meant to be completed by an individual. I don't know how they can redesign the testing procedure to accommodate technology, but I'm sure they'll think of something.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

I admit... I did cheat on several occaisons on major tests in high school, but who didn't?

List of things I have done in my high school days(College days is a lot tougher and not worth the risk):

Copy work from a friend/classmate

Copy a work that was on the internet but put in to my own words without citation
put science and math formulas in graphing calculators.

text messaged multiple choice answers back and forth on a cell phone

type up a french essay on a paper thats 1" x 1" using size 2 font and wrapped around the inside of a clear pen.

Get up to ask a question, while walking look at turned in papers lying on the desk.

Have your backpack open in a way that you can see your notes, yet appears as though your back pack is zipped up

Tape a "cheat sheet" to the back of a calculator cover

and many more "techniques" I and many students have mastered over the years. I am not surprised that the camera phones are now being used... heck, I would probably have done the same if they existed back then.

BTW... the sad fact is that most students do cheat, one way or another. You can compare students to professional atheletes. The sucessful student or athelete need the "upper hand"... the student cheats by copying, the successful athelete by taking supplements/steroids.

I agree that cheating in exams will always be there and that's not the issue of my thread. It is the reply from the students that made me shudder and the reflection of the leaders in business and government that made ponder about the declining morals in our society

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Flash Gordon

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Any math quiz that said "show your work" . . . I'd draw a picture of me looking at my neighbors paper . .

I heard of one atempted hi tech cheating on a take home test. The student posted the test on the internet, and the teacher saw it

Perhaps they might aspire to being the generation that holds itself to higher moral standards instead of using our current examples in power as role models of unethical behavior...

...what a cop-out!

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I didn't -- ever, and I knew very few people that did. It's a simple matter of personal integrity to me. If it's wrong just don't do it. Never cheated in college, either. It kind of defeats the purpose of going through the learning process, doesn't it?

Ditto German Star's comments. I recall 20 some years ago an article in one of the higher education journals that aprox. 90% of business majors, 50% of social science majors, and 30% of sci/math/eng majors admitted to cheating on exams. I remember thinking 'who would admit to such a shameful thing if they did it, and how many cheated but didn't admit it to the interviewers?' I also wondered what this would mean to the future of our society.

When I was an undergrad you couldn't use a Chem/Physics slide rule in some classes as it was considered an unfair advantage. !! Later in life when I was teaching undergrad and grad students in the sciences, I watched them using Scientific calculators, often with little 'feel' for a correct answer. (One student with a faulty calculator wrote down Killograms of end product reported as an answer to questions which used fractional milligrams of raw materials! No thinking, just write down what the display showed.)

Cheating didn't seem to happen much in my smaller lectures. Mostly it was in the 100-300 student classes, where we used to spend as much effort securing our tests from office break ins, and making up multiple copies of exams with questions arranged in different orders for random handout to students.

I recall one student who turned in his blue book and exam sheet and sat down again until after the exam was over. He then told me he had noticed several students copying off of his answer sheet, so he began writing in wrong answers because he 'hated cheats'. He asked if he could re-do the test immediately, which he did, pulling his usual near perfect score. Three other students, however, turned in duplicates of his first exam, and I failed them for the test. Unfortunately, the admin of the University was reluctant to discipline them for cheating because of the potential for lawsuits by irate parents and the possible publicity.

They never understood that they eventually pay a price for cheating, because they never really learned the material, and it would eventually come back and bite them!

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John

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Nice to see you around JCE!

A long long time ago, in a galaxy far away, we used to have HP 48gx calculators which came with IR capability. WOW! This was THE calculator to have if you were a geek! 128k RAM, games, compilers, RPN! What else does one need? Only 40 humiliating hourse scooping ice cream at Baskin Robbins!

Anyway, paranoid educators successfully lobbied HP to remove the HP feature because they were afraid students were beaming test answers around the room. I wonder if they figured out that kids with HP's were probably well ahead of the teachers.

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When I took a technical writing class in college, no matter how much time and effort I put into the work I couldn't get a decent mark on any of my assignments. In exasperation, I copied one composition which met the requirements from a textbook I found in the library. I figured the textbook example should be near perfect. Sure enough, when I got the paper back the teacher deleted paragraphs, rearranged sentences, made copious comments, and gave a less than perfect grade. I resolved myself to the fact that grading this class was extremely judgemental and I couldn't win no matter what I did.

Since then, in industry I've found certain bosses and proofreaders that would have all kinds of fun rewriting my work. Somehow, judging somebody else's writing brings out the worst in power-hungry people.

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Ways to cheat on exams
1) inside the label of a Coke bottle have a cheat sheat
2) program into cell
3) Text message from friends
4)Using network in school to get test off teachers computer
5)Cheat sheet in watch clasp
6) programed in caculator
7) have person sitting next to you do the test
8) getting awnsers from prior class
9) student aids giving out tests
10) reviews turned into cheat sheet using question and awnser
11) pre written essay
I saw all this stuff go on in school and may or may not have done some But it's a big problem.
I quote my student success book on this matter a "test is not a messure of what you know, but how well you can take a test". I knew kids in highschool who cried over tests and went sleepless studying. (of course I was not one, I slept in class)
Is this really a good thing to put them under that much pressure?

a couple problems with the text thing is. Nextel for the most part does not support it. Phones are banned in some schools, and if the phone is not on silent it will draw attention

Students who cheat are cheating no one but themselves.

And when you do cheat, you cease to become a student. You become a waste of tax dollars.

I copied answers a few times for calculous class in high school. Final exams rolled around and I bombed. Lesson learned. Never cheated again. NEVER cheated in college- why waste my own tuition money?

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Cheating is pretty easy to catch once into years 3 and 4. By calling on people in class, it's pretty simple to gauge their knowledge. You know who's on top of the material, and who is not.

Then come exam and paper time, if their work suddenly improves, you ask them to your office to go over the work/exam, and get them to expand on their knowledge a bit. Probe. Anyone that understands the material as well as a high scoring paper shows, can disuss it with you in a casual office environment.

I have caught a few, and they are expelled. And that means no refunds on tuition.

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John Shellenberg
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