cheating

BrYaN19kc · Post by **BrYaN19kc** » 2003-05-08 01:36pm

No Way. Getting caught sneaking one stupid answer would cost me way too much. I could lose my fellowship and tuition waiver. Cheating on a test just isn't worth it.

Post by **Kuja** » 2003-05-08 02:02pm

I cheated rarle (very rarely) during HS and not at all while at Kent.

Cyborg Stan · Post by **Cyborg Stan** » 2003-05-08 02:11pm

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-05-08 02:19pm

Durandal wrote:Which is just another way of saying "rote memorization." History doesn't rely on rote memorization; it relies on analyzing and interpreting what happened. If a professor can't create a test that forces students to think even though they have the formulae right in front of them, then he's just not a very good professor.

However, you also have to look at it from the standpoint that you're not playing by the rules. If she wasn't allowed to have the formulae in her calculator, then she was cheating if she did. She was breaking a stupid rule, in my opinion, but a rule nonetheless.

If you don't know the basic facts, or worse, the facts you think you know are wrong, you CAN'T perform an analysis worth shit--you can't even research because you don't know where to start. That's why most history and polisci professors give tests with objective (multiple choice or fill in the blanks) and subjective (essay) sections. They test to see that you know the facts in objective section, then your analytical skills in the essay part.

Sr.mal · Post by **Sr.mal** » 2003-05-08 02:37pm

I don't cheat, but people try to cheat off of me. Never works when I erase all my answers and fill in the correct ones after they leave the class. Cheat off me and I will make you fail.

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-05-08 03:02pm

RedImperator wrote:
Iceberg wrote:In my book that's not cheating, that's being prepared. In the real world, you're not going to have to do academic shit without having a bunch of references in front of you. Why should I have to know my shit better in school than I will in the work force?
Because the test was SPECIFICALLY testing her knowledge of the formulas she had put in the calculator. By that logic, if I take a history exam and keep a little notecard with all the important names and dates on it, that's not cheating either because after college, I could look those up in an almanac.

If you know what the formulae do, but have poor memorization, it's not cheating to have a reference to the formulae on-hand. It might be breaking a stupid rule, but it's not "cheating."

Three of the four finals I took this week were taken with the assistance of written note sheets, one of which were written by the professor himself, the second was a reference sheet by the company that made the computer the test was concerning (DEC PDP-11) and the third was authorized by the instructor. None of those sheets would have helped me in the fuck-all least if I didn't know the material inside and out.

Synthesis of knowledge is more important than rote memorization.

And if you keep the names and dates on a notecard, so what? It's worthless if you don't understand the information. In fact, having a cheat sheet if you don't understand the material is more detrimental to your performance than going into an exam completely cold with no prep. I think the college should have looked at the WHOLE situation (and not just that she had the formulae written down).

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-05-08 03:09pm

I have never cheated at a test and i never will. I once had the chance to cheat at my MCP in Visual InterDev. A guy in out class sat the test the week before i did and he came back and offered to tell me what questions would come up. There is a test bank of about 200 odd questions and the test will actually ask 150 of them. I had the dick full of answers in my hand and i gave them back to Tony. I went on to fail the MCP and i ended up giving up my dream of being a computer programer. I know one guy who did take the answers. He passed but it did him no good. He applied for jobs that expected him to know what he cheated at and he's never worked since.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2003-05-08 03:16pm

Iceberg wrote:The secret to cheating successfully is to have a reputation so honest that none of your teachers would DREAM of accusing you of cheating. That way, if you ever have to do it, your teachers will be more likely to write it off to random chance and not bust you.

see, I have that too. I make friends with teachers at the beginning of the year.

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2003-05-08 03:17pm

Sr.mal wrote:I don't cheat, but people try to cheat off of me. Never works when I erase all my answers and fill in the correct ones after they leave the class. Cheat off me and I will make you fail.

which explains my *awful* handwriting.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-05-08 03:28pm

Iceberg wrote:
RedImperator wrote:
Iceberg wrote:In my book that's not cheating, that's being prepared. In the real world, you're not going to have to do academic shit without having a bunch of references in front of you. Why should I have to know my shit better in school than I will in the work force?
Because the test was SPECIFICALLY testing her knowledge of the formulas she had put in the calculator. By that logic, if I take a history exam and keep a little notecard with all the important names and dates on it, that's not cheating either because after college, I could look those up in an almanac.
If you know what the formulae do, but have poor memorization, it's not cheating to have a reference to the formulae on-hand. It might be breaking a stupid rule, but it's not "cheating."

Three of the four finals I took this week were taken with the assistance of written note sheets, one of which were written by the professor himself, the second was a reference sheet by the company that made the computer the test was concerning (DEC PDP-11) and the third was authorized by the instructor. None of those sheets would have helped me in the fuck-all least if I didn't know the material inside and out.

Synthesis of knowledge is more important than rote memorization.

And if you keep the names and dates on a notecard, so what? It's worthless if you don't understand the information. In fact, having a cheat sheet if you don't understand the material is more detrimental to your performance than going into an exam completely cold with no prep. I think the college should have looked at the WHOLE situation (and not just that she had the formulae written down).

As I said to Durandal, if you don't know the facts, which includes at least the most important names and dates, your analysis is what we commonly call bullshit, and you're expected to know them by your fellow historians. I NEVER claimed rote memorization was the sum total of a good education or that it was more important than synthesis, but if you don't know the facts you can't begin to synthesize anything. Like it or not, that means memorization, and the only way to test for memorization is to demand a student recall those facts on an exam.

On unerstanding the material versus memorizing facts, a very very old professor of mine once put it this way: "There are two elements to an essay: the cow and the bull. The cow is the facts. The bull is your analysis of the facts, assuming you know any. An essay that is pure cow will get a C-. An essay that is pure bull will get an A or an F, depending on the skill of the grader."

As for the case in question, you can argue that the rule was stupid all you like, but the fact of the matter is, she was giving herself an unfair advantage over her classmates and had she not been caught, she would have gotten a higher grade than she deserved and cheapened EVERYONE's grades. And I'm sure they told her, loudly and repeatedly, what the academic integrity policy was starting from the first day of orientation. As far as my sympathies are concerned, it's "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out."

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-05-08 04:07pm

I only cheat on papers when I absolutely have to, and I've only done it a couple of times. (If you must know, it was for an asshole teacher that assigned it to be due for the next class period...and there is no way in hell that I'd have time to write an 8-page paper in two days and it be fully legit. Of course, I didn't do a direct copy/paste either. Most of it was 'quotes'.)

Enforcer Talen · Post by **Enforcer Talen** » 2003-05-08 05:37pm

Ive done 4 pages in 15 minutes.

I played with fonts, quotes, and repeated myself.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-05-08 05:51pm

I don't cheat. Unless i know i can get away with it, and its usually to make sure im right, but that's not in serious things.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2003-05-08 06:58pm

I've cast eyes to other person's papers before, but it was a math test and I was dropping it soon anyway.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2003-05-08 07:00pm

I'm an arrogant asshole, I perfer to fuck with teacher's minds, I have never really need to cheat. I have however waited until the last minute to do an assignment, did no homework the whole year in math courses, and then turn in flawless tests, where you had to leave your notations alongside the test (my note papers, were 90% blank, as I can do most calcs in my head), heck the only thing I need a calculator for is Pi and related subjects.

Post by **AdmiralKanos** » 2003-05-08 07:15pm

Cheating on exams is only possible with cheesy exams. When I was in university, the tough exams were the ones where they let you bring in textbooks, cheat sheets, anything you wanted. Because they knew that no matter how much material you dragged in with you, a tenth of the class would STILL fail.

If an exam becomes easy with a cheat note, then it's obviously a pussy exam.

Specialist · Post by **Specialist** » 2003-05-08 07:25pm

If the assignment is very important and I can't do it fairly then yes. I would be stupid not to...

Iceberg · Post by **Iceberg** » 2003-05-08 08:02pm

You need a cheat sheet for an assembler test, because there's no human way that you can memorize all the opcodes of even a PDP-11 (which has a relatively lean instruction set of 50), let alone a more modern machine in a single semester.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-05-08 08:07pm

RedImperator wrote:If you don't know the basic facts, or worse, the facts you think you know are wrong, you CAN'T perform an analysis worth shit--you can't even research because you don't know where to start. That's why most history and polisci professors give tests with objective (multiple choice or fill in the blanks) and subjective (essay) sections. They test to see that you know the facts in objective section, then your analytical skills in the essay part.

That's why you have references. The only time rote memorization could possibly help you out is speed, but if you're smart you're going to double-check your memory, anyway. The extra few minutes it'll take you to find out what year Emperor What's-His-Name died aren't liable to make a difference in whatever paper you're writing.

Hell, my physics professor let us bring 2 8.5x11 sheets of paper filled with whatever we wanted to our final. And you know what? The exam was still fucking hard. I still took the full 2 1/2 hours. As Mike said, if you can pass an exam by just bringing a cheat sheet, it's a pussy exam in the first place.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-05-08 08:09pm

Iceberg wrote:You need a cheat sheet for an assembler test, because there's no human way that you can memorize all the opcodes of even a PDP-11 (which has a relatively lean instruction set of 50), let alone a more modern machine in a single semester.

Hell, you need a cheat sheet for even Fortran of C. I'm sorry, but no one writes working code with perfect syntax the first and only time around, and if there is someone who does, he sure as fuck isn't taking a programming class.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-05-08 08:39pm

AdmiralKanos wrote:Cheating on exams is only possible with cheesy exams. When I was in university, the tough exams were the ones where they let you bring in textbooks, cheat sheets, anything you wanted. Because they knew that no matter how much material you dragged in with you, a tenth of the class would STILL fail.

If an exam becomes easy with a cheat note, then it's obviously a pussy exam.

It's a little different in the liberal arts, but the same principle applies. Any decent exam is going to be at least 50 percent based on essays. I can't imagine a history exam so hard that a tenth of the class is guaranteed to fail (unless you were holding, say, high school students to graduate school standards), but all the cheat sheets in the world won't help worth a shit if you can't analyze knowledge.

As for the rote memorization stuff, I concede. I took a look at some of my exams from a (very good) professor of Roman history I had this year, and less than 10% was rote memorization--even the multiple choice was analytical (though you still needed to know the facts to answer them).

P.S. Stardestroyer.net has improved my essay-writing skills by getting me into the habit of looking even more carefully to seal up any holes in the argument than I used to, at the cost of some of my ability to be concise.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2003-05-08 08:48pm

In my situation, you have to know the following procedure by heart in the event of an engine failure on the BE-76:

Turn into good engine
Mixtures Rich
Props Forward
Full Throttle
Gear Up
Flaps Up
Aux Fuel Pumps On
Pitch 85kts

You have to know this procedure like the back of your hand. Sure, on the written test you can use a cheat sheet, but if one of your engines fails during climbout and you don't know this exactly, you're fucked!

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-05-08 08:57pm

I only cheat when I absolutely have to and I'm confident that I can get away with it, as getting caught cheating will mean a zero on the test at my school. But, It only helps in a few cases. I end up flunking the test regardless of whether I cheated or not.

And, by "flunk", I Don't mean "F", but "Anything below a B", as C's and D's won't get you anywhere.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-05-08 09:13pm

RedImperator wrote:P.S. Stardestroyer.net has improved my essay-writing skills by getting me into the habit of looking even more carefully to seal up any holes in the argument than I used to, at the cost of some of my ability to be concise.

They still need a little work in terms of organization. You tend to post gigantic, monolothic paragraphs. I remember you posting a beautiful rundown of how foolish the War on Drugs is, but it was a giant block of text, which made it very hard to read. I wanted to tell you, but you were on a roll, so I let it be.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-05-09 08:22am

Durandal wrote:
RedImperator wrote:P.S. Stardestroyer.net has improved my essay-writing skills by getting me into the habit of looking even more carefully to seal up any holes in the argument than I used to, at the cost of some of my ability to be concise.
They still need a little work in terms of organization. You tend to post gigantic, monolothic paragraphs. I remember you posting a beautiful rundown of how foolish the War on Drugs is, but it was a giant block of text, which made it very hard to read. I wanted to tell you, but you were on a roll, so I let it be.

Phear the stream of consciousness, bitch. Actually, I know I tend to do this, and when I'm hand writing an essay or I have a chance to go back and write a second draft, I avoid it, but some dildo got the "Edit" button turned off in Politics.