Ways to cheat in college.

[PricklyPete]

Originally posted by: IamElectro
I'm 30 and started back in college a year ago for a CSEE degree. It amazes me at the amount of cheating that goes on in classes these days. With every class needing the knowlege from the previous its a wonder people ever graduate.

All I can say is this. Engineering student who cheats = Space shuttle blowing up, losing space probes on the way to Mars and in general give a bad name to thier fellow engineers.

Stay out of ATOT and study earn your own grade not someone elses.

Well said.

 

[dfi]

I have heard two stories of really terrible cheaters that got away with it while at UCB. I have no idea as to the authenticity of these stories; heard it from a friend who heard it from a TA that was supposedly involved in both cases.

First story, guy gets exam back and decides that he was going to add to his incorrect answer to get more points. Well, as the story goes, the TA had made copies of the exam to make sure this sort of thing didn't happen. So obviously a comparison of the original and the copy showed the added answer. Took this up with the professor, it went to the university, and the guy got off scot free. University decided there wasn't enough evidence to convict him as a cheater.

Here's the other story. The TA is giving back an exam to which the answer had already been given to. A girl in the course claims she took the exam but never got it back. TA starts wondering if he lost her exam and starts looking for it. Ends up finding her exam in his drop box for student assignments. Hrm, strange, no reason why it should be there. Grading her exam, it turns out a perfect score. TA went to the professor. So the professor asked the student to come in to his office hours, and during that time asked her to demonstrate a problem from the exam. She couldn't do it. Professor went to the university, university said not enough evidence and she got full credit.

dfi

 

[jinduy]

my 1st grade teacher told me each time you cheat your brain gets smaller, so don't cheat

 

i havent cheated, and I refuse to cheat in college. I have a 3.727 as it is now, wonderful work experience, and I am friendly with some of the professors... I'm not about to throw that out the window. I laugh at cheaters, because I know that in the end, Ill be that much better than them at life.

 

[eakers]

a girl i know (not me, im not in arts) got the cover of her essay stamped with the date and then handed it into the wrong box the next day and then emailed her prof saying she was confused and thats why her essay wasn't with the others from the day before.

it worked.

 

[alexruiz]

I guess it depends of what the test is about.... I just can't picture how a book can help to solve a non linear control theory problem (Liapunov's criteria or something similar)..... no matter if you find the formula, if you don't know what the formula means or how it apllies to your problem, you are DOA..... Apply the same to most of the disciplines that require to solve a problem (solve a 2 degree partial differential equation, or get the roots that make a low band filter stable.....)

Usually, we were even given the formulas we needed on the board. No books or bags allowed in the clasroom. No restroom breaks, you were instructed to visit the porcelanite folk before the test.... Yes, in some cases you knew what to do and and how to solve it, but you were unsure about a term in a formula. In my "Control theory II" class (root locus, bode, nyquist....) I stumbled once in a problem I wasn't sure about a term in a formula (the teacher was really tough, no formulas were given, and only basic calculator were allowed in order to ensure the students were proefficient using their skills) Some guys needed help in the same problem, but I told them I couldn't help as I wasn't sure if my formula was accurate..... 5 minutes later a post- it note is placed in my back with the formula...... I confirm my doubt about the formula, solve the problem and then I write in another paper the basic that they needed to reach the 70/100 minimum to pass the test.

Something similar happened in "Analog Electronic IV" when working on a PLL circuit, but i think it happened no more that 3 times. I never considered it as cheating, as Albert Einstein himself said that "Imagination and Reasoning is more important than knowledge".... In fact, fast response was key to make the runs sucesfully...


Alex

 

[UltraPenguin]

I knew a stupid cheater that I went to school with. He was in the Comp Eng program. This guy did very little of his own work. He would wait by the network printer in the computer lab, and whenever someone printed something useful, he would hijack it before the user could pick it up. Another time, this guy somehow got a hold of someone's files, he changed the info of the code at the top, then he handed it in. He didn't realize the author had put their name on other parts of the code. I think eventually he got kicked out of the program.

 

[Ranger X]

Getting caught cheating has severe consequences in college. Just don't do it, unless they're formulas you're required to remember for the test. I used to just put the formulas into my TI-85 calculator. I had to do all the work but didn't have to worry about remembering the formulas. I found that in doing all this work putting formulas into the calculator, I ended up memorizing them so I mostly used the calculator as a backup.

 

[arod]

Originally posted by: Ranger X
Getting caught cheating has severe consequences in college. Just don't do it, unless they're formulas you're required to remember for the test. I used to just put the formulas into my TI-85 calculator. I had to do all the work but didn't have to worry about remembering the formulas. I found that in doing all this work putting formulas into the calculator, I ended up memorizing them so I mostly used the calculator as a backup.

yep I did that too.... I put crap into the calculator and not even use it.

 

[Yax]

From a teaching standpoint. I used to teach a class and the dumbest student in my class attempted to cheat. I assigned homework and said I'd collect them at the BEGINNING of the class only. She came, didn't turn in her assignment, did it in class. Then before a break, came up to me and asked me to turn my back. I played along and she attempted to inject her HW into the middle of my pile of collected homeworks. I told her "NO, I'm not going to accept your hw late!" She actually tried to argue that she didn't turn in her assignment late.

 

[QueHuong]

For engineering physics, we could use a cheat sheet to write "anything on it" such as formulas...8x11 pieces of paper, front and back. Not really cheating, but I shrunk old tests (which the professors gave out to help us study) and placed them on the cheat sheet. By luck, the professor recycled one of the problems and I just had to copy the steps.

 

[Yax]

Originally posted by: MindStorm
For engineering physics, we could use a cheat sheet to write "anything on it" such as formulas...8x11 pieces of paper, front and back. Not really cheating, but I shrunk old tests (which the professors gave out to help us study) and placed them on the cheat sheet. By luck, the professor recycled one of the problems and I just had to copy the steps.

yeah, its not called cheating when the professor lets you bring in a cheat sheet.

 

[Ranger X]

Cheat sheets are great! If you don't need glasses, you'll need them after reading my cheat sheets.

I've written formulas on the first sheet of textbooks for open book tests (you know, those sheets that are always blank). I rarely ever use all the junk I ever write to use on a test.

 

[LordSnailz]

Originally posted by: MindStorm
For engineering physics, we could use a cheat sheet to write "anything on it" such as formulas...8x11 pieces of paper, front and back. Not really cheating, but I shrunk old tests (which the professors gave out to help us study) and placed them on the cheat sheet. By luck, the professor recycled one of the problems and I just had to copy the steps.

hahha, I know of a few friends that did that, including myself. I agree I dont' think it's cheating when the professors gives you a cheat and let's you write anythign on it. Funny thing is that 90% of the time I don't even use the cheat sheet. There's 1 or 2 times that I get so nervous about a the final that sometimes I get confuse so it's nice to have a cheat there. As for prof. recycling the same problems, it rarely rarely happends if ever.

 

[BeauJangles]

A kid at my school copied pieces out of a chapter of a book for one of our research papers, too bad my professor just read the book. Kid was expelled.

 

I felt like a fool when I discovered that other students in class cheated. Some teachers or professors would turn their heads the other way, so they wouldn't be hated. I don't think I would be a shrewd cheater if I were to do it.

One thing about courses, such as upper division mathematics and physics, is it's hard to cheat, unless you have a lazy or easy professor who gives previous work or imitates exact problems in your textbooks; otherwise, you either know it or you don't.

 

[PookyBoy]

I cheated once on a quiz for philosophy. But it was only worth 5% and I don't think the prof really cared or not. He gave us the quiz in the lecture room, with 400+ people in it. I never thought he would give it in the lecture room, I was expecting it to be in tutorial. Everyone was sitting cramped, shoulder to shoulder. When the mass of people went down to the front of the lecture hall to hand in their quiz, it was total chaos. I jumped back to the seat beside my friend's seat and we compared answer lol.

Not telling ppl to cheat here. But that time it was so easy to do so, that was the only time I cheated, I swear. I don't cheat now. And really don't need to for my courses. Don't wanna get kicked out the last year before grad.

 

[cessna152]

Originally posted by: cheapbidder01
Here's one that I found out about:

A friend of mine wrote notes and placed them in his pocket so he could go to the rest room to reference them whenever he got stuck on a problem.

I went to the restroom after him and found that someone was smarter than he was. That guy tore the cover of his physics book off and stuffed the book in the restroom trashcan so he could reference the whole book. INGENIOUS!

Post your techniques or what you've seen.

Someone did that and was caught.

 

[QueHuong]

Originally posted by: Ranger X
Cheat sheets are great! If you don't need glasses, you'll need them after reading my cheat sheets.

Yeah, I spent more time making that cheat sheet than I did studying for the test

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: cheapbidder01
Here's one that I found out about:

A friend of mine wrote notes and placed them in his pocket so he could go to the rest room to reference them whenever he got stuck on a problem.

I went to the restroom after him and found that someone was smarter than he was. That guy tore the cover of his physics book off and stuffed the book in the restroom trashcan so he could reference the whole book. INGENIOUS!

Post your techniques or what you've seen.

Man, your profs are dumb! We literally have an escort to the washrooms (TAs usually, but for exams in the big auditoriums that are holding many classes at once, there are washroom attendents that do it).

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: kranky
Oh, I just remembered a true cheating story.

My friend teaches in an MBA program. One of his students got caught cheating on a midterm, was given an F on the midterm but was allowed to continue (he had the opportunity to pass if he could pull his grade up).

The student calls the textbook publisher to order a copy of the teacher's workbook which contains all the answers to the exercises. The publisher naturally requests proof that the guy is a teacher. The student forges a letter on university letterhead and mails it to the publisher. The publisher quickly determines that the letter is a forgery, and calls the dean.

The student was not only expelled, he lost the entire semester's tuition ($9K), and they marked his transcript to indicate why he was expelled. They told him that he could apply for reinstatement, but they would never remove it from his transcript even if he finished the program. So he had no choice but to start over at another university, to keep from having to show anyone the transcript. Probably cost him about $30K altogether.

lol. There are a few teacher's editions of textbooks floating around my high school. Most publishers only require a photocopy of the teaching license. Google provides you with MANY of those. Photochop it a little bit to have your contact info. It helps a lot if the state you're having it shipped to doesn't have control codes on the licenses (Which is the case a lot of the time) so you can put any old contact info in.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: EyeMWing

Originally posted by: kranky
Oh, I just remembered a true cheating story.

My friend teaches in an MBA program. One of his students got caught cheating on a midterm, was given an F on the midterm but was allowed to continue (he had the opportunity to pass if he could pull his grade up).

The student calls the textbook publisher to order a copy of the teacher's workbook which contains all the answers to the exercises. The publisher naturally requests proof that the guy is a teacher. The student forges a letter on university letterhead and mails it to the publisher. The publisher quickly determines that the letter is a forgery, and calls the dean.

The student was not only expelled, he lost the entire semester's tuition ($9K), and they marked his transcript to indicate why he was expelled. They told him that he could apply for reinstatement, but they would never remove it from his transcript even if he finished the program. So he had no choice but to start over at another university, to keep from having to show anyone the transcript. Probably cost him about $30K altogether.

lol. There are a few teacher's editions of textbooks floating around my high school. Most publishers only require a photocopy of the teaching license. Google provides you with MANY of those. Photochop it a little bit to have your contact info. It helps a lot if the state you're having it shipped to doesn't have control codes on the licenses (Which is the case a lot of the time) so you can put any old contact info in.

If you're requesting a book during the term, and only that book without a prior account and history, i'm sure there would be som suspicion. That's not to say it can't or hasn't happen.

 

[BooGiMaN]

i find it amazing a lot of the tiem the effort a cheater goes to just to cheat...had they put half that effort into studying they probably would have passed without the added stress of potentially getting caught.

 

[iwearnosox]

Originally posted by: BooGiMaN
i find it amazing a lot of the tiem the effort a cheater goes to just to cheat...had they put half that effort into studying they probably would have passed without the added stress of potentially getting caught.

People like this make good law enforcement types.

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: BooGiMaN
i find it amazing a lot of the tiem the effort a cheater goes to just to cheat...had they put half that effort into studying they probably would have passed without the added stress of potentially getting caught.

I guess yo'uve never cheated before. It doesn't take nearly as much time as it does studying.