Would this be considered cheating?

[Leros]

My professor gave us access to old exams from 2005, 2006, and 2008 to look over as review material.

One of my friends took the class last year and let me look at her 2009 exam for more review. I worked through this exam for practice. I just considered it to be further review. It didn't seem wrong at all at the time.

I took the exam last week and it was nearly identical to the 2009 exam I had looked over. Obviously that made a huge difference on my performance.

We got the exams back today. After we had looked through them the professor asked for them back. So now I realize that he didn't post of the 2009 exam as review material because he planned on reusing it for this year. I'm not sure how my friend kept hers.

Do you think what I did would be considered cheating?

 

[dbk]

yeah..
in my upper level classes, the professors kept all the exams and usually released one or two koofers from like 8 years ago. Since your prof. apparently didn't release the exam it would be cheating in my eye.

 

[lxskllr]

Not really, unless you memorized the specific questions.

 

[Cogman]

yes. I understand it wasn't on purpose, but it was cheating.

I wouldn't be too bothered about it, you had no way of knowing that the exam would the same one from your friend.

 

[Ronstang]

yes. I understand it wasn't on purpose, but it was cheating.

I wouldn't be too bothered about it, you had no way of knowing that the exam would the same one from your friend.

No it wasn't. He had no idea the test would be nearly identical and that is irrelevant anyway. He used a resource to study. There are always old tests floating around. If the professors are too fucking lazy to make new tests they should expect this to happen.

 

[Leros]

Not really, unless you memorized the specific questions.

Well. I didn't memorize the exact numbers or exact methods for all the problems.

I did struggle through some parts of the problems when I worked through it for review. Not having done that before the exam, I would have been unable to answer those parts of the the questions on the exams.

 

[TridenT]

No. If the professor is too lazy/doesn't-realize-it-takes-a-lot-of-work-to-be-a-professor to make a new exam every term/year/whatever then it's their fault and you just did proper prep.

 

[dbk]

Well, I guess your friend cheated more than you did. You had no idea that the test hadn't been released.

 

[PottedMeat]

I wouldn't consider it cheating unless you had a copy of the 2010 test.

The only classes I remember where the prof used old test questions verbatim were intro to C++, and uh... some 6812 asm/c class i think. everyone else at least took the time to make up new questions.

 

[Ronstang]

Well. I didn't memorize the exact numbers or exact methods.

I did struggle through some nuances of the problems when I worked through it for review. Not having done that before the exam, I would have been unable to answer parts of some of the questions on the exams.

Don't sweat it. You used resources available to help you study. That is all. You learned enough to help you do better on the test. Nothing wrong with that. You can bet that Frats and Sororities have test files from all kinds of professors. I saw that first hand way back when I was in college through friends who were in such organizations.

 

[MotF Bane]

Nope. Don't worry about it.

 

[lxskllr]

Well. I didn't memorize the exact numbers or exact methods for all the problems.

I did struggle through some parts of the problems when I worked through it for review. Not having done that before the exam, I would have been unable to answer those parts of the the questions on the exams.

I don't see it as being any worse than using the older tests you were provided. You may have gotten a slight advantage having seen the exact questions beforehand, but if this is complicated work, I doubt it made that much of a difference since you weren't expecting to see those questions again. I think you can go with a clear conscience, and if you're thinking of doing something dumb like tell your professor or ethics board; don't. No good deed goes unpunished. You'll get nothing but pain for your unsolicited honesty.

 

[Leros]

So for those telling me that its not wrong. Would it now be wrong to look at Exam 2 from last year for the next exam? I also have that in my possession.

Just curious what you guys think.

 

[SandEagle]

it's not cheating unless you get caught

 

[PottedMeat]

So for those telling me that its not wrong. Would it now be wrong to look at Exam 2 from last year for the next exam? I also have that in my possession.

Just curious what you guys think.

no. as long as you didn't have 'spring 2010 exam' or solutions in your hands before the test time you're ok.

 

[TruePaige]

What class is this? Just curious if there is a reason he doesn't generate unique questions (course material is all essential, hard to craft problems, something else). Most of myy professors in general just tell us to keep the tests, they create new tests every semester.

 

[lxskllr]

So for those telling me that its not wrong. Would it now be wrong to look at Exam 2 from last year for the next exam? I also have that in my possession.

Just curious what you guys think.

That's up to you. Remember though, if you're using resources to get you through something you don't know, you're only cheating yourself. The goal of school isn't to do well at tests, it's to learn the subjects being taught. I wouldn't have a problem using any resources I could get, but I'd want to make it out of the class with a good understanding of the material, and do what it takes to have a good understanding of the material.

 

[Leros]

What class is this? Just curious if there is a reason he doesn't generate unique questions (course material is all essential, hard to craft problems, something else). Most of myy professors in general just tell us to keep the tests, they create new tests every semester.

I'd rather not tell for paranoia reasons.

There are some standard questions that he had to ask just to cover the big topics. He could have made a different question of the same flavor though.

 

[frostedflakes]

yes. I understand it wasn't on purpose, but it was cheating.

I wouldn't be too bothered about it, you had no way of knowing that the exam would the same one from your friend.

This. I'm sure the professor didn't want students to use this exam for review material, otherwise he would have given it to you guys along with the others. But I wouldn't stress about it, it's not like it was intentional, you had no way of knowing.

 

[Ronstang]

So for those telling me that its not wrong. Would it now be wrong to look at Exam 2 from last year for the next exam? I also have that in my possession.

Just curious what you guys think.

If the professor is too fucking lazy (most are) to rewrite questions every year and simply use questions from a file they keep on each test then you can bet there are more people out there with last years test. Use it to study. If you learn and understand the material after using old tests as review then it is not cheating. If you simply memorize questions and answers and hope they are the same then you are not learning anything and you might as well not be in school.

 

[Leros]

That's up to you. Remember though, if you're using resources to get you through something you don't know, you're only cheating yourself. The goal of school isn't to do well at tests, it's to learn the subjects being taught. I wouldn't have a problem using any resources I could get, but I'd want to make it out of the class with a good understanding of the material, and do what it takes to have a good understanding of the material.

Well, its not something I don't know. I've been forced to learn the concepts of the material by doing the homeworks.

Having the old exams shows me the nuances of the questions before the exam. Sometimes you can understand all the concepts but get hung up a small special case.

 

[TruePaige]

I'd rather not tell for paranoia reasons.

There are some standard questions that he had to ask just to cover the big topics. He could have made a different question of the same flavor though.

I understand the paranoia thing, heh.

Well yeah, that is kind of lazy.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would not advertise you did it, but I would not see it as blatant cheating. There is lot of room to play dumb here, in the event that he somehow finds out. Just don't make it TOO obvious that you studied it. Like if you see a question he hardly talked about in class, maybe purposely get it wrong, since if he sees you got it right then he might wonder where you even got the information from, and get suspicious. Depends on what it is of course, like if it's something readily available on google or other research material then he'll just figure you knew it, vs something very specific to the course.

 

[timosyy]

/shrug. Half the class probably has last year's exam by now.

 

[Imp]

Psh... no. I had one class where the professor gave out the previous 2 year's tests, they were virtually identical. And there were 3 tests, each were similar to the previous year's. After the first one, I got lazy and started practicing/memorizing the previous year's tests. Yes, I cheated myself cause I don't remember much from the class, but if the professor's too lazy to change it up, I wouldn't feel guilty.