Teacher creates ingenious exam question to find cheaters and catches 14 students
irishmirror.ie
irishmirror.ie
Which has this edit at the bottom:
> Edit 2: Hi guys I'm writing this 5 months after the initial post. I'm glad this post is getting attention again and I'm once again receiving messages from people wanting to get in touch with the professor or students from the class, so now that this post has run its initial course, I'll burst everyone's bubble by admitting that I mostly made this story up. It's based on a real incident that happened in my department a couple years ago, but I wasn't in the class personally, I only heard about it third-hand from someone I didn't know that well. So while the general plot and end result of the story is true, I changed some details to keep the professor and school anonymous, and took creative liberty in writing it from a first person viewpoint. Unfortunately the part about my department letting students go to the bathroom during exams with their phones was true, and is still true to this day, and to my knowledge the incident this is based on is the only time that a professor actually took a stand against this shitty policy.
> So yeah I don't know the professor personally since the class he taught is not part of my program's curriculum, so I won't put anyone in touch with him or anyone else who knows about the real incident and could expose his identity.
> Before anyone reports this for being fake, I will once again stress that while I changed the details, the actual events played out in a similar way and the real professor did in fact get his revenge on the cheaters.
I wish more HNers could read articles for 'fake news' tells. Especially ironic as the article purportedly was about fake news.
...what else can you do? You could confiscate phones before a test, but a student who was determined to cheat could have two phones.
Do you not allow students to use the bathroom? Do you give them a pat-down before and after they leave the room? Both are plausible strategies I suppose, but strike me as highly invasive.
If this burden can be borne routinely for bus trips, why not expect the same from an exam setting?
If you wanted to be really thorough you'd timestamp everything and maybe offer different versions of the test to different students.
Occasionally students get hung up on difficult questions, determined to solve them, losing time for the remaining questions. Yes, this is an anti-pattern, but it is a fact of life. By incorporating an impossible question, you waste the time of honest[1] students.
Some will recognise that the question is impossible and move on. Some with good exam technique will know not to get stuck on a problem they can't solve until they've had a go at all of the other questions.
But some honest and hard-working students will have got a worse grade than they deserved because of this stunt.
[1] Consider, as well, 'desperate' students - students who need a certain grade for some reason or another. Maybe this class isn't these students' priority, but they need to pass to be able to study the classes they love. An impossible question could drive these students to cheat, when they never would consider it otherwise[2][3].
[2] Consider the detail "about half the class left the room to use the bathroom during the test - far more than the usual".
[3] This bears resemblance to vigilante groups targeting peadophiles. I don't know what to make of that.
In fact, this is one of the most exam-tackling strategies: spot and rake up points with low-hanging fruits throughout the test.
But, to put it in your words: exam tackling strategies are not vital real-world skills.
The truth is tests are merely a game between student and professor. A game born of arrogance and gatekeeping. There are even metagames being played as exemplified by this article: would the professor really ask such as question?
A bit offtopic to article, engineering exams tend to be about noticing little details and not ignoring them.
The story doesn’t report that only an elite few were able to solve a specific next-level question to get full marks. It says some people are so hung up on grades that they went straight for the honey pot.
> It says some people are so hung up on grades
So? Practically, grades matter pretty often. And even if they did not, there is nothing wrong with being motivated by grades or having grades related ambitions.
You say this like full credit is required to pass. A perfect score is often practically impossible, and at least a big achievement in most of higher education, not something most people can walk in expecting to get.
I don't. I did not said nor implied that. I said full credit, because I meant full credit. I did not meant "required for barely passing".
> A perfect score is often practically impossible, and at least a big achievement in most of higher education, not something most people can walk in expecting to get.
It is pretty often practically possible and achieved. In any case, motivated talented hard working student is entitled to expect full credit to be possible.
Average student is entitled to expect all exercises to be possible to solve and within range of what was taught in the course. Even if he personally cant solve everything, it should be doable.
EDIT: In other words, if you know to hoover up the easy marks, you get a better score anyway.
If a teacher takes no real measures to prevent some students from cheating, that breaks trust with the honest students. This story - true or not - is of a teacher trying to create trust with the honest students by ensuring that at least some of those who cheat don't get away with it.
Honestly the problem is this mass education model where professors have hundreds of students to assess. Tests are necessary in this environment because they scale to any number of students. If people want an honest appraisal of their skills, a mentor who focuses on a single student exclusively is much better positioned to provide it.
Not abiding by the rules that have been set.
> Looking up the answers in one's books or phone?
Yes, if the rules have said that you are not permitted to do so.
> Talking to your fellow students?
Yes, if the rules have said that you are not permitted to do so.
> That sort of artificial difficulty shouldn't even be part of the rules in the first place.
If you are studying a subject that is intended to have you gain certain skills, then it is reasonable and appropriate to assess whether or not you have done so. Being able to recall certain facts and to carry out certain procedures without external assistance is sometimes/often included in the skills you are expected to acquire as part of the course.
> If your tests are so easy they can be solved via Google, they're pointless and it doesn't really matter if someone is cheating in the first place.
Suppose you are learning calculus, and your instructor wants to know if you can differentiate a particular function from first principles. This is an important skill to ensure you are ready to move to the next stage, but it's trivial to search for it on the internet.
This is just one example that counters your assertion.
> If people want an honest appraisal of their skills, a mentor who focuses on a single student exclusively is much better positioned to provide it.
True. Given the current trends in teacher numbers versus student numbers, that's unlikely to happen. So in the meantime we must do what we can with mass assessment, and try to make that assessment fair. Preventing cheating is part of that.
If it was an open-book exam then arguments could be made that looking stuff up online is an extension of looking it up in the official textbooks (unless you are _only_ allowed the official textbooks... but you get my drift).
Every school and uni exam (for the most part) will have past papers you can test yourself with. The exam doesn't deviate a whole lot (in my experience) from the past papers with the changes usually revolving around the made-up scenario, e.g. "a boat with a speed of 34kph..." vs "a plane travelling at a speed of..."
They could have studied the past papers and done well but they wanted the easier route.
So, no, they cheated. They deserved their punishment.
I have no respect for cheaters, but catching innocents in this little trap is absolutely unconscionable to me.
But I agree
It left a sour taste in my mouth as I refuse to cheat - even in a pub quiz - but it gave me a reality check I suppose.
I remember the mechanics exams from University. You would get a test that is simply impossible to finish in the given time, which meant that you had to practise doing the calculations really fast. You had to speedrun through the whole exam, pattern matching the examples against stuff you practised. No time to think about them.
Knowing fully well that the exam could only be finished in time via this method, they made sure to put examples in it that we had never seen before. And while this is the right way to test understanding, and the way I prefer my tests to be, I really don't understand how they can ask you to do both at the same time, with that time pressure.
We had more than 50% fail rate at these exams, which the professor was proud of.
And all of this combined with the worst teaching I ever witnessed.
I also had a fun experience getting between two professors once. I failed the second semester math exam, and the assistant professor held a refresher course in the third semester, for the roughly 100 people who also failed. It was 1.5 hours for something like 6 weeks. It was the best class I've ever been in, and I really deeply understood all the stuff for the first time.
The professor proper then prepared an exam for us that 95% of the people failed (I managed to get a passing grade, along with 5 other people).
Literally an old professor being angry at a younger one who does better teaching. And that old professor was even pretty good, to be fair.
All that makes me wonder why the teacher didn’t do what most would (and what is common across standardized tests): prevent using the bathroom during the test.
Personally, while I am registered at disability services, my issues are particularly severe. I have two rare immune-mediated neurological diseases affecting my peripheral nervous system.
If I hold my bladder, I literally experience something life threatening known as autonomic dysreflexia, which is just about the worst feeling in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomic_dysreflexia
I also look completely normal, and I can walk. So, while I do not appear disabled, I am severely disabled, and I cannot hold it. I also have severe bowel issues too, but it's TMI. I am on a last resort medication for that.
My professors limit the amount of bathroom breaks (an arbitrary amount) during the exam, and sometimes it is inadequate, especially for somebody like me who gets extended testing time. So, I had to go to disability services and explain my situation (degrading) to be allowed to use the restroom as needed. I had to have another accommodations meeting over these rules.
As for a TA escorting me to the restroom and literally standing outside the stall. Yeah, it's degrading, but go ahead, be my guest.
Don't recall for sure if it's a CYA policy or the state law, tend to think it was the latter. They can claim it's not allowed, but more savvy students will know better and you have to allow them. You can however have a TA accompany them and wait outside the stall. You can also make them leave their phone but of course they can keep another phone on them.
Look at it from the teachers' point of view:
1. They know students are cheating by going to the bathroom and looking up answers (not all of them, but enough)
2. They can't prevent them from going to the bathroom
I suppose they could insist that everyone wears trousers and tops that have no pockets and they all put their phones in their bags (and demonstrate that this has been done) but I could imagine this being a violation of some sort of rights...
The point is that there was a question in the exam that was hard. Impossibly hard by the sound of things. Some students threw their hands up and said "I have no idea" and skipped it. Some went to the bathroom, looked up the (wrong) answer, and cheated... it's black and white for me I'm afraid.
If this professor did that, would people be less angry about him putting an unanswerable question on the exam?
Was it thought that these questions were intentionally without answers?
In India, all students are supposed to turn off their phones and keep them on the teachers table for the whole duration of the test. Having a phone on person is deemed to be cheating and failed in the test.
There is no rule like that. I'm an Indian student. All exams have different rules. They sometimes ask you to keep phones outside, sometimes near the invigilator, and maybe even in your pockets. Some also refuse to let you use the bathroom throughout the exam (usually 3 hours)
But students always find a way to cheat. Nothing will stop cheating.
Even what you described, is ultimately aimed at preventing the student from accessing heir phone during the exam.
Even my sources are the same. I took multiple national level exams organized by the government and private colleges just a few months ago.
The phones arent even allowed inside the exam hall. You have to keep them outside for national level exams.
Even pen / pencil boxes or pouches are not allowed.
Bathroom trips are usually not encouraged.
I would like to point to a reason I think it's a very good policy to try to catch cheaters and punish then severely and why it's almost always worth the cost. The reason is that it's absolutely soul crushing, motivation killing and unfair for honest people to function in a competitive environment with cheaters. Standards and requirements get higher. Workloads get bigger. Difficulty goes up. You either spend all your time trying to compete or give up. One way or the other the cheaters still win, get all the recognition, status and prizes. It's very easy to lose faith in humanity and just become either cynical about it all or just spiral into mental problems.
I see two reasonable solutions. Either make schools not so competitive, there is very little reason for putting so much weight on tests scores or grades. Maybe it's time to re-think it all. Until we can do that I am all for catching cheaters and throwing the book at them. If you try to get ahead by cheating you're hurting all the honest people you left behind. It's not only about you getting an A instead of a B. It's about poisoning the whole environment you operate in.
Far more common in the UK than anywhere else I've lived, pub quiz is the time honored tradition of drinking in a pub while a guy on a microphone gives everyone questions to answer on a piece of paper. Each table is usually a team, and the winners split some small prize. It's the best.
So one night at the Edinburgh University pub, the quizmaster asked a really obscure and weird question, like what was the name of the dog of some character that appeared twice on TV show off the air for twenty years.
Naturally, the answer was on Wikipedia. Naturally, the host had changed the answer the day before. And any team that gave his wrong answer lost half their points and were publicly mocked.
It was a great night.
You know disabled students have the right to privacy too, without other students knowing their personal health information. It is not the professor's business either, unless the student wants to disclose the actual disability's name(s) or the specifics around it. Only disability status is required to be disclosed in the US.
I personally have 2 neurostimulators inside of me, a power injectable port in my chest (an indwelling central line), a semi-permanent continuous glucose monitor on my arm (external), and a semi-permanent insulin pump connected to my abdomen--and clipped to my waistband (external). All of these alarm to a metal detector.
Also, the neurostimulators and insulin pump are sensitive to metal detectors and millimeter wave technology, as in body scanners. The insulin pump is also sensitive to X-Ray radiation.
In the case of the insulin pump, it can interfere with the photosensor on the cartridge/reservoir that detects the level of insulin remaining in the cartridge/reservoir. This can literally cause the insulin pump to overdose the person with diabetes.
As for neurostimulators, one of the neurostimulators I have has formal reports in the FDA MAUDE database, where people had their lifesaving neurostimulator deactivated by metal detectors.
Oh yeah, I also forgot, I have 2 places in my body that have plates/pins: my left shoulder and left ankle. That would set off a metal detector too.
As for handing over mobile phones: that is a prudent step. One of my professors took them up before the exam without advance warning for the final exam, where restroom breaks were definitely going to be utilized due to the length of the exam.
Obviously it does not solve the problem. But, according to far more than a few studies, having the phone out of sight raises exam scores. Having the phone in a completely different room raises the exam scores even higher. Basically, your brain treats the phone as an extension to your brain, and in its presence, your brain effectively goes on holiday.
Seems like un unnecessary harsh and vigilante way to try to correct the system single handedly.
I would prefer a professor or school who transparently communicates anti-cheating efforts (like online games do) and - most importantly - actually follows through with them systematically.
There’s also the issue that students can appeal and the process usually takes a good amount of effort. But a student who might be looking at another year of tuition and delaying graduation has massively more incentives to challenge it than an assistant professor who is trying to keep his/her head down and get tenure. And that’s why sites like Chegg get away with it.
There are so many details lacking (e.g. when and where did this happen?) that I question its veracity, but if it did happen it seems pretty inconsiderate to the non-cheating students to put an unsolvable question on there.
Don't answer questions you're not prepared to justify
The purpose might be legitimate, but if you can remember your student years, you can imagine the stress that could incur the fact to suddenly encounter a question that they have no way to be able te reply.
Imagine a student that was well prepared for the exam, and suddenly there is a question he is supposed to be able to reply as it is in the exam but in no way related to what he prepared. Some stressed students could suddenly feel insecure and wonder what they did badly during their revision.
Also, it is like the police creating an illegal situation to catch someone. Would have the students attempted to cheat if there was not a question that made no sense to them?
As the article indicate itself, more students than usual went to the bathroom for this exam...
It is like a cop coming to you and saying "do you want free drug?", you reply ok and then he arrests you for drug possession charge...
a is a question about fundamentals. Everyone pretty much needs to get this one correct. If you don't it means you don't know the subject matter.
b is a question to test what you have been taught. If you were paying attention and studying you should get most of the marks. It will still be difficult though and there's potential to lose marks.
c is a harder question. The students that are advanced in the subject will be able to tackle it. You might be able to get full marks in some of the c questions but probably not them all. In most you will be able to get some marks for effort shown.
Is the relevant law available on https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/ ?
I'm not your lawyer, so this is just my 2 cents. If you're specifically asking for legal help, please consult a lawyer on your behalf so you can discuss the details.
I think you might have an overly broad conception of the duties of a teacher towards students. They should protect them from harm, so laying an actual trap (or just not warning about a potential danger) so that a student gets hurt would be in violation of the teacher's duty. But giving your students a test to make sure they're actually studying is such a common (and common-sense) expression of distrust that I'd be surprised if it were illegal to not expect good faith from their students.
Relevant: §2 LehrErzVDBest https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/lehrerzvdbest_1/DDNR00019... (Former GDR law that was kept in force after reunification. Not sure whether the part about not doing damage to the socialist society is still part of current law.)
From what I read from the reference in your comment, that law applies to the part which forms the former gdr in germany.
According to that website (run by two official ministries) the law is current and your comment about that part surprises me as well.
Whoops, sorry. I used to wonder why people make the elementary mistake of not noticing they're talking to a different person. Now I know: it's because the "threads" view shows the replies to your own comments, but not the comment you originally replied to. So there's not enough context to notice that the usernames are different.
He is dealing with kids or young persons and he is purposely creating distress when the goal was to educate.
Even if it is not good for students to cheat, the way he dealt with that will have probably ruined a few students lives. Think about that...
And also take into account that him and the institution have created the conditions leading to these students cheating. If you have empathy you can easily guess that it is possible that some of the caught students were not 'bad persons' but just did it because they had the opportunity and on the other side a lot of pressure (future depending on the success of this exam, family poverty, violent family pressure to not fail).
It would have been better to do this thing as an educational move / warning to show the concerned students that there is a risk cheating.
And also using measures to avoid cheating in the first place: taking phones, not letting students go to toilets in middle (this is common) etc...