cheaters

[BAM!]

---

Members do not see this ad.

There's only one honorable thing to do:

Turn all of them in. Insist that the Honor Code (or whatever it's called at your institution) is enforced. If they get booted, so be it.

If you don't, you're part of the problem.

ok commie

 

[BAM!]

btw, most of the time when people talk about how they drank the night before a big exam, they are just showing off.

 

[Psycho Doctor]

btw, most of the time when people talk about how they drank the night before a big exam, they are just showing off.

showing off what...? how stupid they are?

 

[gujuDoc]

i actually sit in the front because i was accused of cheating at my other school. add the fact im an athlete in a sport that is not known for having the most intelligent people in it. the teacher just sits in the front of the class on his laptop (he is a good guy and teacher). its just annoying since i spent the whole weekend doing a practice MCAT, studying for o-chem and genetics tests. Hell, i could have sliced the studying time by a third if i was to cheat. This further solidifies my opinoin that the MCAT should be weight more heavily than a GPA since you can never know how a GPA is gotten.

I understand where you are coming from. I have heard of people doing the same at my school, and it sickens me.

Actually, this kind of reminds me of a story I heard some years ago about a med student who got an A in biochem in undergrad because she cheated. However, it came to bite that med student in the butt, when she got to med school, because she didn't learn anything when she took it the first time.

I think you should report it the next time you see it. If they get the FF and punished, well then that's their problem. I think it is unfair to the other students. Either that or the professor should split their grade, meaning take that 90 and divide it by 3, so each one fails since they cheated anyhow.

 

[Psycho Doctor]

Curious what everyone thinks of a person being cheated off of unbeknown to that student? That's the problem of reporting cheating...someone can send an anonymous note to the prof and he can compare papers and penalize two with the exact same and one could be totally innocent. I say this b/c it almost happened to me. There was a cheating ring going on in one of my classes. Part of it consisted of them getting the answers from my test paper on all exams. Eventually someone let me know about it; i had no clue. He said he was telling me b/c he was ready to report the cheating ring. I immediately moved my seat for the next exam and all subsequent ones. But had it been reported and found that i had the exact same answers, and yet I was working really hard to get my grades and then had it taken away from me...or worse...been expelled or prevented from getting into med school...I would have been more than pissed and lawyers would have been involved. Therefore if you are going to report it, be sure of the facts and mention names; do not leave it to chance that the prof will find the right people.

 

[medstyle]

Just to play devil's advocate...why is cheating so bad? People pay thousands of dollars to go to college, many only in order to get into a graduate school. cheating here or there to get good grades seems to be a good investment...without it, some people would not be able to succeed. Sure, it is bad for society when individuals cheat, but its actually good for the individual. Just like all other "immoral" behavior.

Very few poeple get caught cheating, and those that do are generally very blantant about it.

One of the things that force students to cheat are unfair professors. Why should students have their whole futures in the unsteady hands of a professor who uses his exams as an opportunity to trick students, as opposed to test learned material?

My college made cheating useless by giving us tests that required thinking, not just memorization. These exams would have been difficult open book. No crib sheet could have held as much information, just like when u were taking the mcat or whatever.

To eliminate cheating, grad schools ought to be less into grades and more into substance. When a student is reduced to nothing more then a set of numbers, it becomes clear that cutting corners to raise that one aspect of yoru application is intelligent, if unfair to others.

Of course, that will never happen, nor will every professor care enough about students or teaching to ensure they give out tests that cheat proof. So the problem will continue.

Just study 4 times as hard as the next guy. That way, you'll do at least ok. And as far as turning in other students, I would not do it unless I hated someone. I don't want to throw away someone's future, be it right or wrong. I am not a judge nor do i want to become one.

 

[medstyle]

And one more thing. i am against reporting cheaters because those that rely on it heavily don't know anything and can't get far. I knew this girl in my high school who did "well" and had a high gpa at a top state school, whose parents would brag about her all the time. Well, she just flew out to the carribean on january, despite claims where she was telling me "i am considering duke med". she has always been an idiot, scheming her way through college. I figure its alot easier to study than stress urself out by cheating. I hate this girl, if you couldn't tell. I still couldn't turn her in...i don't want to be the reason her life screwed up. She should have the opportunity to blame herself.

Cheaters don't really get past standardized tests, thats for sure.

I think grad schools should look at grades and administer their own tests, sort of like how they do in india and japan. This way, every school can see who is most qualified for their particular program, with grades not being the end all of everything.

Anyway, I am home sick today and missing my exam, but I actually feel guilty about it, because I am not a cheater and i hate making excuses. But, excuses are better then puking in front of ur classmates.

 

[tinkerbelle]

wow!! so Hopkins is known for cheating? is Hopkins med school like that also?

well i have a few friends at hopkins med and they're super nice and haven't complained about cheating. The med school doesn't have the "throaty" reputation the undergrad has.

 

[medic170]

Wow, im absolutley disgusted. I just finished my Orgo 2 test. I usually sit in the front in one of the corners so there is no chance of even being accused. Today i showed up late and had to sit in the middle of the room. I couldnt believe the amout of people cheating had to be like 33-40% of the class, either had flash cards out, had things written on their hands or just used the neighbors test. This is my first semester at this school and while there was cheating at my other this was at least double the amount of people. There are three kids who i thought were pretty smart they all have like a 90+ average. But all three of them take the test together, then they talk about how they got drunk the night before the test. With three people taking one test it would be sad not to get a 90 and up. I may end up with a B but at least i actually earned it. just needed to vent

It does happen a lot, but remember to keep your own integrity. Things come full circle when the time comes for standardized tests that are impossible to cheat on, such as the MCAT or USMLE. Most of those cheaters are going to score below those of us who don't.

 

[GTA]

It only gets worse in real life...
You either have to decide you are going to cheat with everyone else to keep up or realize you are going to have to work 3 times as hard. I am not advocating it, but it is a fact of life. YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO CHANGE IT. Come to grips with it and decide which side of the fence you will be on, keep your mouth shut and deal with it.

I for one never cheat...so I study 3 times as hard.

 

[TwoLegacies]

Wow, im absolutley disgusted. I just finished my Orgo 2 test. I usually sit in the front in one of the corners so there is no chance of even being accused. Today i showed up late and had to sit in the middle of the room. I couldnt believe the amout of people cheating had to be like 33-40% of the class, either had flash cards out, had things written on their hands or just used the neighbors test. This is my first semester at this school and while there was cheating at my other this was at least double the amount of people. There are three kids who i thought were pretty smart they all have like a 90+ average. But all three of them take the test together, then they talk about how they got drunk the night before the test. With three people taking one test it would be sad not to get a 90 and up. I may end up with a B but at least i actually earned it. just needed to vent

aargh. I'm still angry about my physics class 4 years ago, where the grades were curved and it turned out that half the class had cheated with a stolen test... so i heard anyway. Who knows if that was true. But considering the average of one class was a B, and the average of the other class with the same prof was a D, i'm inclined to believe it.
would've gotten an A in physics for once, once in my life. damn engineers.

 

[Learfan]

I would like to share my perspective and experiences regarding cheating on tests that are significant to pre-health professionals. The profs and the TAs do not care in the least. It does not affect any of the issues that impact their immediate future.

Let me share my background and a few experiences. I am currently MS0 and will be entering med school in August. Previously, I spent five years obtaining a PhD in chemistry at a large mid-western state school. My focus was on organic synthetic methods.

Over the course of being a TA for two years, I caught a small number of people obviously consulting the tests of other students next to them in both organic chemistry one and two. At the end of the test, I collected the papers, marked the cheaters papers and the papers of the people who had been intruded upon. When I called this to the attention of the professor leading the class, he completely ignored the whole situation. The reason for this behavior is now obvious to me. The professor could not care less about the class or about teaching in general. His focus was on obtaining grants from third party organizations (NIH, Petroleum Research Fund of ACS, etc.) which support the entire department through overhead charges to the grants (usually 40 to 50 %), pushing his graduate students to work harder to generate additional publishable results, publishing papers and obtaining tenure. Teaching was just a means to support himself until he had locked in that lifetime job. The instruction process at the undergraduate level meant nothing to him and as I came to understand my role as a graduate student, it came to mean nothing to me. At the graduate level, teaching a class is just a means of recruiting new graduate students (cheap expendable publication generating labor) to your lab. My role was to focus on my research and pump out material for my professor to publish so he would look good in the academic community and I could get my degree and find a job that actually paid a real wage. Teaching had a place so low on the priority scale it could not even be located.

I encountered a similar situation involving cheating during my undergraduate studies. People were cheating without any attempt to conceal it on the calculus one final. I reported it to the department chairman who took no action of any kind. He could not have cared less since it did not impact issues like grants, tenure decisions, quantity of publications generated by new and tenured faculty, who got which office, who obtained access to scarce resources, budgets, hiring new faculty, managing diversity problems and faculty promotions. These are the issues that matter in academic departments.

Cheaters will always exist and little will be done about it. That is in part why the MCAT matters so much in med school admissions. It is one of the very few standardized means of comparing people that is resistant to cheating. In your application package, it probably represents the single most important issue in your package presented to medical schools in determining who progresses to the interview stage of the application process.

My advice is work hard, master the material in all of the prerequisites, review for the test using the method most suited to your learning style, crush and humiliate the MCAT and ignore the cheaters who fail to learn the material. Despite being far removed in time from both my undergraduate and graduate degrees, my ability to hit the review books alone and perform on the MCAT made the difference in my application. As an undergraduate I took on too much by double majoring in both biology and chemistry. As a result my undergraduate GPA was only 3.45 which is OK, but in the area of med school applicants, nothing special. The MCAT score made the difference.

 

[visualwealth]

what sux is that it is usually the smart kids that cheat... I was surprised to find out that one of my friends with a 4.0 cheated in just about every single class. I worked hard for my good grades but, this guy had zero intergrity...He would use others test to check his answers and make sure he always had all the old lab reports of others... Sad part is he is going to get a good mcat score b/c he is smart thus, I guess he is cheating and winning...

Whatever

 

[Reckoning]

wow!! so Hopkins is known for cheating? is Hopkins med school like that also?

Totally separate campuses and cultures. So I don't think so.

Although I did report it when I saw it, I figure that one can't cheat on everything and maintain a great GPA. I think it would be just as much work to find a way to cheat each time not to mention managing with the risk of getting caught everytime. I think the consistent studier will get the better grades. But as I said when it comes to cheating I'm as naive as they come.

I say report it everytime. And if you dabble in it STOP, you are comprimising your own integrity and when you meet the guy who got the real A, he is going to eat you for breakfast.

 

[Psycho Doctor]

And one more thing. i am against reporting cheaters because those that rely on it heavily don't know anything and can't get far. I knew this girl in my high school who did "well" and had a high gpa at a top state school, whose parents would brag about her all the time. Well, she just flew out to the carribean on january, despite claims where she was telling me "i am considering duke med". she has always been an idiot, scheming her way through college. I figure its alot easier to study than stress urself out by cheating. I hate this girl, if you couldn't tell. I still couldn't turn her in...i don't want to be the reason her life screwed up. She should have the opportunity to blame herself.

Cheaters don't really get past standardized tests, thats for sure.

I think grad schools should look at grades and administer their own tests, sort of like how they do in india and japan. This way, every school can see who is most qualified for their particular program, with grades not being the end all of everything.

Anyway, I am home sick today and missing my exam, but I actually feel guilty about it, because I am not a cheater and i hate making excuses. But, excuses are better then puking in front of ur classmates.

you're not, she is..she did this to herself.

feel better; hope you get a make-up exam.

 

[red dot]

Wow, im absolutley disgusted. I just finished my Orgo 2 test. I usually sit in the front in one of the corners so there is no chance of even being accused. Today i showed up late and had to sit in the middle of the room. I couldnt believe the amout of people cheating had to be like 33-40% of the class, either had flash cards out, had things written on their hands or just used the neighbors test. This is my first semester at this school and while there was cheating at my other this was at least double the amount of people. There are three kids who i thought were pretty smart they all have like a 90+ average. But all three of them take the test together, then they talk about how they got drunk the night before the test. With three people taking one test it would be sad not to get a 90 and up. I may end up with a B but at least i actually earned it. just needed to vent

that sucks. the only thing you can do about that is ignore it cuz you can't really say anything. but **** them cuz one day they will have it coming... they'll get caught for whatever it is eventually.

i know this one guy: in high school he got caught for STEALING THE SATs and then he also PASSED IT OUT to HALF the BASKETBALL TEAM. he got kicked out of school of course. but then he finished high school elsewhere and his smart-ass self got into top tier undergrad schools. in college he made a NASTY dorm porn with a HOOKER whom he tried to take out for a burrito afterwards. then last year i saw him studying for the mcats. i figured he was going to break 35 if not 40. now THAT's disgusting. i hope he doesn't become a pediatrician.

of course things like that will irk anyone (me), but hey what can you do? just move on. *sigh*

 

[45408]

what sux is that it is usually the smart kids that cheat...

Hey, don't jump to conclusions. My GPA is pretty high - because I bust my ass day in and day out. Most of the cheaters I can think of were on the low end of the spectrum.

 

[gujuDoc]

Hey, don't jump to conclusions. My GPA is pretty high - because I bust my ass day in and day out. Most of the cheaters I can think of were on the low end of the spectrum.

I will agree with this statement, because if those people are smart that cheat, then that begs to differ the question of why they would cheat.

Smart is someone whom works for their grade not gets it off of someone else sharing their grade.

 

[gujuDoc]

that sucks. the only thing you can do about that is ignore it cuz you can't really say anything. but **** them cuz one day they will have it coming... they'll get caught for whatever it is eventually.

i know this one guy: in high school he got caught for STEALING THE SATs and then he also PASSED IT OUT to HALF the BASKETBALL TEAM. he got kicked out of school of course. but then he finished high school elsewhere and his smart-ass self got into top tier undergrad schools. in college he made a NASTY dorm porn with a HOOKER whom he tried to take out for a burrito afterwards. then last year i saw him studying for the mcats. i figured he was going to break 35 if not 40. now THAT's disgusting. i hope he doesn't become a pediatrician.

of course things like that will irk anyone (me), but hey what can you do? just move on. *sigh*

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

That is sooooooooooo gross.