How many times have you cheated on an undergrad science exam?

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How many science exams have you cheated on?

  • Zero, I do not cheat.

    Votes: 215 84.6%

  • 1

    Votes: 5 2.0%

  • 2

    Votes: 3 1.2%

  • 3-5

    Votes: 7 2.8%

  • 6-10

    Votes: 5 2.0%

  • so many I've lost count

    Votes: 12 4.7%

  • I would cheat, but instructors/proctors have made it impossible to cheat on many/all of my exams.

    Votes: 7 2.8%
  • Total voters
    254
Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I came to college to learn from my courses. My diploma would be worthless if I didn't earn it.
 
The risks of cheating on an exam are huge. It's not worth it. Cheating on homework assignments, however, was way more commonplace and that still ended up counting as a large portion of your grade.

Also in my opinion, a lot of people probably would cheat if there were no consequences. From what I've seen with people personally, it's the consequences of cheating that keeps them from doing it, not the moral dilemma of doing it.

Also, if someone offered a pre-med 007 style technology to cheat on the MCAT with absolutely no risk of getting caught, would they still do it?
 
Zero times. You know they give each person next to you different forms right? Unless you're talking about like having notes out when you're not supposed to.

Lucca said:
Never in college, never in high school. What a dumb and distasteful thing to do. Just study, school isn't that hard.
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I like this description, because it's pretty much how I feel about it. I basically don't cheat because it just looks and feels pathetic. Plus I have enough work ethic to study, so it'd just be wasteful to not do so.
 
Zero. Most of the people in my science classes are stupid, as indicated by our ridiculous class averages. It's pointless to look at their answers unless you want to know what the answer probably isn't.
 
Planes2Doc said:
The risks of cheating on an exam are huge. It's not worth it.
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This. Doing poorly on one exam likely won't even register in the grand scheme of your med school application. Getting caught cheating will essentially destroy your app. If you're not ready for an exam, you are way better off just taking a poor grade than trying to cheat your way to a good grade.

Plus, I like the way it feels to do well on tests, and it would cheapen the experience to know that my score was aided by cheating. I can either get an A by cheating, or I can get an A by preparing adequately. The outcome is the same either way, but I don't get to be proud of my performance if I cheat. Not a tradeoff that I personally want to make.
 
I copied the answer to this survey from the poster above me.
 
Never

I sometimes have a hard time condemning people that do though, like if most of a class is cheating. Hard to ask someone to put themselves at a disadvantage on moral grounds and watch their GPA suffer, potentially risking their dream career, while unethical people around them succeed. And doing well on the MCAT isn't enough of a barrier to say that the cheaters get weeded out later.
 
Last time I cheated was in 4th grade, when the sub accidentally gave out the test instead of the review material. I told the teacher what happened, along with most of my class. We were too competitive in that class to let a freebie test make the competition worse.
 
There were a couple people in calc who were so obviously cheating (turing fully around in their chairs and sharing answers) that their sense of impunity was clear, which made me pretty angry. So I turned them in and the professor vowed to make their lives hell, which was her prerogative, I guess. I ran into her later and she said that the one guy started crying and giving lame excuses on front of the academic integrity comity, making a massive fool of himself, and the other one admitted to cheating on the final. They both dropped out of school.

So don't cheat, and especially don't do it in such a way as makes you look like you think you can do anything you want, cause imma getchya.
 
Ovid said:
Zip. Zilch. Nada.

I came to college to learn from my courses. My diploma would be worthless if I didn't earn it.
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techniicalllyyy your diploma will still be worthless if you can't get a job >_>
 
I don't think I've had a class challenging enough to warrant cheating
 
ModyzMalak said:
techniicalllyyy your diploma will still be worthless if you can't get a job >_>
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Not at all. A diploma says that you have shown the work ethic to become proficient in knowledge of an academic discipline. If you didn't earn it, that diploma is meaningless. Even without a job in that area, your diploma still means something.
 
efle said:
Never

I sometimes have a hard time condemning people that do though, like if most of a class is cheating. Hard to ask someone to put themselves at a disadvantage on moral grounds and watch their GPA suffer, potentially risking their dream career, while unethical people around them succeed. And doing well on the MCAT isn't enough of a barrier to say that the cheaters get weeded out later.
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So if your fellow docs are all getting rich around you on the basis of falsified diagnostics producing artificially inflated taxpayer-insured revenues, then you'd --

Oh wait.

J Senpai said:
There were a couple people in calc who were so obviously cheating (turing fully around in their chairs and sharing answers) that their sense of impunity was clear, which made me pretty angry. So I turned them in and the professor vowed to make their lives hell, which was her prerogative, I guess. I ran into her later and she said that the one guy started crying and giving lame excuses on front of the academic integrity comity, making a massive fool of himself, and the other one admitted to cheating on the final. They both dropped out of school.

So don't cheat, and especially don't do it in such a way as makes you look like you think you can do anything you want, cause imma getchya.
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boondocksRiley500.jpg
 
Ovid said:
Not at all. A diploma says that you have shown the work ethic to become proficient in knowledge of an academic discipline. If you didn't earn it, that diploma is meaningless. Even without a job in that area, your diploma still means something.
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perhaps but for me academia is just a means to an end. i'm not a fan of the gimmick that institutionalized education has become. once you learn how you learn, for the most part you you don't need all the bells and whistles. a diploma just shows you know how to play the game :/ but yes cheating is bad. carry on
 
How exactly did people "cheat" at your various schools? I don't think there's many opportunities to do so in general...there certainly weren't at my UG.
 
Zero because nobody else in my courses was very smart
 
"It ain't cheating if you don't get caught"
"If you're not cheating, you're not trying"

I never have cheated on anything since I've been in college, last time was probably high school. I'm too much of a bawss.
 
I rather fail on my own merits than pass on someone else's.
 
J Senpai said:
There were a couple people in calc who were so obviously cheating (turing fully around in their chairs and sharing answers) that their sense of impunity was clear, which made me pretty angry. So I turned them in and the professor vowed to make their lives hell, which was her prerogative, I guess. I ran into her later and she said that the one guy started crying and giving lame excuses on front of the academic integrity comity, making a massive fool of himself, and the other one admitted to cheating on the final. They both dropped out of school.

So don't cheat, and especially don't do it in such a way as makes you look like you think you can do anything you want, cause imma getchya.
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Do you realize you ruined those people's lives?
 
amazing tekkers said:
Old quote

QVDkS0Y.png
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Is the idea here that students inherently value learning more than grades, but the system values grades more than learning? I hope not, considering that's a major assumption about students. Also, considering there's generally a correlation between the grade you receive and what you learned, the two things are not mutually exclusive.
 
amazing tekkers said:
@J Senpai still snitched though. I'm sure there were other options.
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Such as?

Approach them on the issue? "If you don't stop doing this blah blah blah" sure. But A. Let's assume @J Senpai is too much of a puss to confront them directly in the first place (no offense, but probably true right?). And B. OK sure, maybe if he did they would have stopped, but they would have come to the most logical conclusion -- they stop for that particular class. They could continue cheating elsewhere throughout the rest of their academic career. Although given that J Senpai reports it was so explicit, maybe they wouldn't have gotten away with it for long anyway.
 
Cheating is pretty rampant at my school, especially after the weeder classes when professors get rather lax about proctoring exams (bathroom breaks permissible, backpacks aren't sent to the front of the lecture hall, etc). I've had several exams where I've walked into the bathroom to find people looking up answers on their phones. It just happens.

Personally I really don't think I could look at myself if I cheated even once. Not worth it homeslice.
 
md-2020 said:
How exactly did people "cheat" at your various schools? I don't think there's many opportunities to do so in general...there certainly weren't at my UG.
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During my honors biochemistry final, there was an essay question about the structure of collagen. Everyone was sitting in their desks working diligently when we hear something from the back of the room. On someone's phone, Siri starts "The primary structure of collagen..."

I think the age of smartphones has made cheating a lot more manageable, if you're not a ***** that has your phone read you the answers.
 
Ovid said:
During my honors biochemistry final, there was an essay question about the structure of collagen. Everyone was sitting in their desks working diligently when we hear something from the back of the room. On someone's phone, Siri starts "The primary structure of collagen..."

I think the age of smartphones has made cheating a lot more manageable, if you're not a ***** that has your phone read you the answers.
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*cringe*

So what happened after? Did the instructor/proctors take action?
 
Ovid said:
I think that makes you guilty in the conspiracy of cheating. I'm not sure though. I'm not pre-law...
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Oh ya, ethically I'm at fault but the question might also be about academics as opposed to ethics. Depending on what kind of info the op is interested it, the answer would be different I would think.
 
amazing tekkers said:
*cringe*

So what happened after? Did the instructor/proctors take action?
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The professor went back and talked to him. I couldn't hear what he said, but he allowed the student to finish the exam. I'm not sure what, if anything, happened afterword.
 
Ovid said:
The professor went back and talked to him. I couldn't hear what he said, but he allowed the student to finish the exam. I'm not sure what, if anything, happened afterword.
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Lol.

Yeah it's the same kind of thing where I'm at. Frankly it's too much of a pain to take down someone's ID and remember oh yeah I have to specifically go in and give this one person a zero, so they mostly let it slide.
 
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