Is the Cheating Insane in your classes ?

[ILikeDrugs]

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The three people who were obviously cheating have dropped from my current physics class. They were pretty stupid. One would play WoW and read digital manga during class. The other would stare at the floor and seemed airheaded during lab experiments. The other would chat on IMs on some site called meebo. The airhead and comic nerd were so obvious that you could hear them talking back n forth during exams and quizes. Why they bothered to register only to drop several weeks ago is beyond me. Those spots could have been given to people who actually wanted to be there.

 

[BigRedder]

From the name, I assume you went to Cornell?

Either Sogah or Rutledge told us this story and I didn't believe them lol, I guess it really happened!

You would be right, and yes it happened (Coates was the prof). I could hardly believe it myself. That same semester we weren't allowed to bring water bottles to exams because someone got caught with notes written inside the label. Could they not remember that small amount of information? Ridiculous!

 

[DrDrummer]

I am afraid that I will have to report you to the dean of medicine at your desired medical schools.

Thank you
-- Scott Michael

For the cheating or for wearing a Birdman costume?

{Insert Birdman/General Cornrow Wallace noise.}

 

[HSUReddie]

Has anyone actually gotten in trouble for having past exams? It doesn't really seem like cheating so much as wanting to know what the professor's test format is, though technically I guess its "academically dishonest".

I've kept a lot of my old exams, and I've passed them on before too. I'm not dishonest about it though. One professor knows that I've tutored friends and helped them with his exams by using past ones. He's usually just happy to see their grades improving. I suppose as long as you change your questions up every time it doesn't matter.

 

[dmblue]

Did the school not charge her with academic dishonesty or something?

Nope. The professor decided not to tell the school. I think he made her do an extra project or something.

 

[rbnsafsadgf]

i went to a small liberal arts school and I NEVER saw any cheating in any class. our tests (including ochem) weren't proctored and we were free to take them anywhere on campus.

i heard a story that one guy cheated in intro chem and he was suspended for one term. that was the only cheating incident I heard of in five years.

Plus, all test were short essay or long essay (and pictures and arrow pushing for o-chem) so it would be kinda hard to cheat in the first place.

 

[raginfly]

did it not occur to you that they may actually not be trading answers but praying in their native tongue to the dim sum Gods to come deliver old chinese woman with steam carts filled with delicious bite-sized morsels.

it's a stretch but one can imagine.

going on asians pretty hard huh?
why do i feel like people wouldn't get away with this if it was about any other race?
😕

 

[student1799]

My med school has an extremely "nice," uncompetitive culture: everyone studies in groups, and preclinical courses are graded P/F/H. Nothing is curved, which takes away a major incentive to cheat. In keeping with all that, you'd think we would be on the "honor system" for exams--but no, there's incredibly stringent security. All exams are computerized and given under conditions that are only a bit looser than the MCAT. (I.e. no biometric scans or ID checks, but that's the only real difference.) You never get to keep a copy of your exam, and the only chance you have to look at the right and wrong answers is at a "secure exam review" where the prof goes over all (or maybe not all) the questions at lightning speed. You can't take any notes on what you got wrong.

I have no idea why they're so strict, but I get the impression it's an overreaction to a cheating incident that happened in the past. Regardless, it really bothers me to be treated like a criminal when everything else about the school is so cool.

 

[Kevin Baker]

I never noticed cheating at my main undergrad institution but I took a summer class at a public uni and the cheating was insane.

In my lab group of maybe 25, at least 6 people had the previous semester's labs and quizzes, already filled out, given to them by friends. And of course, the prof reused old questions. This itself constitutes a grey area in my opinion, as I believe one should be able to target what to study (otherwise things like Princeton Review and Kaplan would be unethical), but the kicker is that they'd have these old quizs on their desk during the new quizs and would openly copy from one sheet to the other. And of course, some would show up to lab, stay 30 minutes, fill out a lab with the data from the older labs, and leave, while the rest of us stayed for 3.5 hrs more.

And the TA was always too busy watching something on youku to "catch" this completely open and rampant cheating.

 

[imflying]

I never noticed cheating at my main undergrad institution but I took a summer class at a public uni and the cheating was insane.

In my lab group of maybe 25, at least 6 people had the previous semester's labs and quizzes, already filled out, given to them by friends. And of course, the prof reused old questions. This itself constitutes a grey area in my opinion, as I believe one should be able to target what to study (otherwise things like Princeton Review and Kaplan would be unethical), but the kicker is that they'd have these old quizs on their desk during the new quizs and would openly copy from one sheet to the other. And of course, some would show up to lab, stay 30 minutes, fill out a lab with the data from the older labs, and leave, while the rest of us stayed for 3.5 hrs more.

And the TA was always too busy watching something on youku to "catch" this completely open and rampant cheating.

This sounds exactly like my school, except with smaller labs. Makes me kinda wish I'd gone to a private university now, not that I care that much. Cheating is extremely common at my school though

 

[SRRose]

There is a LOT of cheating at my school. Although there is a strict policy on cheating (expulsion after the first time you are caught) I am shocked to see how many people cheat.

I find it depends a lot on the professor. If the professor is really strict about resetting calculators and watching the class take the test, then there is a lot less cheating. However, if the prof turns his back even for a minute lots of people are texting or passing sheets. Some of my classmates will even start using hand signals to give each other multiple choice answers.

I understand the pressure to cheat, but I feel like cheating is just cutting off your nose to spite your face. If you get away with cheating it may provide you with a better score in the moment, but studying and retaining the information will allow you to do better in the future (finals, mcat, etc)

I would be horrified to hear if there is a lot of cheating in med school. Learning the information necessary to pass a test in med school is not just about doing well on exams or getting a good residency, it is about learning how to treat diseases and save lives. Needless to say I would not want a doctor that had cheated through med school.

 

[ArcGurren]

Cheating in med school.... eh. It depends. The medical school I go to (UMDNJ) doesn't have much in the way of cheaters as far as I know. It's shown to just be plain unprofessional and by this point, why the hell would you cheat? You need this knowledge to practice in the future so you're just hurting yourself.

That being said I know in some of the more crazy competitive schools there's a lot of cheating that goes on (JHU, WashU St. Louis, Harvard, etc) but it's hard to catch and generally people are given a slap on the wrist. It kind of makes me glad I didn't go to these schools, some of the stories I hear...

 

[thumbsucker]

There are two types that are both difficult to catch: people pre-typing information into their graphing calculators, and people abusing rx anti-add/adhd drugs.

Psychostimulants cheating 🙄? Coffee, for example, has the same effect for some... I'm pretty sure you wouldn't consider caffeine a crime, would you? SDN should do a poll on the number of pre-meds abusing.

Edit: Listen to "Sleep" by Chester French, Harvard alum (for those that care). I think it sums up the above topic nicely.

i went to a small liberal arts school and I NEVER saw any cheating in any class. our tests (including ochem) weren't proctored and we were free to take them anywhere on campus.

Sounds similar to my school. I've always assumed that self-proctored and take home exams encouraged cheating. The honor code is a big deal here, but still. I know that some kids love to forward questions, well, the ones who aren't overly competitive or just plain hated the class.

Why is everyone assuming only dummies cheat? Of course there are dummies, but the majority I've met are completely at the other end of the spectrum. I know kids who cheat in everything but their science courses, because they don't find a need to concentrate on much else. My brother went to a competitive tech school where everyone cheated. It was new to him and his humble, honest international baccalaureate beginnings. In HS, it wasn't until I transferred from public to competitive private that kids were spending boatloads on previous year's assignments, quizzes, tests etc. I remember being asked to write two-page papers for $70 or do others art projects.

 

[Cleavername]

going on asians pretty hard huh?
why do i feel like people wouldn't get away with this if it was about any other race?
😕

Asians don't usually make a too big deal out of it. unlike the other races. its like they would call u racist on like the smallest things.

its kind of annoying really. not really the fact that other races are sensitive, but rather the lack of it from Asians.

 

[Ischemic]

It is an inevitability that you must accept, just like agent smith losing to neo

 

[anishannayya]

For the undergrads, you'll have it occasionally...

But among the graduate students (overwhelming majority from China or India)...ugh. It sucks to see them get similar results as the people who actually deserved it.

👎

For obvious reasons, that I won't go into because:

:troll:

I'm a student of Indian origin (parents from India, I have grown up here).

FYI, my parents both completed graduate school here and now have very successful jobs (and got mainly As). I know that to this day, my father can remember even the minutia that he learned and can help me with it. In fact, I will always avoid telling him what I am currently learning, because I seem to get grilled about it. It is amazing to me that someone can still give me a detailed explanation about chemistry, a subject he learned nearly 2 decades ago. Even more impressive is when he can turn around and start helping my with some boolean algebra (like last night).

You can take your preconceived notions and shove them up your *****. 😡

 

[transfec]

Not to sound racist, but I've noticed the most cheating among international Chinese students in my science classes -- multiple times in my gen chem 1 class, when we were lined up to hand our tests in, I would notice students speaking in Chinese to each other and erasing answers on their bubble sheets . It was so obvious that I was absolutely incredulous that it was never noticed by the TAs.

This, and I'm a TA. I turned a handful in and they didn't understand at all why it was a problem. Totally clueless. And I don't see the racism if it's a legitimate trend you constantly observe. I've seen this time and time again with Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, and Indian. While I've certainly seen whites cheat, they don't typically have the self-entitlement like the others do when they get caught.

 

[transfec]

👎

For obvious reasons, that I won't go into because:

:troll:

I'm a student of Indian origin (parents from India, I have grown up here).

FYI, my parents both completed graduate school here and now have very successful jobs (and got mainly As). I know that to this day, my father can remember even the minutia that he learned and can help me with it. In fact, I will always avoid telling him what I am currently learning, because I seem to get grilled about it. It is amazing to me that someone can still give me a detailed explanation about chemistry, a subject he learned nearly 2 decades ago. Even more impressive is when he can turn around and start helping my with some boolean algebra (like last night).

You can take your preconceived notions and shove them up your *****. 😡

🙄

I'm laughing at the ignorance in your post. There is nothing wrong about a person talking about trends they constantly observe. That's not racism.

 

[sugarcrash56]

🙄

I'm laughing at the ignorance in your post. There is nothing wrong about a person talking about trends they constantly observe. That's not racism.

this

 

[Buttermellow]

Not to sound racist, but I've noticed the most cheating among international Chinese students in my science classes -- multiple times in my gen chem 1 class, when we were lined up to hand our tests in, I would notice students speaking in Chinese to each other and erasing answers on their bubble sheets . It was so obvious that I was absolutely incredulous that it was never noticed by the TAs.

I've noticed this at my school too. It seems that the professors and TAs just ignore obvious cheating when it isn't in english.... though I do feel bad because some of the students struggle with English, so really they might just be helping each other translate.

Does anyone else's fraternities/sororities have "files" of old tests for every teacher and class? I'm not in a greek organization but I have friends who are, and they've mentioned before a test that they have to go to the chapter room and look at the "files."

 

[MizuNoHane]

Does anyone else's fraternities/sororities have "files" of old tests for every teacher and class? I'm not in a greek organization but I have friends who are, and they've mentioned before a test that they have to go to the chapter room and look at the "files."

Yeah. In my engineering classes all the sorority girls had prior exams stockpiled in their houses. In some ways it was a boon, because engineering is pretty rough and just about everybody got a chance to look at them before the exam, but really, the thought that they had access to all this pertinent information was kind of unsetlling.

 

[coldweatherblue]

never actually seen anyone cheat in medical school. I'm sure it's possible, but I always felt it was really stupid, I mean is it THAT hard to study? what are you lazy or stupid or something that you have to cheat? cracks me up. I have heard a lot of rumors about certain ethnic groups passing down old exams to underclassmen in their ethnic group but haven't ever actually seen it happen.

 

[Syqers]

I never saw cheating in my undergrad. If you cheated on an assignment, who cares? You'd fail the exam. Most of our exams were fairly secure, so it was very difficult to cheat.

 

[Grobbo]

My friend got caught for cheating - he gave his lab to an underclassman who copied word for word and got caught. He had to go to a disciplinary hearing and he basically went in there and told them that they weren't going to do anything because he was a Fulbright scholar. The school decided they wanted more Fulbright scholars so they just made him write an apology (1 page) and nothing else came of it. He told me he felt untouchable.

 

[deleted357625]

A classmate gave me the tests for the whole semester for my bio class.


just chillaxin.

 

[eli20]

We have pretty severe punishment for cheating and our class sizes are only about 15-30 people. The biggest courses on campus are 50-70, and we use no TAs to grade. It's pretty easy to get caught and people are generally serious about the honor code.

I've seen people forcefully withdrawn/given Grade ceilings of C in the course for doing things like copying data in a single lab even if they do the entire report/analysis on their own.

 

[radarskier]

Cheating in undergrad? If you don't think it exists you clearly have the blinders on. People cheat on homework, exams, etc. Nearly every class I've had-through upper lvl genetics, biochem, phys. classes-have cheating on midterms. However, finals (generally about 45% of our grade or more) are nearly impossible to cheat on as they are proctored in much smaller classrooms.

However, by cheating I have seen the "quickly glance at neighbors sheet", or the "tap the floor for answer from friend". I have never seen someone cheat for an entire exam-would draw too much attention from profs/TAs. From what I've seen it's mainly bright students looking to push themselves into the A range, which is often difficult to do with only 8% of the class getting A's. Oh, and many of these "cheaters" did receive 35+ MCAT scores.

Also- we do get the old exams for almost every class that are posted to our school's secure website, so that makes everything fair on that platform.

 

[Adaggiote]

Has anyone actually gotten in trouble for having past exams? It doesn't really seem like cheating so much as wanting to know what the professor's test format is, though technically I guess its "academically dishonest".

This is actually the problem. Students having test banks and selling it to other students. The school my mom goes to really has that problem....

 

[Negrodamus]

I'm fairly sure most people cheat in someway. At my school ( a CC) it's against the honor code to help someone with their homework, with it amounting to 10% the grade in many classes, most people aren't bothered by working together. Don't get me started on old exams; it seems that some instructors haven't changed their tests in over 10 years. And they have no one to blame but themselves if someone cheats. We're all human beings with some amount of self interest and you would be an idiot not to use any of the resources provided to you.

 

[Adaggiote]

I'm fairly sure most people cheat in someway. At my school ( a CC) it's against the honor code to help someone with their homework, with it amounting to 10% the grade in many classes, most people aren't bothered by working together. Don't get me started on old exams; it seems that some instructors haven't changed their tests in over 10 years. And they have no one to blame but themselves if someone cheats. We're all human beings with some amount of self interest and you would be an idiot not to use any of the resources provided to you.

You can charge students for help...underground!!

 

[eli20]

I'm fairly sure most people cheat in someway. At my school ( a CC) it's against the honor code to help someone with their homework, with it amounting to 10% the grade in many classes, most people aren't bothered by working together. Don't get me started on old exams; it seems that some instructors haven't changed their tests in over 10 years. And they have no one to blame but themselves if someone cheats. We're all human beings with some amount of self interest and you would be an idiot not to use any of the resources provided to you.

Wow... this is really lax. We have departmental rules about reusing exam questions. The only things allowed to be used multiple times are essay and short answer type questions, which are also a better way to differentiate how well people know something compared to a mc test. I don't think I've had an MC test since my freshman year, at best it might be like 20% of an exam.

 

[Negrodamus]

Wow... this is really lax. We have departmental rules about reusing exam questions. The only things allowed to be used multiple times are essay and short answer type questions, which are also a better way to differentiate how well people know something compared to a mc test. I don't think I've had an MC test since my freshman year, at best it might be like 20% of an exam.

😱 Do you go to small liberal arts college? I can't imagine a professor or TA reading through all of those.

 

[eli20]

😱 Do you go to small liberal arts college? I can't imagine a professor or TA reading through all of those.

Yeah I mentioned a bit earlier our classes are typically only 15-30 people and we don't have TAs, so only professors grade.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

People cheated all the time when its subjects like math, physics even o-chem because its easy to write down/share concepts

That's why I think cheating wouldn't be as rampant in medical school (not there yet though so obviously I have no idea) becuase of the volume of information. For instance, in our undergrad physiology class the sheer volume of information on every test made it almost impossible to cheat...I mean you could try but the time you spent trying to write down little tiny lists of everything that could possibly be on the test would be much better spent actually memorizing the stuff. The people who cheated on that probably did even worse than the people who attempted to memorize the material...

 

[TooBright]

Are you guys serious? Please, I really want to know: how do people cheat?


I have never seen anyone cheat at my University. At my University, there are usually 3 different forms of the exam(so you can't look at someone else's paper) and you have about 3 TAs walking around the classroom during the exam so it is almost impossible to cheat.

How do people cheat? Do they look at other people's tests? Do they look at their phone? How exactly does it happen?

 

[TooBright]

The three people who were obviously cheating have dropped from my current physics class. They were pretty stupid. One would play WoW and read digital manga during class. The other would stare at the floor and seemed airheaded during lab experiments. The other would chat on IMs on some site called meebo. The airhead and comic nerd were so obvious that you could hear them talking back n forth during exams and quizes. Why they bothered to register only to drop several weeks ago is beyond me. Those spots could have been given to people who actually wanted to be there.

....

What University do you go to?

 

[Negrodamus]

Are you guys serious? Please, I really want to know: how do people cheat?


I have never seen anyone cheat at my University. At my University, there are usually 3 different forms of the exam(so you can't look at someone else's paper) and you have about 3 TAs walking around the classroom during the exam so it is almost impossible to cheat.

How do people cheat? Do they look at other people's tests? Do they look at their phone? How exactly does it happen?

Most professors (that I've had) don't have multiple versions of tests and most classes don't have beholder TA's scouring the rows of seats.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

Are you guys serious? Please, I really want to know: how do people cheat?


I have never seen anyone cheat at my University. At my University, there are usually 3 different forms of the exam(so you can't look at someone else's paper) and you have about 3 TAs walking around the classroom during the exam so it is almost impossible to cheat.

How do people cheat? Do they look at other people's tests? Do they look at their phone? How exactly does it happen?

Yeah some classes have TAs but they're usually too lazy to militantly stalk the rows...they're usually screwing around on their computers at the front of the class. Quite a few big classes don't though, I've been in bio classes that have almost 100 people and no TAs because all the professor has to do is run 100 scantrons through the machine after the test.

 

[wlee43]

how are u even able to cheat ochem and bio?

 

[radarskier]

From what I've seen w/ multiple forms, students don't cheat on every question, they cheat on certain questions that they don't know. Every form has the same question in different order, so they find the same question and compare answers.

I'd say Ochem is really hard to cheat on.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

how are u even able to cheat ochem and bio?

Contrary to popular belief, ochem is all about concepts...it'd actually be pretty easy to cheat ochem if you had some central rules written down somewhere and referred to them during the test. Of course, the people who understand this and don't just blindly memorize problems aren't usually the people who are cheating sooo I don't know how applicable this really is.

Bio would be harder because its almost pure memorization but if you aren't being tested on that much stuff I could see how it would be doable. Like I said though, given a high enough volume cheating is basically useless (like the physio class).

 

[eli20]

The thing is its really not that hard to cheat on a multiple choice test... even if there are multiple versions.

I don't even understand how you do ochem on mc? For us we had lots of questions that were just pictures of a product with instructions to "synthesize this from molecules of 6 carbons or less as starting materials" Then we had to figure out the most elegant synth path by hand.

 

[calvnandhobbs68]

For us we had lots of questions that were just pictures of a product with instructions to "synthesize this from molecules of 6 carbons or less as starting materials" Then we had to figure out the most elegant synth path by hand.

True but I'm not talking about cheating off of others like most people are talking about here...I'm talking about physically referring to something during class. I've actually seen people in big enough classes hide a piece of paper under their test during the test.

 

[smarts1]

Cheating is so ramapant at my school; it's disgusting. Our labs are very formal--you miss one small thing in a question and you lose like 5 points on your lab grade, so a lot of people cheat off of each other. It's so unfair, especially to people like me who don't cheat. But what do I expect, my school is full of grade-obsessed pricks.

 

[Adaggiote]

Cheating is possible in ANY subject as long as you have the appropriate test bank.

 

[Woland]

Cheating is possible in ANY subject as long as you have the appropriate test bank.

If using test-banks, simulation questions and past exams is cheating that would you call MCAT, USMLE/COMLEX and board certification preparation cheating?

 

[ZeusonRoids]

Happened in undergrad to some extent

NEVER have seen it in medical school. I think it would be pretty hard to cheat because there are like 3 testing instructors per 40 students, and we have our tests on computers. They make sure that there are no backpacks, hats or cellphones.

It is also a MAJOR honor code violation if you are caught cheating and if I found someone cheating I would be pissed and tell them to turn themselves in (or I would do it for them). At my school tests are basically to see how well you learned the material (STRICT P or F...although you can see what you missed and your % right...although only P or F goes on the transcript).

 

[Adaggiote]

If using test-banks, simulation questions and past exams is cheating that would you call MCAT, USMLE/COMLEX and board certification preparation cheating?

Not at al. This is because regular classroom exams have a definite questions and answers, but do not for the MCAT.

 

[akaVonk]

going on asians pretty hard huh?
why do i feel like people wouldn't get away with this if it was about any other race?
😕

Hmm...I once picked up a cell biology final and found out a Korean guy's page stapled into my exam. He missed quite a few points which were deducted from MY total score. It didn't affect my final letter grade, so I didn't submit a re-grade request, but this CLEARLY has to be the MOST flagrant and unwarranted form of cheating ever. Absolutely NO chance at all that the TA's could have accidentally stapled the page into my exam by mistake. Hmph.

 

[rawman]

I've seen it happen in undergrad.

Never noticed it in medical school. However, I've had some friends in class tell me they've seen people do it. I doubt they've been caught though.