Is this considered cheating?

[Psycho Doctor]

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My friend found it on Ebay. It was labeled "student edition," but I don't think it actually is a student edition because when she got it, we noticed the inside flap has a message for professors. Honestly, I don't know if it's cheating or not, but I can't really go to the professor at this point because we already have the book. I thought about telling her we should just send it back to avoid temptation, but on the other hand, it's so tempting to read these questions to know what's expected of us. There are thousands of questions. It isn't like we can memorize them, but they'll help tremendously with what types of problems we have to know, etc.

is this an organic chem lab book? my gf got that from half.com. when it arrived and she saw it was the teacher's edition she checked and saw it clearly said it was a studenbt's edition when she ordered it. but it has lab explanations; not test questions and she still has to do the labs and explain her results.

 

[8744]

The "teacher's editions" of textbooks are given to professors as freebies, a kind of "payola" to encourage them to select the textbook for their class. This itself is highly unethical as many professors sell these books (on ebay now apparently) and keep the money.

There is nothing magical about those books.

 

[jonathon]

LOL. This is not cheating at all. There is nothing wrong with going online and searching for additional material to study from. Having a test bank from an older version that is made public online IS NOT CHEATING. If the older version of the test bank was protected with a username and password and you need to be a teacher to make an account, then it would be cheating. But since there is no password or username needed, all it comes down to is searching Google for any random material. Heck, I have Googled for material before and found exact questions to homework problems before but its not cheating. You still have to know how to do the work for the exam.

So don't stress it.

 

[smuwillobrien]

I have a professor who uses a test bank for test questions. My friend and I found the test bank from the previous edition of the book online. We're using the 10th edition in class and this test bank is from the 9th edition. We want to use it as a study aid, but I would bet some, if not most, of the questions are the same. What's the verdict? Is it cheating?

I don't see anything wrong with that. It isn't as if you're being deceitful.

 

[jbrice1639]

I have a professor who uses a test bank for test questions. My friend and I found the test bank from the previous edition of the book online. We're using the 10th edition in class and this test bank is from the 9th edition. We want to use it as a study aid, but I would bet some, if not most, of the questions are the same. What's the verdict? Is it cheating?

without bothering to read all the other responses, i will just say that generally, if you have to ask if something is cheating, you probably already think/know that it is. but, the point here is to learn the material and get a good grade. if you actually learn the material and not just the answers to the specific questions, go for it.

if it makes you feel uncomfortable, then just learn the material without the question bank and you'll do fine on the tests anyways.

 

[R-35]

I have a professor who uses a test bank for test questions. My friend and I found the test bank from the previous edition of the book online. We're using the 10th edition in class and this test bank is from the 9th edition. We want to use it as a study aid, but I would bet some, if not most, of the questions are the same. What's the verdict? Is it cheating?

Just use it and try not to make it to public by going around telling everyone in the class, because its going to make it too obvious. If the proffesor is lazy and uses those questions thats great for you 🙂 But, do study and only use those questions as practice/prep for the test.

 

[lk2230]

I would start by stating that, based on a fair assessment of the information that you have provided, this would NOT constitue cheating and is NOT something you should have any ethical qualms about.

It would be helpful if you could fill in the blanks a bit more about exactly what the book is. If the book is genuinely a teacher's edition and you knowingly use it to exploit the teacher, it might be considered teaching. But: you don't know that it's a teacher's edition, you don't know what, if any questions will actually come from it, and the fact is it is a readily available, public resource (apparently) that your professor has no right to expect you not to exploit.

However, one thing: As long as you don't tell your professor, how could you ever in a million years get caught? Some schools are very strict about cheating, but as long as you don't actually bring anything into the test and you limit your usage simply to intensive review of the book prior to the test, you'd have to be an imbecile to get caught. No school, no matter how thorough, is going to send stormtroopers into your apartment to search for a possibly illicit book. No school is going to search your credit record for online purchases.

Bottom line: Don't discuss it with the teacher, and don't be an idiot, and you have no fear whatsoever of being caught. Furthermore, as I stated, it seems you have no reason to tell your professor as you are doing nothing wrong.

 

[Izabelle]

So it's the professor's fault for not taking more stringent measures to prevent the cheating? I don't buy it. I have a simple rule to determine whether something is cheating: ask yourself if the professor would consider it cheating (or better yet, ask the professor). In the case of what the OP was asking about, of course it's cheating. I doubt the prof would be cool with you having the answers to all his tests beforehand. Coming up with some half-assed justification like saying that other people could also do it is just weak.

The professor should know that students have access to all sorts of information and should use a variety of sources for his questions. We all use different resources for studying and he should have a variety of question types and emphasis. My professor takes some questions from our text book and it certainly isn't cheating if I read my text. Besides, the information is basically the same across all resources. If you learn it from one book, you're learning the same thing that you would have from another. The OP got lucky and found the book his professor prefers. The professor should be wiser....technology allows us access to all sorts of information. Deal with it. What should matter to the professor is if the student is learning the material. Studying from the same book as the prof, the student is still learning the material. That's not called cheating...it's called learning.

And how many of you would "ask the professor?" Seriously? I'm curious.

 

[Psycho Doctor]

The "teacher's editions" of textbooks are given to professors as freebies, a kind of "payola" to encourage them to select the textbook for their class. This itself is highly unethical as many professors sell these books (on ebay now apparently) and keep the money.

There is nothing magical about those books.

you're right; i spoke to my gf today and she told me the same thing. The book is EXACTLY the same as the students' edition; just the title and yes it's generally free but sold on ebay for a profit.

 

[DownonthePharm]

I think access to question banks is a grey area in "cheating". You would still need to learn the answers to hundreds of questions on the chance a few would make it onto the exam, so really you are still learning. In a way memorizing random questions seems harder than just learning the material.