organic chem lab cheating

[reesescup]

There are so many students that copy lab reports from previous students who have taken the class in organic lab at my school. Obviously there are a lot of prospective medical student applicants in this pile. The professors try to have some sort of anti-cheating protocols but they don't seem to work. I was wondering if this is a common occurrence to have so much plagarism or is this just an isolated incident?

I'm not trying to complain, just curious to see others' school environments.

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[Irish Football]

My school had its fair share of cheating from what I heard. I never saw anything personally, but supposedly it existed enough where I heard about it a lot. Lab report copying is the classic cheating method, as I heard about this more than anything else.

 

[ShenanigansMD]

A lot of bros use cramster; I'm not sure if that's cheating necessarily.

 

[lobo.solo]

Yeah, It really bothers me because our lab instructor doesn't really care. I ask people around to see if they understand the concepts behind and some of them are lost; however they make good marks in the lab reports.

 

[JustMeditate]

Cheating happens. I've never really let it bother me. Let them have their A+ lab reports. When it comes to the midterm and final exam, they'll tank. And, having worked as a TA, there is little more suspicious than a student with high HW and paper grades, who can't regurgitate the simplest concepts on an exam. These guys get caught; trust me. Maybe not all, but quite a few do. And you'd never know, because privacy policies require us to keep it on the down low.

 

[kpcrew]

I've heard from my friends that TAed those classes that it's pretty obvious but in the end, labs are worth very little. But lab reports are a huge time sink that aren't very helpful unless you're interested in academia and even then it's not so great. I normally deplore cheating but lab reports really are a waste of time.

 

[mimelim]

It is quite common. I saw a lot more 'fudging' of numbers than outright copying in undergrad. As an institution, they should be always working to eliminate the cheating regardless of how stupid a class is. As a student, you have to try to keep your head down. If it is blatant, sending an anonymous note isn't out of line. If a TA is aware and is actively ignoring it, then I'd let the professor know. But at the end of the day, this isn't your battle. You can't lose sleep over it or spend your time trying to address it. It just isn't worth it.

 

[coyotelime]

We used Lab/Web Assign or something (forgot exact name) that looks at % similarity in a database that involves lab reports from the past 5 years I believe? Prevented cheating big time.

Orgo lab reports are a huge pain in the rear, but just another hoop to jump through. I would talk to your lab supervisor about it(TA probably can't do much)

 

[Praefectus]

It is quite common. I saw a lot more 'fudging' of numbers than outright copying in undergrad. As an institution, they should be always working to eliminate the cheating regardless of how stupid a class is. As a student, you have to try to keep your head down. If it is blatant, sending an anonymous note isn't out of line. If a TA is aware and is actively ignoring it, then I'd let the professor know. But at the end of the day, this isn't your battle. You can't lose sleep over it or spend your time trying to address it. It just isn't worth it.

Especially when your error is way off.

 

[Planes2Doc]

Did you have to do the lab reports at home? At my institution, we were required to write out our lab reports by hand in class. We also were prevented from fudging numbers since we had to save our products, so they could be weighed. I actually liked this since it prepared us for the lab exam, and didn't force us to do any work outside of class aside from studying for the exams.

 

[Doudline]

Did you have to do the lab reports at home? At my institution, we were required to write out our lab reports by hand in class. We also were prevented from fudging numbers since we had to save our products, so they could be weighed. I actually liked this since it prepared us for the lab exam, and didn't force us to do any work outside of class aside from studying for the exams.

Jeez, those lab reports must have been short and easy as hell!
In my General Chemistry 1 class, it takes about 10 hours of work to get 100% on a lab report. A lab report that's worth 1%. Like. zzz.

 

[Planes2Doc]

Jeez, those lab reports must have been short and easy as hell!
In my General Chemistry 1 class, it takes about 10 hours of work to get 100% on a lab report. A lab report that's worth 1%. Like. zzz.

Yeah for organic everything was in class. I'm trying to remember to gen chem, and I believe we had to do lab quizzes on Blackboard. But in terms of actual write-ups, I don't think we had them. Yikes! I'm pretty happy that things were much easier at my school.

 

[Arbor Vitae]

There are so many students that copy lab reports from previous students who have taken the class in organic lab at my school. Obviously there are a lot of prospective medical student applicants in this pile. The professors try to have some sort of anti-cheating protocols but they don't seem to work. I was wondering if this is a common occurrence to have so much plagarism or is this just an isolated incident?

I'm not trying to complain, just curious to see others' school environments.

The secret to O-chem lab is to start at the end and work backward. Basically, start with the weight of your product and do the calculations backward.

 

[typicalindian]

Stupid Orgo lab. We had to hand write our lab reports and it would take me like 5 - 6 hours straight to write a good one. >_<

 

[An MD Hopeful]

What I hate about O chem lab at my school is that the students who cheat on the lab reports (by copying previous students' reports) end up having more time to study and do practice problems for the exam, and so they also get better exam scores.

Once during my TA's office hours, this girl even mentioned that she had a previous student's lab reports, and he didn't even say or do anything about it. So annoying and pathetic.

 

[1289]

happened all the time at my school. tempted to blame the prof for keeping the lab report questions EXACTLY the same year to year,

 

[Geebeejay]

Does your school not use TurnItIn? I'm not too familiar with the site, but from what I understand the program compares the papers too all other papers ever previously turned in on the program. Sure this won't eliminate cheating, but will at least make it more work and easier to get caught. That being said, there's always gonna be cheating (dare I say, even in medical school?)....life's tough bro

 

[Planes2Doc]

But is it really cheating to have access to old write-ups? It should be up to the professors to either change the questions year to year, or to use services like TurnItIn in order to make sure students aren't plagiarizing. Plagiarizing is definitely cheating, but I don't see how using old write-ups is.

At my school, we have a pretty extensive test bank where you can get access to old exams. It's not official or anything, just set up by some former students who want to help others. Some departments are notorious for recycling old exam questions, while some aren't. As for the ones that recycle them, I got lucky on one of my last exams since there were two recycled questions that I would have definitely missed had I not seen them on the past exam. I didn't have the old exams with me when I was taking the exam, so it can't really be considered cheating. The same would be the case with students using old lab reports. As long as they change them around enough, it's not cheating.

Life isn't fair, unfortunately. I learned this the hard way many times during my post-bacc. Some students will have access to better materials than others, whether it's old exams, quizzes, homework assignments, reports, etc... It's just the way life is, and we will need to deal with it, especially as future physicians.

 

[mmmcdowe]

What I hate about O chem lab at my school is that the students who cheat on the lab reports (by copying previous students' reports) end up having more time to study and do practice problems for the exam, and so they also get better exam scores.

Once during my TA's office hours, this girl even mentioned that she had a previous student's lab reports, and he didn't even say or do anything about it. So annoying and pathetic.

I sympathize, but at the same time I feel like if the time you are in ochem lab is the difference between studying sufficiently for ochem or not, then maybeyou should cut back on some other aspect of your life/re evaluate your study plan. It's a huge frustration to see people cheat, but most of them are probably not using the saved time to study, nor have I ever lacked the time to study except from lack of discipline.

 

[Planes2Doc]

I sympathize, but at the same time I feel like if the time you are in ochem lab is the difference between studying sufficiently for ochem or not, then maybeyou should cut back on some other aspect of your life/re evaluate your study plan. It's a huge frustration to see people cheat, but most of them are probably not using the saved time to study, nor have I ever lacked the time to study except from lack of discipline.

But there are also some students who definitely lack social lives or anything outside of schoolwork, yet still struggle to make ends meet in terms of their grades. So in this case, you are correct that some people who cheat will not use that time to effectively study for the exams. But, there will be those students who either struggle to keep up with school work in general despite putting forth maximum effort, as well as the opposite of what you said, people who would have no problem juggling everything but get way more time to study for exams since they have old lab reports.

Different students will have different advantages and disadvantages. I've noticed this happening too when people argue the use of "Study Pills" like Adderall or Ritalin is cheating. I've heard many say that it's not a big deal since the people who abuse them are those who procrastinate and will end up screwing up anyhow. This is the case with some students, no doubt. But then again, in my class, I know of students who are currently at the top, have impeccable study-habits, and take things like Adderall (which they do not need) in order to supplement their already strong study habits to make them absolute machines.

Unfortunately this is the way it is.

 

[anon3]

... nor have I ever lacked the time to study except from lack of discipline.

I agree. Think of it as building character like I did. I thought they were largely a waste of time but I did them anyways. Maybe they helped as far as getting me to write stuff instead of assuming I already know how to do it. Wrote most of the report before and during the labs. I don't think people to write who 'cheat' (and I don't even think its cheating) are going to get some great advantage, they probably use the time to watch tv or something like I would have if I just copied the solutions from the previous semester (my professors recycled them too.)

As a side note, don't go overboard trying to be 'ethical.' Every premed should pick up solutions from the cattle-call 'weeder' classes they'll know they'll be taking the next semester. They'll be open to everyone on the class website or outside a TA room. You don't want to be one of the idiots that gets ambushed by exams that aren't similar to chapter questions when the other premeds were ready.

 

[sworzeh]

I misplaced all my ochem lab data and some kind soul let me have a copy of theirs (including the IR). I suppose this is cheating, but I really looked everywhere and I couldn't find it.

<3 noncompetitive schools. No gunners here.

 

[Liftamulti]

Jeez, those lab reports must have been short and easy as hell!
In my General Chemistry 1 class, it takes about 10 hours of work to get 100% on a lab report. A lab report that's worth 1%. Like. zzz.

It takes about an hour to write my gen chemistry I lab reports, and I've gotten an A every time.

 

[HughMyron]

It takes about an hour to write my gen chemistry I lab reports, and I've gotten an A every time.

U aware brah?

 

[Liftamulti]

U aware brah?

Mmmhm, same account name.

 

[Doudline]

It takes about an hour to write my gen chemistry I lab reports, and I've gotten an A every time.

Yeah, except I have to hand craft by myself half a dozen data tables with all unimaginable information (also name these tables, give thorough references for all information they contain, etc), give theoretical examples of all calculations + the actual calculations (in a very precise and formatted manner), make graphs with the datas, and obviously detail the principles of the experiment, the goals, the awaited outcomes and make an original Intro + Discussion + Conclusion. Oh, and a pre-lab report, of course.

Plus the evaluation is based on about 200 different and dramatically useless criteria, like the margins on your pages, the size of your text and whatnot. Considering I'm a complete dumb ass as to what concerns technology, I almost cry myself to sleep every night after a lab report.

Also, I'm not American, so no GPA or letter grades: 90% is not the same thing as 100% here. 90% is 90%. 90% is bad.

 

[Liftamulti]

Yeah, except I have to hand craft by myself half a dozen data tables with all unimaginable information (also name these tables, give thorough references for all information they contain, etc), give theoretical examples of all calculations + the actual calculations (in a very precise and formatted manner), make graphs with the datas, and obviously detail the principles of the experiment, the goals, the awaited outcomes and make an original Intro + Discussion + Conclusion. Oh, and a pre-lab report, of course.

Plus the evaluation is based on about 200 different and dramatically useless criteria, like the margins on your pages, the size of your text and whatnot. Considering I'm a complete dumb ass as to what concerns technology, I almost cry myself to sleep every night after a lab report.

Also, I'm not American, so no GPA or letter grades: 90% is not the same thing as 100% here. 90% is 90%. 90% is bad.

Oh that sucks. I input some information in a template basically.

 

[Catman21]

It takes about an hour to write my gen chemistry I lab reports, and I've gotten an A every time.

Definitely not the case at my school, Chemistry lab reports got progressively easier, from gen chem through ochem at least. Gen chem 1 lab reports took 10 hours to do with msds procedure, calculations conclusion and discussions... but ochem 1 and 2 labs were cake, thank god for lax TAs

 

[angemon89]

Wow, I feel so lucky.
My ochem labs looked something like this:


Name:_______
Instructions: mix this and that

What's the limiting reagent? ______
Theoretical yield? ______
Your yield? ______
Percent yield?_______

Question 1: blah blah azeotrope?
Question 2: blah blah blah nmr?

Me: "Hey TA, do we have to do the questions?"
TA: "Nah, you guys should focus on studying for the test, these questions don't really help you"


I would literally be done with my lab report before the lab.

 

[PreMedOrDead]

Definitely not the case at my school, Chemistry lab reports got progressively easier, from gen chem through ochem at least. Gen chem 1 lab reports took 10 hours to do with msds procedure, calculations conclusion and discussions... but ochem 1 and 2 labs were cake, thank god for lax TAs

Quantitative chemistry lab.

*cringe*