“Yes, I burgled this house, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it if the owner just locked it!”
You are entitled to your opinion to be honest. They gave me the same set of questions twice and i got lucky because i memorized most of it the first time around in the hopes that by some slim chance they would give the same exam. They KNEW that I had seen the previous exam and had enough time to memorize it. Memorizing exams is not a crime. I did not divulge the information to anyone else that would have been a crime. They gave me an unfair advantage by giving me the same exam twice.
Here is a plan…
Go into the disciplinary committee and listen to their questions. Memorize their questions. Then stand up say you are sick and walk out.
Consult an attorney, seek advice and prepare responses to the initial questions in the unlikely chance the discipline committee asks them again.
Arrange a “make up” discipline meeting. If they ask the same questions tell them they are lazy and at fault for not coming up with new questions and then provide your memorized responses.
How do you think that would go?
Thanks for all the input. I am not blaming anyone for being lazy, they gave me the same questions on the exam. I memorized the questions, i didnt bring anything into the exam or use aids or consult anyone. I’ve gone over the cheating policy with the ombuds and i’ve been told that what I did was unethical and dishonest, but i cannot be punished for cheating or plagiarism. I’m going with that and hoping for the best, if your entire degree/career/life was on the line, i’m sure you would too.
Yeah, good luck convincing the disciplinary committee of that. I suggest going with @Nocreativity1 's plan. Let us know how that goes!
Semantics.
Have you done similar practices on other exams without being caught before?
If someone wrote the keywords on paper and snuck them out so they could study for a later retake to get an “advantage” over you, would you consider that cheating? Or would you encourage your professor to let them have a higher grade than you? The only difference between having the exam notes on paper and in your head is that you’re capable of memorizing them.
Your issue is intent. You went into the exam with the intention of memorizing the content, leaving early, and retaking later so you could get a higher grade. That’s cheating. In the olden days, when exams were mimeographed, students hunted the trash cans for the copies so they’d know the questions before the exam. Does the fact that the teacher was careless cancel out their cheating? No, it doesn’t. The teacher may have made it easier for them to cheat, but the act remains the same.
You…cheated. Enjoy the consequences.
OP - You yourself said twice that what you did was dishonest and unethical. Just because this prof made it easy to cheat doesn’t make it right. (And there are all kinds of ways to cheat). You are coming off as defensive in your replies here and trying to rationalize your behavior. Don’t take that approach with the committee.
I’m not sure what approach to take with the committee then. I still dont understand how what I did equates to sneaking a phone into an exam or asking people for the answers.
C’mon. This isn’t rocket science. The common denominator in each scenario (sneaking phone into exam, asking people for answers, looking at another student’s answers) and what you did is that each confers an unfair advantage to the person engaged in the particular activity. Each is a form of cheating.
They don’t have to be exactly the same to both be wrong.
You made a plan to get information others couldn’t have, ahead of when you would actually have to take the test, and then use that unethically aquired information to do better on the test.
That’s cheating.
It doesn’t matter what other ways other people use to cheat. What matters is that what you did was to cheat.
IMO, your best approach is to apologize, say you didn’t think of it as cheating, but now you realize that it was cheating. And then take the consequences.
Your inability to understand how what you did equates to these other things is a reflection of your weak ethics/morals, not of the wrongness of you being punished for it.
OP: Your downfall will likely focus on your use of the tissue. Amounts to premeditated cheating.
You highlight that you got caught because your proctor saw your self created scratch paper with “the question numbers matched back”. In other words you learned the questions as opposed to learning the subject matter.
Your preparation consisted of “cramming” words, and associating them to songs (doesn’t sound like the tooth pain was that debilitating). The unstated reality is that you went from memorizing the questions to knowing the answers without studying the entirety of the material. That is cheating.
Trying to avoid accountability will alienate most people as you have seen on this thread. Rethink your approach.
I think the tissue thing was just a coverup to get at me for knowing the first version of the test. The proctor literally saw me doodling on it and he was the same person that gave me permission to bring it into the exam. Also there are three lines on it and the only sensible thing i wrote on it is “monopoly”, thats not going to help me answer 100 mc questions and they know that.
I’m really not here to question my ethics or morals, just to get advice on how to proceed. I appreciated all the advice i’ve gotten so far. Talked to an education lawyer and his stance is pretty similar to mine, dont agree to anything I did not do.
I didnt know the answers because I crammed the words, and I didnt know all 100 answers. All the questions i answered, i showed my work for. The scratch paper was given to me by the proctor at the beginning of the exam. I’m not trying to avoid accountability, just trying to ensure that i am judged fairly.
“his stance is pretty similar to mine, dont agree to anything I did not do”.
So you posted this to confirm that you shouldn’t agree to anything you shouldn’t do? No one has suggested that.
What we are telling you is that your actions are a violation of academic honor standards and you should and likely will be punished and that your best approach is contrition and honesty.
FYI you won’t be in a court of law and I don’t think you want to be confrontational.