I was called to my OChem professor office with an offense of cheating on the quiz with my neighbor/friend. He showed me the similarity between my quiz and her quiz in which the answers to 2 of the questions that I got wrong were almost the same as the neighbor quiz. It was really frustrating for me to explain to my professor of how I came up with the answers that I did and how I didn’t cheat. However, it seemed that he already decided on his part that there was no way that cheating was not involved in this issue. He told me to write him a letter of explanation to reflect on what was my involvement in this cheating. BUT I DIDN’T CHEAT. We talked in his office hours but I could not get him to accept the answer that I absolutely had no idea about it. I’m just lost at this point.
Please give my some advice regarding this issue.
So what did happen? Did your neighbor sit next to you during the quiz?
Yes, she sat next to me and we got the same questions wrong with similar answers that no one else in the class got. She is actually a friend of mine who I believe did not cheat also. Of course, the professor is not going to believe that by a mere coincidence, our wrong answers were the same.
Your neighbor may have cheated, they see hundreds of tests every quarter and possibly thousands in their career. Depending on how abstract the answers were in comparison with other answers, it seems like that’s what influenced your professors decision. I’m sure the professor wouldn’t want a false positive, that’s more work for them.
Yes, I agree with ^. Your prof saw something unusually similar with your answers. Although correct answers can be similar, wrong answers can be pretty unique. In my experience with grading tests, a cheater would sometimes copy a meaningless answer word for word without realizing how ridiculous it was. Incorrect punctuation also would be reproduced as is. I’m not sure I ever caught cheaters with the right answers nearly as often as I did catching them with the wrong answers.
The professor concluded that I colluded with her to help her copied the answers from me because he thought we are very close friends even though we are not. He reduced my 3 out of 5 quiz grades to 0 and I am subjected to have a letter of explanation in my academic file. I am currently requesting an appeal. Any advice is appreciated!
He reduced unrelated quiz scores to zero? Or did they show similarities, too?
Apparently, my friend did copied my answers for 3 of the quizzes. She has been subjected to academic dishonesty and I have been cleared by talking to the professor. He said that he thought that I was involved because I said that my friend was not the type to cheat.
On a lighter note, the moral of the story is to not trust your friends too much. Thank you all for the help.
Glad you were cleared of any wrong doing.