Cheating?

<p>Every week, there are online orgo quizzes which you can take whenever you want, as long as it's by midnight on sunday. My roommate and her boyfriend have worked out a system where one of them takes the quiz, and then tells the other all the questions. They alternate who goes first. I'm not in the class, but it makes me kind of uncomfortable to have that going on while I'm around. I mean, I'm not going to tell someone who matters about it, but I really think that if someone gives you something like a take-home quiz/exam on your honor, you should respect that and not cheat on it. Should I say something to them (maybe they'll at least cheat while I'm not there or something) or is it not a big deal?</p>

<p>id ask to be involved in the cheating. only if i knew no one else would find out.</p>

<p>I think it's a big deal. </p>

<p>Then again, I go to a school where professors frequently give closed book timed take home exams. We have an honor code, and we follow it. </p>

<p>I believe that grades should be viewed as secondary to learning. To that end, I try to avoid worrying about grades too much, even though high school conditioned me to care a great deal about grades. </p>

<p>I am in no way willing to betray my school, my classmates and my honor code over a letter on a piece of paper. I am lucky enough to go to school with 300 classmates who feel likewise.</p>

<p>I completely agree about the grade thing, and that's what my school's curricular/grading policy is supposed to embody. It's things like this that make me envy Haverford...</p>

<p>At my high school many students have copies of instructors solutions manuals. I suspect the same is true at many colleges.</p>

<p>I guess thats no surprise to me, pretty much everyone I know cheats on online quizzes or does them in groups and such. </p>

<p>Nothing much you can do about it, just hope that one of these days they'll have a test and won't be able to do half of it due to their collaborating.</p>

<p>It depends... many teachers give tests with the full knowledge that thier students will "cheat." I had a teacher who used to give timed take-homes, yet quite indirectly tell us to meet up and work on them together. There are some teachers that do believe in the honor system, but I'm sure that they aren't ignorant to the fact that there is quite a portion of competitive students that aren't very honest when it comes to an A.</p>

<p>I have a teacher right now who, three days before a test, gives us 60 multiple choice questions and an essay topic-- we need to know all of the MC and the essay, and the test is between 30 and 50 of those MC (they're 'scrambled' on the test) with the essay. I have never learned so much in such a short period of time as I have in that class because for every topic, I'm looking up and memorizing the essential concepts and learning what I need to know without weeding through junk. So perhaps some teachers do that for this reason.</p>

<p>I guess it depends on the school, but I agree with beck86nj... the honor code is huge at my school. Take home exams and timed exams / assignments are often given out to do on your free time. I think you should at least talk to them about it, and if they give you attitude, find a faculty member or student honor council member to talk to.</p>

<p>Bill... [good] professors do not take questions from a book for their exams, they write the questions themselves, and therefore there is no solutions manual.</p>

<p>existentialpony... wouldn't it be better to learn the information for 3 MC questions a day for the 20 days before the test, rather than 20 a day for 3 days before? That sounds like a horrible way to teach because you don't have to pay attention at all for a month, and then just go and look up the answers and cram them into your head for 3 days, after which you promptly forget them. I can count on my hand the number of times i've taken a multiple choice test in the last ~4 years.</p>

<p>that's how the world operates. people take advantage of each other.</p>

<p>do what you feel like doing, dont feel pressured.</p>

<p>soccerguy315... I suppose for many other cases, that might be true, but quite honestly I don't think it's true for the class I'm referring to at all. He still teaches and rarely gives homework, so we learn most everything in class either way. He's the kind of guy that really keeps you interested, too... it's hard to explain his teaching style, but it's worked wonders for my class so far. :)</p>

<p>
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There are some teachers that do believe in the honor system, but I'm sure that they aren't ignorant to the fact that there is quite a portion of competitive students that aren't very honest when it comes to an A.

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<p>Not at all schools.</p>

<p>If you're going to put a quiz online where all the questions/answers are same then you're just opening yourself up to cheating. I don't even know why you're so taken off guard about it, that's pretty naive.</p>

<p>You got do what you need to do to get ahead in life. You guys talking about honor systems and what not, but you have an opportunity to get a good grade and use the textbook hell yes I would take that opportunity. You guys act like this is the perfect world, but guys it's not. So if you have a fail-safe opportunity to cheat take it. If you download a song your stealing and cheating for your pleasure. So why not to the same for your education. I know I sound pretty sleazy, but it's the truth</p>

<p>
[quote]
You got do what you need to do to get ahead in life. You guys talking about honor systems and what not, but you have an opportunity to get a good grade and use the textbook hell yes I would take that opportunity. You guys act like this is the perfect world, but guys it's not. So if you have a fail-safe opportunity to cheat take it. If you download a song your stealing and cheating for your pleasure. So why not to the same for your education. I know I sound pretty sleazy, but it's the truth

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</p>

<p>quoted for the truth!!</p>

<p>I recommend the straight to HBO movie "Cheaters" with Jeff Daniels and Jena Malone</p>

<p>I dislike the idea of students cheating on online quizzes, but I know that even here things like that do happen. We have online Spanish quizzes that are open-book and timed but certainly not "open-roommate!"</p>

<p>As far as "cramming" goes, this can help people learn in certain cases. I TA for a professor here and we have talked about helping students with projects because they did not listen well in class. This professor feels that this is not cheating (although helping them on a test certainly would be!), because what he calls "stress learning" is oftentimes quite effective. I have certainly found this when I've been forced to actually utilize skills I should have learned before but failed to fully acquire.</p>

<p>
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So why not to the same for your education.

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<p>Because I wouldn't be able to look my professors or my fellow students in the eye.</p>

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I would say something to them. If they're going to cheat, they can do it when you're not around. If they get caught, you want to be able to truthfully say you didn't know if they were cheating or not. I personally think it's very stupid of them. Cheating doesn't take you very far in organic chemistry, and I doubt the quizzes count that much.</p>

<p>you call it cheating, i call it teamwork. You say its unethical, i say its being resourceful. Does it say that you can't consult a friend with the quizzes? usually professors aren't THAT ignorant and will expect a good amount of the students to help each other out. They will make these quizzes worth a very small percentage of the grade (usually 5 - 10 percent MAX). Why risk losing free points when you don't have to?</p>

<p>^^^But why compromise your integrity when so little is on the line? It's like cheating on your girlfriend with an ugly hooker or something. It just doesn't seem worth it.</p>