concerned with academic integrity?

Colleges & Universities A-Z Washington University in St. Louis
1

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>I'm will be an incoming freshman in the fall and right now, I have a concern that seems to be unusual: academic integrity. I have friends who already go to washu and a few of them mentioned that for the big general classes (ie chem and bio) since the class is so big and your name's hardly known, it's really easy to get away with cheating. For example, I've heard that for chem and bio, people get their tests back like the day after, and they're allowed to submit a regrade. My friends never said they cheated, but after mentioning to me how it works, this thought came to my head: how can they ensure no one will change their answers when submitting a regrade?</p>

<p>I was thinking they photocopy the exams before returning them but with that many people and only a day or so, it seems unlikely.</p>

<p>But I've heard a lot of good things about the student body, so I guess most, if not all, students at washu are willing to maintain academic integrity?</p>

2

<p>I haven’t had any issues with academic integrity in chem or bio. When the tests are graded, the graders mark up any substantial section that is left blank. Therefore, if there is writing in those sections after a regrade, they know that it has been altered. Students by no means use regrades as a way to cheat; it’s simply to resolve the issues that arise when students disagree with graders.</p>

<p>Of course, that’s not to say no one has worked the system. However, I have never run across anyone doing that and I don’t think academic integrity is a major issue at all on the WashU campus.</p>

3

<p>

The chem department states that they do, in fact, scan each exam.
They’re beast at churning out grades.</p>

<p>Also, it takes around a week to get the tests back. Not a day.<br>
And bio is worse- usually 2 weeks (at least when I took it).</p>

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<p>Some exams are taken by more than 500 students and can contain 20 pages. 500x20=10,000 pages that the graders would absolutely not photocopy.
Edit: Are you serious, Johnson?? Okay, maybe they scan them to a computer file.</p>

<p>Fact of the matter is, yes, you could probably change your answers but it would require a lot of effort in order to make it look believable. You could do the same thing in high school and ask your teacher why he/she took off points on a question that has a correct answer. The only problem is that the teacher might remember what answer was put there since he/she is the one who actually graded the test. But in a high school with enough students per class, it’s still possible.</p>

<p>I’ve found that the biggest opportunity to get back points from regrades is arguing that you were penalized twice for the same mistake, e.g. getting a wrong answer for part A, then using that answer in a calculation for part B and getting points deducted for both questions. That’s obviously not very fair and you’ll get points back.</p>

<p>As I mentioned above, it would take a lot of thought/effort to make your regrade submission look honest. What is/are the professor/TAs going to think when they see they marked several correct answers as incorrect? It doesn’t take being a brain surgeon to spot erase marks on the paper and realize something’s fishy. In general, most of the time you won’t have to submit your exam for a regrade because there’s nothing wrong with the grading. But whenever you do find something that you want to be regraded, it’s usually pretty insignificant–you might get one point back, or two if you’re lucky. What I’m getting at is that if you were going to change your answers and submit for a regrade, two things would happen: (1) they find out you’ve cheated and there consequences, the least serious of which would be a zero on the exam and (2) you manage to get one or two points back which would have almost no effect on your grade for the semester. Exams are usually made up of a LOT of points. So if you get back one point per exam, here’s how you’d benefit in some classes:</p>

<p>Gen chem: 3 exams (100 pts each), 1 final (200 pts, I think): 4/500 points gained
Chem lab: 2 exams (200 pts each): 2/400 points gained
Bio 2960: 3 exams (100 pts each), 1 final (100 pts, I think): 4/400 points gained</p>

<p>Those are all approximations because I’m not actually taking any of those classes, but that’s the information my BME roommate gave me and he thinks they’re about right.</p>

<p>So, according to my estimates, cheating in this way would benefit you by no more than about a single percentage point on your exam grade. That would be less than a percentage point on your semester grade, since that’s not only made up of your exams but also quizzes and labs. If you think it’s worth the risk of cheating to boost your grade by that insignificant amount, you’re way too cutthroat for this university. Wash U’s chill student body would benefit without you.</p>

<p>Sorry for the GIANT wall of text, but that’s my honest opinion/reasoning.</p>

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<p>Not saying they actually do copy, but it’s what they claim.
For what its worth, a high tech scanner can easy scan 1000 pages. Not that much time to multipy that by 10 (but most chem exams are < 10 pages).</p>

<p>

Actually, I missed the grade I wanted in chem 112 by literally 1 point.
Never more frustrated with myself, since I could have turned in a regrade for 2 of the tests but decided it wasn’t worth it.
/off-topic trail.</p>

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<p>I actually had an 89.92 in a calculus class and would have missed an A- by eight-hundredths of one percent, but my last quiz was for some reason not posted on Telesis and once it was, it bumped me up over 90.</p>

<p>Let me correct what I said earlier by noting that you can’t submit finals for regrade since you’re already gone for vacation once finals for either semester are graded.</p>

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<p>@Johnson- really? I’ve heard that the exams are graded overnight and handed back a day or so later; same with bio, and chem lab supposedly gets handed back the day after.</p>

<p>Regardless, I feel that washu’s student body are honest and wouldn’t cheat at all, which makes me feel good because I knew a lot of people who cheated in my school high school; think the teachers eventually got tired and let the consequences catch up to them instead.</p>

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<p>As far as I know, the only tests that you get back the next day are the chem lab tests. The gen chem tests appear to be graded the next day, as the professors tend to make references to the score distributions in lecture, but you won’t get them back for 3 or so days. Bio is about the same.</p>

<p>Also, I have never heard of anyone using a regrade to cheat. The risk/reward ratio is just too low, as mentioned before.</p>

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<p>I know for a fact that they photocopy a percentage of all exams. So if you do decide to cheat, you have to: 1. Make your cheating believable/not have left the part blank. 2. Get past the fact that a large percentage of exams have been scanned, and your exam could be one of them. </p>

<p>Cheating does occur, but not really in Chem/Bio. I’ve seen rampant cheating in CSE 131, where during a quiz, a lot of people (particularly this one bunch of Asian individuals) whisper to each other during the quiz. It annoyed me, so I pointed it out to the professor, but he did not really do anything. </p>

<p>The only academic integrity issues I’ve seen in chem/bio are: 1. At the end of an exam, when they call for you to come turn in your test, I’ve seen people try to stay and get an extra 5-7 minutes, and in the shuffle, the TA’s don’t notice it. Two Orgo tests ago, I saw a girl doing this, and got ****ed (I ran out of time. We’re on a competitive curve. Why does she get more time?) so I verbally called her out on it.
2. Depending on your ethics, old exam distribution is pretty rampant. My personal view is that this isn’t so unethical in Bio/Chem simply because they always write fresh/new exams. </p>

<p>The thing to realize on their fast turnaround is the amount of people they have. Whenever there is a Gen Chem test, the department essentially shares the load. The chem TAs, Chem Lab TAs, and the Orgo Tas (sometimes) get together along with the professors to grade. All told, you have an army of ~15-20 people available to grade. Whilst they grade, the Chem department has a secretary (who sadly has cancer) who does the photocopying. They stay up 'till ~2 or 3 am grading. You also have to realize that Gen Chem/Orgo is essentially trivial to the TAs. The material is basic. Heck, I’m not a Chem major, but with a little refreshing, I"d consider the material pretty basic. As such, it can be graded fairly quickly. It also helps that a good portion of student’s will leave portions blank.</p>

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<p>This brought back memory! I was a chem TA years ago. I remembered grading exams on the night of the exams. Nothing was scanned/copied, but it was long, long time ago. We got pizza for the night. There may have been extra pay if you were not a TA for the particular course…
I used to tutor too. There were quite some students that just did not understand almost anything, even with extra tutoring. This may have changed now with the current increased ranking.</p>

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<p>I think NINJAINVENTOR’s right; I’ve noticed that some exams, they take apart the pages and sometimes they don’t. It’d be much easier to scan the pages that are separate, so maybe only some exams are scanned. </p>

<p>I personally don’t think they scan for chem cause I had clerical errors on 2 of my exams this year and the secretary changed it quickly just by skimming over it. Maybe they did it at some point but got tired of it. Regardless, I think it’s safe to say the school trusts us to be honest and we’re honoring that trust well. </p>

<p>@wustlmama, what did you mean by increased ranking? And how long ago were you a TA?</p>

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<p>I know for a fact most intro classes scan exams (it’s generally the department staff that do and not TA’s). While they may not check minor regrade requests, if you’re caught you’ll fail… doesn’t seem worth the risk.</p>

<p>Edit: Okay most people previously said what I said, but whatever!</p>