Hi guys, I am using a throwaway account to protect my identity.
I am a high-achieving student who goes to an extremely competitive public high school. This past week, we had semester exams in our classes. I had a chem exam that I felt fairly confident about, however asked a friend of mine who had already taken it how difficult the exam went (did not ask for specific content). She told me that it was not that hard, however she told me she had gotten tripped up on a question that assessed a concept that I remembered my teacher explaining in class and was on a homework problem.
In first period the next day, our class had already taken the exam for the period so our teacher let us study for other exams. I decided to study with some other people who also had the chem exam that day in that class, and for some reason I decided to go over the concept that I was reminded of the night before. Another friend that had taken the exam accused me of cheating and “having an unfair advantage” since in his class a lot of people apparently got the question wrong and is therefore something I should have gotten wrong as a result. He kept following me around for the rest of the day calling me a cheater for this, at times almost in front of other teachers. This is something I find hypocritical about him since in his APUSH class him and half of his class got ahold of the test bank his teacher uses online and memorize questions from it before every test, something that is blatantly cheating.
I, however, do not think of what I did to be cheating since I had already understood the concept in the first place. I did not even actively intend to glean answers from my other friend either; I just asked about the mere relative difficulty of the exam, something that pretty much normal in my high school which everybody I hang out with does as a frequent point of conversation.
Would you guys consider what I did to be academic dishonestly? I am just extremely concerned that my hypocritical friend (well idk now) may spread the word of my “unfair advantage” to the point where it will reach the teachers and cause me to get punished for something which most of the other people I know do, and mess up my academic record for the future. My teachers all like me, and I do not want this to change.
Thanks.