<p>I firmly believe that my teacher is in the wrong here for accusing me of cheating. He's threatening me with a 0 on my essay :(! Is my teacher is justified? Here's what happened:</p>
<p>My APUSH teacher told the class that we had a DBQ on the American Revolution. I decided to practice so I pulled up all the DBQs on the College Board website and specifically looked at the ones concerning the American Revolution. I also looked at the sample responses, also posted on the CB website. </p>
<p>So in class, I get the DBQ, and it happens to be one I had looked at on the CB website! Great, right? During the 15 minute planning period, I outline the high-scoring response that I had found on the CB website. I then write the actual essay, which, admittedly, borrows heavily from the high-scoring sample response posted on the CB website. I wasn't recreating the essay word for word, but I followed the same general structure and used some of the same wording. </p>
<p>My teacher looked at my essay and says that I plagiarized the essay on the CB website :(. Is this really plagiarism? Do I deserve the 0 on this essay? It wasn't as if I was looking at a secret test bank of his or something!! And what happens on the actual AP exam when you use the same wording as your APUSH textbook? On the AP Euro exam, I remember myself borrowing some phrases from the textbook. Is that plagiarism as well?!</p>
<p>Not exactly. Did you explain to him you did some research? Tell him that’s unconstitutional if he doesn’t here you out. Because firstly, stated on the first amendment, you have the right if freedom of speech. SO, speak your mind! Explain to him the coincidence!</p>
<p>That’s totally not cheating. If college board has them publicly available, you have every right to use it as a resource to guide you. She’s punishing you for trying to practice/study for the exam in a completely sensible way. I would approach the teacher with my concerns and explain that you had no intention or idea that you would be looking at the test but were just preparing and happened to have looked at the same test.</p>
<p>If your essay “borrows heavily,” in your words, from another source, you have to cite that source. Because you didn’t cite that source, especially being in a classroom situation, I’m afraid to say I think your teacher might be right. </p>
<p>However, I think if you talk to your teacher you two might be able to work something out.</p>
<p>Edit: I think that freedom of speech has little to do with this.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the 1st Amendment point either. Thank you all for the advice. I’ll make sure to take this up with the teacher. I would hate to have a 0 for an essay grade, that would kill my GPA!</p>
<p>The teacher definitely makes a really good case. Besides a test of knowledge, the AP tests also look to see if you can quickly form concise, well-structured arguments. By borrowing “heavily” from someone else’s essay, you failed to perform this part of the essay.</p>
<p>Now, you obviously didn’t look at that essay with the knowledge that your teacher would use it. You were really just trying to prepare for the test. I think this is a valid counterargument, and one that could lead to a compromise of some sort between you and the teacher.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with the people here who suggest that IceQube would have been better off not studying for the DBQ. That’s just straight up unfair to punish someone for trying to study via resources. Honestly, if anyone of you happened upon the DBQ a teacher gave, it’s tough to pretend like you never saw the high scoring response. Actually, it requires effort to come up with ideas other than those suggested in the DBQ best response. I think the best compromise would be to not count it or give you the option to take another dbq for credit. Cuz i see why you shouldn’t get full credit if you knew the answer, but I really don’t see the justification for a 0.</p>
<p>Thank you dblazer for the support. I’ll make sure to take this issue up with my teacher after Thanksgiving. Hopefully, he’ll be in a good mood after Thanksgiving :). </p>
<p>He was pretty mad at me on Tuesday, when he told me about how I “cheated.” I was pretty shocked, and I couldn’t come up with a good defense, so I just kinda acknowledged what he said and left his classroom ASAP, ready to begin the Thanksgiving break. </p>
<p>And here’s a ray of hope: I just checked my online gradebook, and he hasn’t put in a 0 for my DBQ yet … :o. Hopefully, we can reach a compromise :).</p>
<p>Last year, my S had a similar situation in APUSH. When he went to take the final, it was a test released online that he had used to study, he told the teacher before answering any of the questions, so S was excused from taking that test, but needing to still take the final, the teacher found plan B test. Well, oops, that one too is one that S had used for studying. The teacher had him go ahead and use that test though.</p>
<p>The key was to be honest from the beginning and admit that you are familiar with the exam and its answers.</p>
<p>This happened to me on the second semester Chem final. I didn’t want to get yelled at, so I didn’t tell him and just took it and got a perfect score. He made me re-take the audit of the same year exam.</p>
<p>What you did isn’t cheating at all, no more than if you happened to look at a specific text book page which covered the DBQ prompt. It’s his fault for using a publicly available prompt.</p>
<p>Thank you crazymomster and Saugus for the advice and support. The good thing is, I never denied that I had seen the prompt before. So I didn’t lie, and that was probably a good start :). </p>
<p>Saugus, you aced a Chem final and your teacher made you take another exam? That doesn’t sound like a lot of evidence to me. It also speaks about the teacher’s teaching ability … if he’s taught you for 2 semesters and can’t expect you to ace a Chem final without cheating … ;). </p>
<p>Technically, using the same ideas is plagiarism, even if they are not copied word for word. For example, if an English teacher assigns an essay about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Scarlet Letter, you might note that there are many, many resources online with the information you need. However, hopefully you’ll see that using your excuse is not applicable in such a situation. If you are honest about it though, I’m pretty sure your teacher won’t give you a 0.</p>
<p>I feel for you, IceQube.I always research things like that beforehand but fortunately have never had the exact same prompt as online. However, I would definitely find it hard not to use the ideas of a great essay I read, I’d probably just include them subconsciously.
At the same time, I think you should have to redo it because it technically was plagiarism if you didn’t cite it and used the ideas. I think it wasn’t really your fault though because you were simply trying to prepare for an essay.</p>
<p>Also, it is not totally wise to “borrow heavily” from the released essays online because those essays are given scores based on the opinions of separate readers, so your U.S teacher may not have the same opinions of those readers.</p>
<p>As for what happens, I think you deserve a retake. You were definitely within your right of researching old APUSH prompts online and reading the scoring guidelines and sample essays for those prompts, but you were in the wrong for “borrowing heavily” from one of those essays. I think you at least deserve a retake, but probably not a 0.</p>
<p>This is a very unfair situation. Perhaps you should have told your teacher before you took the test. I don’t think you should be penalized for researching to prepare for a DBQ.</p>
<p>As others have said, it is extremely difficult to not subconsciously include ideas from something you have already been exposed to. You should tell your teacher that you’re very sorry(though I don’t really know what… you should be sorry for), and ask for a retake.</p>
<p>Well, then, maybe my teacher is enjoying his Thanksgiving break instead of entering grades :p. But thank you all for the support. I know this is a gray area, and next time, I should probably just tell my teacher I saw the prompt before when studying :).</p>
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