<p>@heather: I don’t know, really. People do what they want, and morals can only do so much. Your morals are based on what you believe and what you want, and mine can’t make yours change or conform to anything. I’m Catholic, but someone else might be Protestant, but even so, my being Catholic doesn’t affect their being Protestant. It doesn’t matter to me, either, because their being Protestant has nothing to do with my being Catholic. </p>
<p>I just think it’s fun to talk about stuff like this when I’m a French major. ;)</p>
<p>I’m a cheating addict. I’ve literally cheated on hundreds of assignments so far, starting from seventh grade. My methods are somewhat sophisticated (don’t wanna mention them) I’ve cheated on everything from weekly quizzes to the final exam. And believe me, I never got caught. I cheat independently and don’t need anyone to assist me. And I haven’t told anyone about it, I guess that’s the secret to not getting caught. I know this may sound strange to you but cheating on my scale actually requires apparatus. I’ve invested $150 over the years on my “tools” which allow me to cheat. Anyway, I know I haven’t mentioned any details, this is because I don’t want others to be able to replicate what I do (I am secretive about cheating). But I can talk about it on CC since no one knows me :). And no, I’m not ashamed of myself.
And by the way, I have an A+ in five classes and an A in the remaining two.</p>
<p>I also cheat in ECs. My school, and even my parents believe my EC achievements, some of them which are modified/improved/faked. Doing this is HARD. So I can hardly do it and when I do, it’s only minor.</p>
<p>When I lived in Korea and taught English school there for a summer, I witnessed the most grandiose cheating scheme ever.</p>
<p>Usually, since classrooms are all structured in an orderly fashion, with 6 perfectly lined columns of desks, the smartest kid would sit in the front seat and place an eraser or other writing utensil on different corners of the desk to signal A, B, C, D, etc.</p>
<p>However, one time… Since there was only one super smart kid in the class, he decided to cook up a crazy strategy. He took his test in record time and excused himself to go to the bathroom. Without me knowing, he’d written down all the answers on a separate sheet of paper, and began reading it off… into a small handheld radio.
In every classmates ear were small earpieces they’d bought, and tuned to the same frequency. It was genius. They were smart and purposefully got some wrong to dispel my suspicions… but that kid… hahaha.</p>
<p>No joke, that was the coolest way I’ve ever seen cheating done hahaha.</p>
<p>As someone who’s never cheated before, this thread is making me kind of upset.</p>
<p>But I agree, that scheme was really well-coordinated and interesting. I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t just take the same amount of time to study and get a decent score…? Plotting those things sound really time-consuming.</p>
<p>There are only about 40 students in my school’s sophomore IB program. We have pretty much all of our classes together, and we’re a pretty close group. So it’s definitely expected to have seen a LOT of cheating going on. I mean, if you have a first period and a fifth period class with someone, it’s fairly easy to take their homework in first period and give it back to them in fifth period in time for sixth period math class. I’ll share some of the more interesting cheating episodes I’ve witnessed:</p>
<p>So there was this one guy that was a notorious cheater. I mean, he was really, really stupid about it. During tests it was pretty obvious that he was looking at everybody else’s papers, resulting in the teachers constantly having to scramble our seating arrangements during tests. He would also ask to go to the bathroom during EVERY SINGLE test. If that’s not obvious, then I don’t know what is. One time, our geometry teacher was going over the homework, and he was literally copying one kid’s homework right in front of her face. I mean, he sat in the very front of the class, and yet he had two pieces of paper in front of his face. He was also known to steal people’s homework if they wouldn’t let him see it, and then go to the bathroom and copy it. He would even flirt with girls in order to get their homework. His habits literally drove everyone up the wall.</p>
<p>Anyways, I don’t really care much about cheating as long as it’s only on homework. As cliche as it sounds, cheating really only cheats you. I lived the cheating lifestyle freshman year, and I can honestly say that I’m doing sooo much better on tests as an honest sophomore.</p>
<p>In college, a kid down the hall would bring in his entire family to help him with homework and tests. His older brothers had the same degree so it was quite the party as hey helped younger brother with papers and homework. It was actually a cultural thing where the good of the family took precedent over the good of rules of the university, and they did not consider it cheating?</p>
<p>For my history class in junior year, we were somehow supposed to memorize the years the first like 30 states became…states.
This guy who sat at my table had this paper where he had written out all the answers for studying purposes and he let me use it while taking the test. It was just this tiny slip of paper and I had a huge binder in front of me so the teacher couldn’t see and it was so easy to get away with it. I got an A and I don’t think my teacher was suspicious at all 'cause I was a pretty good student.</p>
<p>I don’t want any moral speeches or ethical consideration rebuke. I want to know how the SAT or ACT prevents cheating in the following example I’m about to give. X knows he won’t do well on the test so x gets his money-hungry friend Y to agree to take the test for x. X signs up online with all of his own information and picture. Then when his admission card comes, he gives it to Y, along with a fake ID he bought for Y which just has Y’s picture but all of X’s information (age,name,adress,etc). Now, y brings the admission ticket and his ID and takes it for X and no one will be able to stop them.
And if you might argue that the admission ticket includes the picture of x then why can’t one scam the admission ticket and just change the picture to Y’s face. Also, y can bring the admission ticket in black and white so your photoshopping skills don’t even have to be so perfect. Besides, what’ll happen if x just sends a picture of y all along…he should still have the high score to his name (x) which is his goal.
If anyone can find any problem with this practically work, I’d be pleased to be enlightened.</p>
<p>The following is from a NYT article titled “SAT and ACT to Tighten Rules After Cheating Scandal.” It was published in March 2012.</p>
<p>"In another important change, test-takers will be required to identify their high school, which will now receive their scores. Previously, it was up to students to decide whether their scores were sent to their high schools. That made it difficult for schools to detect suspicious scores, especially if impersonators, as in the Nassau County cases, took the test far from home where no one recognized that they were not the student on the ID.</p>
<p>Now, the schools will receive a photo of the student who took the test — and the score. ‘We will get Johnny Jones’s SAT scores with a picture,’ said Henry L. Grishman, superintendent of schools in Jericho, on Long Island. ‘That will add security to the process.’"</p>
<p>Schools (such as my own) have both yearbooks from previous years and these photo books with every single student’s name and picture in it (I think the photo company gives it to them for free) on file in the office. It is easy for high schools to look up and compare the photo book picture and the admission ticket picture, in which case they would report the cheating that you described.</p>