11. Real or fake
When I was in high school, I volunteered in a daycare/pre-school with 2-4 year olds. The kids had “tests” like colouring the fruit the right colour, drawing the right number of circles/triangles…easy, cute stuff. This was in Singapore, and toddlers got tests too.
During one of them, I saw this kid got up, did this adorable fake yawn and stretched out to look over her classmate’s “tests”. It was so cute, I let her get away with it. Now I have this suspicion it was adorably poorly executed on purpose and she’s actually the smartest cheat I’ve ever encountered…
12. OCD
There was a girl who was really smart and very meticulous and organized. There was a multiple choice test so she sat in the front row with four pens of different colours, if the answer was A she’d take the red pen and colour in the answer, if it was B, she’d use a blue pen… Everyone else would just follow her colour code . I know there are several flaws with the system, but agreeing on a letter-colour code is a smart move.
13. Let’s just say…
Let’s just say some one I know did this…
They took a piece of paper and wrote the notes they needed on one side – the paper was about 1.5″ by 3.5″. Then they coated the paper with Elmer’s glue. The stuff dries transparently and stiffens up the paper but does not make it too stiff. Then they punched a hole at one end of the paper and looped a rubber band through it. They used a second rubber band on their forearm, about half way up and attached the paper’s rubber band to it. So basically, they had the cheat sheet with the rubber band hanging from another rubber band on their left arm.
On test day they wore a long sleeve shirt. So here is how it worked. During the test they would use their right hand to reach slightly up the sleeve and pull out the cheat sheet now under tension from the rubber bands. They used the fingers of their left hand to hold the cheat sheet out of the sleeve – the back edge of the sheet was still under the sleeve. If the teacher came by, they simply straightened out the fingers on their left hand, and the rubber bands pulled the sheet back into their sleeve, hidden from the teacher.
Or so I heard.
14. You care too much
Most definitely the best, but not the most clever: A private music student of mine (who is in high school) texted me out of the blue at like 2PM on a week day asking me about major and minor chords. I took out my school folder, checked that school’s schedule, and noticed that his group was in a theory class. Also, it was end-of-term-exam-madness. BUSTED.
15. Sounds…complicated
Used this one on my senior year physics final in high school. Made a fake 16oz soda bottle label for a bottle of Coke. Replaced all the lettering on the label in the ingredients and nutrition information sections with the harder to remember formulas.
Nobody noticed.
16. Wrist Watch
So my friend got one of these little iPods that were completely square. He bought a wrist watch attachment for it, so he could wrap a strap around his arm and attach the iPod to it.
He would type out all the answers, and then he would upload it to his iPod. During the test, he would look at his watch thing and it would have all the answers on it, leading him to a perfect score. The iPod looked like a watch so no one knew he was cheating. Turns out he got caught and received a 0. I think he was suspended too. How he got caught? He was looking at the watch too much.
17. Drop it like it’s hot
I caught four on one test. Because of laziness, I wasn’t changing the test between semesters so students got scantrons from previous semesters, carefully marked the right answers on their new scantrons and then “took” the test.
I only found out because other students told me what was happening. So I changed the test that morning. They all got zeroes on that exam. I called them in and told them to drop or I’d turn them in for cheating. I was bluffing, I didn’t have any proof except for the word of the other student. I said, “You know what you did, and I know what you did. Drop or I’ll give you an F for the course.” They all dropped.
18. Gross
I work for a University in Australia and occasionally have to interview students who are caught cheating. The student that comes to mind whenever I talk about cheating wasn’t particularly clever, more gross.
This student was caught because she asked to go to the toilet several times in one two hour exam, now this happens occasionally for valid reasons but it always raises suspicion. Procedure in the case of toilet breaks is to have a supervisor escort the student to the toilet and wait outside. After the fifth toilet break the escorting supervisor decided to search the toilet after the student returned to the exam and found the entire semester’s notes in the sanitary disposal unit. The student failed and was excluded from the University.
19. No
I substituted for a differential equations exam. This student hadn’t written anything for the first 45 minutes of the exam. He was just sitting there with a panicked look on his face staring at the three questions posed on the sheet of paper. I get up to walk around the room and while I’m near the back he opens his backpack, shuffles around the contents, and doesn’t take anything out. I sit back down at the desk at the front and he’s spending his time furiously scribbling and staring into his open backpack. He looks at me and I’m staring right at him and I just shake my head no.
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