Cheating is a problem that teachers have to deal with – no matter how hard teachers try, kids are gonna find a way around the rules. And I imagine that the advent of the internet has only made students more creative and harder to catch.
But don’t worry, because cheaters aren’t going to get away with it (always). Professors and teachers are getting more creative, too, and are making sure nobody gets an undeserved grade on their watch.
Image Credit: Pixabay
A Reddit user, Mwxh, shared this story about how his old engineering professor set a trap for – and caught – a good number of his students cheating on an exam.
Enjoy!
Not my revenge, but my professor against cheaters
I took the final for an engineering class this morning. Usually 1 or 2 people will go to the bathroom during class, however for totally unknown reasons, about half of the class needed to use the restroom during the exam. Obviously a vast majority of them were looking up the answers on their phones. This irritated me but I just stayed focused and barely finished since it was a hard exam. I remembered that there was one particular problem that was only barely related to the stuff we went over in class where part a was fairly easy but I had no idea how to do part b. I didn’t fret over it too much though, since that part was only 5 points out of 100.
Well our professor who is on the older side and I would have thought was somewhat ignorant of technology sent us an email just now explaining his diabolical plan to catch cheaters.
Many of the students in this class use chegg (a website that has answers to lots of homework questions if you’re not familiar). To be fair I have an account too though I only used it for studying and checking homework solutions. Anyway he explained that he was tired of people going to the bathroom and looking up answers on their phones so he made the question I mentioned earlier as a trap. He purposely made part b impossible to solve and about a month before the final, he got a TA with a chegg account to ask the exact question, which was distinctly worded to be unique. He then created his own chegg account and answered the question with a bullshit solution that seems right at first glance but is actually fundamentally flawed and very unlikely that someone would make the same assumptions and mistakes independently.
He said that out of 99 exams, 14 of them fell for the trap and that everyone who had his wrong solution on their exam was given a 0 and reported to the university for violating the academic honor pledge they signed on the front. He also sent an email to all the other professors in our department giving them the list of cheaters.
He gave full credit on part b of the question to everyone else.
Btw, I don’t know the professor personally since the class he taught is not part of my program’s curriculum, so I won’t put anyone in touch with him or anyone else who knows about the real incident and could expose his identity.
First of all, I had no idea there were websites out there now where people could ask and get answers to homework questions. I’m sure many use it responsibly, like the original poster, but man.
Second, for everyone sympathizing with the kids who are shamed…no. They cheated. They deserve what’s coming to them. Full stop.
Third, never assume that because a person is old, they don’t understand technology. Especially if that person is an engineering professor.
Some other folks shared their stories, and they’re pretty interesting…
Like this person who completely agreed…
Image Credit: Reddit
And this college professor who offers respect…
Image Credit: Reddit
And a competitive chess player? Hmmm.
Image Credit: Reddit
And check out this sly professor’s trick!
Image Credit: Reddit
But sometimes… these professors can fake themselves out too.
Image Credit: Reddit
Cheaters never prosper, my friends!
Have any stories you’d like to share? Do that in the comments!
