Indian Student Removes His Thumb Skin to Fool Exam Security
Plus, St. Cloud University releases video. Plus, a former paid essay writer has an idea on how to stop fake essays.
Issue 147
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The Cheat Sheet Notes
I will get to the ruling this week by a federal judge in Ohio on the ability to review test environments during proctoring of remote exams. It’s pretty clear to me that, as usual, the press has most of what happened, and what it means, backwards. Or, at a minimum, way overstated.
But that’s going to take me a little time. Until I can get into it thoroughly, this LinkedIn post is a pretty good overview on what is really happening, what really happened.
Unrelated, I also have another Special Edition of The Cheat Sheet on the runway. Not sure when it will be ready, but it’s in development - maybe a week away. If you missed the first SE, it’s here.
And I also have a special update on Course Hero that I think will blow your mind. It blew mine. Depending on how that comes together, that may need to be a Special Edition too.
I will do my best to keep you updated on all of that. Until then, thank you for reading and sharing The Cheat Sheet.
Examinee Removes Thumb Skin, Gives it to Friend in Impersonation Attempt
You may remember that, back in March, media reported on a cheating attempt by a student in India who’d had a Bluetooth listening device surgically implanted in his ear (see Issue 97).
Well, this may top it.
According to local news reporting in India, a test-taker preparing for a railroad civil service exam thought it would be a good idea to remove his own thumb skin and stick it to his friend’s hand in an attempt to fool the biometric scanners at the exam center. Details are in the story, if you dare.
Clearly, because the cheating duo were caught, it did not work. They were arrested. But that also means that the cheating prevention tactics - the fingerprint scan - did work. It thwarted a cheating attempt by some highly motivated criminals.
I think I can say criminals because cheating on exams is illegal in India. And I think it’s pretty clear they were trying to steal a job, or at least a good test score that would lead to a job.
St. Cloud State Academic Integrity Video
St. Cloud State University (Minnesota) unveiled this clever video on academic integrity recently:
I find it charming and informative. My favorite bits come about 30 seconds in, including:
Dude, all the answers are right here on Chegg
Dude, they so are.
Former Contract Cheating Writer: Use Admissions Essays as Benchmarks
Times Higher Ed continues their outstanding coverage of academic integrity by, this time, opening their pages up to Dave Tomar, a former paid essay writer, a reformed contract cheating provider.
Tomar’s essay suggestion: use college application essays to benchmark future writing, as a way to spot plagiarized or contracted academic work. It’s an interesting idea. Though, as Tomar describes, many people fake their college admissions essays in the first place. He admits to writing a few himself.
I also know this happens because, like him, I’ve been solicited many times to write essays for admissions or other honors. Years ago I remember being solicited to write, of all things, a personal essay for a student who wanted to be admitted to the EdD program at Vanderbilt University. She sent me her resume and some personal bits that she wanted me to include. I forwarded the request and documents to the Dean.
It’s a problem. But using admissions essays as benchmarks, Tomar says, will actually dissuade people from submitting fake admissions essays in the first place because they won’t want to pay for essays for every college assignment they do.
Personally, I don’t think people who are inclined to cheat think that far ahead. Based on what I’ve read, the goal is the prize - the acceptance, the A. They do not or cannot process that not having actually done the work will only set them up to fail more spectacularly later.
Moreover, I’d argue that a more pressing challenge is that admissions teams do not themselves have baselines of writing to compare. My gut tells me they are hoodwinked by paid essay writers, “tutors” and college admissions coaches very, very often. Not only are they not positioned to judge writing well, as we saw in the “Varsity Blues” debacle, admissions offices don’t fact check either.
But that’s a different problem.
Still, Tomar is right that doing more comparisons of more writing samples across applications and disciplines will improve the ability to spot outliers. But again, the problem is that who has time for that? No professor on Earth is going to go compare and contrast written work from a student’s application or from their other classes - assuming they could access them in the first place.
All that aside, on balance, Tomar is right that it’s far too easy to fool people - any one person in particular - with fake or contracted writing. And it happens way too often. What we can really do about that, what we’re willing to do, is the bigger question.