to set up elaborate schemes to cheat on tests (I'm not making this up, ask me about it sometime).
You are in the hot seat and you are inviting us to ask. So here I'm to ask. Share. What are these elaborate schemes to cheat on tests? Or rather, what was the most elaborate one if you don't want to share them all.
12. Hoooo boy.
Okay.
I will preface by saying, I have no idea how the university system works nowadays. BUT in the mid-late aughts when I was in university, we frequently had essay questions which needed to be handwritten in what was called a blue book. Blue books were basically small packets of 8.5"x11" lined paper, about 8 or 10 pages, meant to be used for the purpose of exams. We still used scantrons for things that could be multiple choice, but for anything that needed long-form answering like essay questions or an actual essay, we used blue books.
Now, I went to a large university. We took a bunch of our exams in lecture halls that seated 200+ with most of the seats filled. A professor and his TAs can only do so much trying to watch for cheating.
But what they did do, as a countermeasure against cheating, was collect blue books and check everyone's student ID when they turned it in. It's important to note that, because certain lecture halls were so large, it was also logistically very inconvenient and time consuming to randomize seating, so most of the time if you came in together you sat together.
SO what we did, was: imagine five people sitting in a row. ABCDE. The person in seat C almost always is someone who has taken the class before and remembers the material. They're present during the exam, but they're not actually taking the exam. They're writing in BIG LETTERS on their blue book the main talking points for the answers to the essay questions - big enough for the people in seats B and D to glance over and read them without much effort. B and D are the people who need the most help, so they sit closest to C.
A and E are hopefully somewhat more confident in the material, but in case they need help, they signal their neighbor (usually with a foot tap) and their neighbor (B or D) writes the answer they are looking for in BIG LETTERS in a spare blue book they've brought.
How did we get away with it? Most students always stay working on their exams until the end of the class period, which creates a big rush to turn in exams and get out quickly to get to your next class. So the person in seat C stays and waits. When the rush gets bad, he simply stuffs his things into his backpack and walks out with the rest of the crowd, never turning anything in. B and D, if they needed to use their dirty blue books, put them away while putting away their pens and packing up their things and only turn in their exam blue book. A and E do the same.
We had this down to an art. I could skip lectures, miss dozens of assignments, and still get a passing (albeit low) grade in the class because I'd still get good grades on exams.
but it's not a weird fear at all especially in today's age! If anyone ever tried to find ya btw all us Iwaku staff would come to the rescue >~> no one messes with one of us I'll throw hands
