I guess professors will have to look more carefully at pens and water bottles during tests!

What I find interesting (from what I read in the article) is that students don't even realize that what they're doing is considered cheating.... I guess we really need to outline the DOs and DON'Ts of ethical test-taking. Of course, I think that's more true of papers and homework...if someone takes the time to smuggle in notes to a test, then they are aware they are cheating.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128624207

Oh bull crap. They're feigning ignorance to justify or get away with cheating. Like you said, if someone takes the time to smuggle in notes to a test, then they are aware they are cheating.

Yes. If you do something and take deliberate action to cover it up so it won't look like you did it and you won't get caught, you know what you were doing is wrong. That goes for a lot of things.

There is less guilt today about this issue than years ago. Cheating is SO accessable now with texting, etc. To many who are not properly monitored by parents and teachers find cheating to be a norm. This generation is so much into working less and getting more, that this unfortunately not going to stop.

Things must be different in America...

Over here, even 11 years ago when I was doing my GSCEs (at 16), exams rules at school proscribed that mobile phones must be switched off and left at the back of the exam room with the rest of the candidate's belongings. Not just turned off, not just away and out of reach, but both. Anyone found with a mobile phone about their person once the exam starts is ejected, their paper taken from them and reported (and usually disqualified from the exam). These days all these regulations are in place, plus regulations prohibiting the use of other electronic media. There is a strict list, for example, of calculators than can be used in mathematics exams. Invigilators walk the exam rooms constantly, and in open or semi-open book exams, any notes that are taken in are checked to ensure they comply with the rules. In theory, cheating is more accessable. In practise, it most certainly isn't.



Again, over here most teachers can spot a cheat a mile away. If two candidates have copied each other in a piece of coursework, for example, the teacher or lecturer will know, and know pretty much straight away, and BOTH candidates will be disqualified.



I must say this is a very unfair comment. In any population, be it the general population or a student body, there will be those who will try to do the bare minimum to get by and will cheat if they can get away with it. However, the vast majority work extremely hard at their studies and take great pride in the grades they get at the end.

For myself, personally, I will not cheat in my exams. Even if I could, I would not. I have worked very hard in the first two years of my degree and my grades have shown it. I will not cheapen those efforts, and the efforts of my friends, by cheating.

When I took my waste water license tests with the state, they were very serious about keeping people honest.

No cell phones allowed on the desks or in sight at all.
No programmable calculators.
No PDAs.
No books.
They provide scratch paper for math work.
No talking.
No hanging around the exam room after you complete your test.
No walking around the room during the test.

If an exam giver thinks you're up to something, they can call you on it. If they're wrong, so sorry. If they're right, you get kicked out of the exam and it's a while before you can take it again. You're also out the fee for the test and have to pay again when you take it next.

They also have 3 versions of each level of test. Even if two people sitting next to each other are taking the a test for the same license, they may have different versions of the test. You can't just look next to you and copy.