As long as teachers have been giving tests, students have been cheating. And as technology evolves, so do the cheaters’ methods.
Tag: cheating
Tired People More Likely to Lie, Johns Hopkins Studies Say
Here’s yet another reason we all should be getting a solid 8 hours of sleep a night: Not only does sleepiness negatively impact performance, but it also makes people more likely to lie, cheat, and act unethically, according to new research out of Johns Hopkins.
Cheaters Are Creative at Maryland Casinos
Not long ago, we told you about all the sophisticated security systems in place to catch cheaters in Maryland’s new casinos. But that hasn’t stopped some enterprising folks from sneaking fake $100 chips into the Maryland Live casino.
Casino officials were quick to point out that the fraudulent chips were used at roulette, blackjack, and mini-baccarat tables, not in the poker room. Why does it matter? Well, the poker room is the casino’s pride and joy. According to the Washington Post, it’s regularly the second-busiest poker room in the entire country. And it’s about to break into the big time even more thanks to a $1 million tournament that started this week, and which will be featured on a new TV show called “Poker Night in America.” Which means they really, really don’t want anything to go wrong.
Don’t Try to Cheat at the Maryland Live Casino
If you’ve entertained the thought at trying a little high-stakes cheating at the Maryland Live Casino in Arundel Mills, here’s my advice: Don’t.
According to this weekend’s Washington Post story, the surveillance team at the casino is on par with its neighbors over at the NSA. The security team is 200-officers strong, and there are 1,200 cameras scattered throughout the casino.
Why Do College Students Cheat? (And How Can We Stop Them?)
Honor code or no honor code, high school students cheat. Even colleges and universities cheat on their SAT score reports. So who out there is shocked to hear that cheating is widespread among college and college-bound students? (Cue the crickets.) But according to a new book, contemporary cheating is markedly different from the kind of academic dishonesty that came before — and that is cause for worry.
How Do You Fight Cheating in the Smart Phone Era?
The New York Times just reported that 71 (!!) students at Stuyvesant, one of New York City’s top high schools, were caught cheating on the state’s Regents exams last month. The cheating took various forms — some exchanged texts with exam information; another took a photo of the test with a smart phone. We all know that cheating is a perpetual fact of academic life (see our report on the cheating problem in Baltimore schools here). But what’s different here is how new technology is enabling students to outsmart teachers and administrators, and to cheat on a much wider scale.
The Aftermath of the SAT Cheating Scandal
Remember those SAT scammers from Long Island? Although they didn’t end up getting away with their scheme, they can at least rest happy that their actions resulted in lasting change. Their legacy: Starting in September, test-takers will have to provide a photo when applying to take the test. Then, when they actually show up at the testing site, test officials will make sure that that photo matches both the photo ID provided and the student standing in front of them.
This is a clear reaction to the New York scandal, in which Sam Eshaghoff, then a student at Emory University, used fake IDs in order to take the test on behalf of several students, including one girl. As the case developed, four other students were arrested for being paid to take the tests; each got paid between $500 and $3,500 per test.
Eshaghoff and his cronies accepted plea deals to avoid prison time. In a lovely instance of the punishment fitting the crime, Eshaghoff must spend his community service hours tutoring low-income students on SAT test-taking strategies.
More Schools Skew Rankings with False Data
Okay, this is starting to look like an epidemic. Two more schools have been caught reporting incorrect data to the U.S. News & World Report, after California’s Claremont McKenna got in trouble for similar fraudulence earlier this year.
Monday Links
City Schools Continue to Heighten Testing Security – The Baltimore Sun
Ray Lewis’s Hunt Valley Project Stalled – The Baltimore Sun
High School Students Converge on UM for National Brain Bee – The Baltimore Sun
Maryland Senate Democrats Favor Across the Board Hikes in Personal Income Tax – The Washington Post
Ethics Reforms to Take Center Stage in Maryland – The Washington Post
One Path to the Ivy League: Just Fake ADHD
It really shouldn’t be surprising by now. Schools fudge their average SAT scores and kids trade Adderall before big exams, so clearly the next natural step is students faking medical diagnoses to get into Ivy League schools.
So, at least, reports the Daily Beast, which spoke with a current student at an elite college, who got diagnosed with ADHD, petitioned to take both his SATs and school exams untimed, got great scores… and, now that he’s at the prestigious college of his choice, doesn’t take ADHD meds. Nor does he ever consider himself to have the disorder — if he ever did.
And while precise numbers are hard to come by, of course, the College Board reports that the number of students taking its tests in “nonstandard conditions” is up. There’s plenty of information online about how to fake your way into an ADHD diagnosis.
All this fakery puts kids with real ADHD — and those trying to get by with honest test scores — at a disadvantage. So far, this seems to be primarily a New York City private school phenomenon… as far as we can tell. Have you seen any signs of ADHD faking in Baltimore?
