Stupid Cheater Tricks

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear ShitWeasel-of-a-Student,

I suppose you think you are somehow more clever than all the other buffoons who constantly try to cheat their way through my classes? Don’t you realize that you and your ilk are one of the primary reasons that I set my grading policy the way I do? Since I can really only trust the in-class work to be truly your own, your tests will continue to account for the majority of your grade, and there is still a minimum test average requirement for you to pass the class.

And yet you still somehow think that plagiarizing code for your programming assignments, rather than writing it yourself and learning from it, will somehow help your outcome in the course. One would think that the F’s you earned on your tests last semester, attempting this course, would have clued you in.

And now this.

You aren’t exactly the first of my students to try soliticing on rentacoder.com, hoping to buy solutions to your assignments from low-priced third-world coders. But you are probably the least intelligent of them. And never mind that this was only the second assignment in the course, a very easy one – just a few exercises intended as practice mostly with review concepts that came from the pre-requisite course, which you’ve already had.

But that’s not the defining aspect of your idiocy.

Imagine my irritation at seeing yet another attempt to cheat on assignments.
Imagine my interest at finding your listings on this site.

Better yet, imagine how, when I saw your rentacoder login name and noticed its familiar pattern – imagine how I must have exclaimed, "Surely he would not be stupid enough to use his university e-mail account username (which can be looked up with “finger” on that system) as his logon name for this site??!"

Imagine the way I must have answered my own rhetorical question, when I identified who you are not 20 seconds after seeing your listing.

Speaking of imaginations, I suppose you think you covered your tracks nicely after you received that stern e-mail from the Comp Sci Department Associate Chair, asking you to come in for a talk. I’m referring, of course, to the way that those rentacoder links now show up as “private auction only” and I can no longer see the listings. Ha ha, very clever. Or maybe it would be if I didn’t have access to printers.

Four weeks in tothe spring term, and I see that you are already trying very hard to fail this class again.

See you in lecture tomorrow, dumbass.

2

Well look, I was only cheating on the easy review parts of the class because I plagarized my way through the pre-req’s as well. Seriously, what do you expect me to do? Huh, smartass, what?

3

I know it’s a joke, but you’d be surprised at how often the “what do you expect me to do?” question is genuine. As if having three other classes makes it OK to cheat in mine!

If there’s room for another idiot cheater anecdote, I had a good one last quarter. She came to the final with an essay already written out in her bluebook, and it was an answer significantly better than her midterm essay (it’s amazing how a D on mid-term can lead to such rapid improvement in writing skills). I’m guessing that she had a friend pre-fab an essay for her, hoping that she had made a good guess as to the nature of the final exam essay prompt. Her guess wasn’t even close.

The kicker is that it didn’t matter, because the term paper that she had turned in on the last class meeting was plagiarized, so she was failing the course no matter what she turned in for the final.

4

I hope the school lets you boot him out of the class with a scarlet F- tattooed on his sloping cro-magnon forehead.

5

Maybe I’m stuck in the Stone Age, but shouldn’t the student be expelled for this?

6

Although I’ve developed the use of rudimentary bronze tools, I’m also amazed that the kid hasn’t been expelled.

7

I, too, want to know why he wasn’t tossed on his rear. Though I’ve mastered little more than hitting things with blunt rocks (it’s very hard on the keyboards) and a strange, advanced tool known as a “razor”.

8

SOP for just about every bluebook test I ever took was

1 - Each student brings a bluebook to the test and hands the book to the teacher before[ the test begins

2 - Teacher shuffles bluebooks

3 - Students get a random bluebook from the pile for test taking

Since a student couldn’t control which bluebook they would use ther was no reason for a cheater to pre-load the book with answers

9

Unless they hope that EVERYONE does :slight_smile:

10

Better yet, write in a blatently wrong discussion. Chances of sticking somebody else with a wrong answer is greater than the possibility that you would get your own book back.

11

When I was in school (both high school and college), the teachers always provided the blue books, so there was no chance anyone could cheat that way.

Also, in college, if you were caught cheating, you failed the class, no second chances. If I remember correctly, plagarism was more serious than other kinds of cheating (ie, crib notes, etc), and would get you a hearing before various school bigwigs, w/ possible expulsion, depending on your prior academic performance.

12

The thing that always amazes me is how much planning and effort a cheater will put into commiting the act. If they put that same effort into actually studying the material they would most certainly be able to pass the course. If they worked just a little harder they could make A’s & B’s and maybe even the Dean’s list. It’s all about how bad you want it.

I always looked on education as something I had bought and paid for and was going to get my money’s worth. I impressed these same values on my children. You don’t understand the material, tell the teacher you don’t understand. Make them teach it to you. That is their job, that is what they want to do and that is why that are there.

Bottom line, the teacher is not trying to make you take something worthless, the teacher has something of value that belongs to you. Would you let someone take your cell phone or CD or favorite pair of jeans? I don’t think so!

13

Yes, I remember thinking a good recipe for success in exams was:

(1) Figure out a way to smuggle an A4 piece of of paper into the exam.
(2) Note down enough answers on one to probable questions that you’d be able to pass with it.
(3) Copy it out several times.
(4) Hey, now you remember it. Forget step 1 :slight_smile:

14

Argh. Cheaters. Ruin it for the rest of us. Makes me angry.

15

For every bluebook test I ever took, the professor had a stack of blank bluebooks in the room, and would wait till everyone filed in and put everything away, desk empty, before handing them out.

Bluebooks could not be bought at the book store or the campus copy center, and all had the university seal on the front.

There was no way to preload a bluebook if you didn’t have one until the professor handed you the blank one.

16

This is the self-esteem generation. We couldn’t possibly exspell this student; we might damage his self-esteem! Bailiff, whack his peepee.

Seriously, I’m teaching at the college level after 15 years of doing other things. I’m continually astounded as to the ways expectations for these kids, and in turn their expectations, have changed in 15 years. It’s as if teachers are now retailers and the kids consumers. “Hey, we paid a lot of money, and so we better get a good grade.”

It is not conducive to the free exchange of ideas.

17

How should I know how to spell expell? Sheesh! You’re the teacher, you tell me!

18

And when Hulk angry, HULK SMASH!!! AAARRGH!!! Hulk HATE stupid cheaters!! RRAAAAAAAHHH!!!

sorry. Carry on.

19

I am not a teacher, but I would opt for expel :cool:

20

This incident and the discovery of the listing on rentacoder was just yesterday afternoon. The process of dealing with these situations is not instantaneous. Yesterday when I saw the listings, I went to the associate chair of the department, who sent the student an e-mail to come see him. I got an e-mail from the Assoc. Chair this morning that the student admitted it to him.

So now it’s down to “where to go from here”, in terms of penalties, etc.

The “automatic expelling” notion, or anything near as harsh (however justified) seldom flies any more. In my opinion, it comes down to the fact that university administrations are: (1) always looking to keep their “throughput” numbers high, and (2) they are afraid of getting sued by disgruntled students (and their disgruntled parents), who think that their degree is some sort of entitlement as soon as they pay their tuition.

I’ve found out the hard way that the university is not particularly willing to enforce its own Academic Honor Code policy in any meaningful way. (This is why I set up my grading policy to favor the tests). There was one specific incident in the past that was wayyyyyyyy worse than this. I have to head to campus to teach three classes in a row right now, but I’ll come back and tell that story later, if you all are interested.