Timeline for Is having access to past exams cheating and, if yes, could it be proven just by a good grade?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 3, 2023 at 9:02 | comment | added | Stephan Kolassa | @laolux: or alternatively, do reuse questions, and communicate that fact beforehand. Knowing that one or two questions will be reused may be the very best incentive for people to actually work through previous exams - which may be helpful in familiarizing them with the entire structure of your exams. | |
| Mar 15, 2019 at 18:56 | comment | added | ChuckCottrill | Professors who recycle old exams are Lazy. And yet... | |
| Mar 15, 2019 at 18:49 | comment | added | ChuckCottrill | Universities have published Honor Codes. Read and know yours. Treatment of old exams should be stated, e.g. faculty have the responsibility to "Avoid the re-use of exams". | |
| Mar 14, 2019 at 15:35 | comment | added | user541686 | I don't see what enforceability has to do with this... that seems to stem from an "it's only illegal if you get caught" attitude. Also it's arguable whether seeking questions that might pop up again is what one would call "studying well" rather than perhaps "studying strategically". That said though, studying past exams is pretty normal and expected behavior, so I agree that if the professor hasn't at least explicitly ruled it out, it's not cheating. | |
| Mar 13, 2019 at 11:02 | comment | added | user87850 | @Hannebambel Our mathematics professors used to reuse questions from the advanced non-mandatory exercise papers that they changed up each year. I don't think they minded because it rewarded the people who did more than the bare minimum study ;-) | |
| Mar 13, 2019 at 10:49 | comment | added | Magisch | My old Uni had a strict policy of secrecy regarding exams and even made you sign a waiver that you wouldn't reproduce any of the questions and would not allow you to re-view the exam after grading. We still had every single exam from the past 5 years to prepare because people would assign each other 2 questions each to memorize and then piece together the full exam anyways. It's a fool's errand to try and prevent. And if your questions can be beat by sheer memorization and no learning effect is achieved in doing so, revise your questions. | |
| Mar 13, 2019 at 9:59 | comment | added | Dan | Back at my University, finals are never publicized. Not because they don't want to, it's just that they don't have a system for it. But if somehow you get hold of some old exam questions, it is absolutely fine to use them as study materials. You can always go and ask other people who took the course what questions/subjects were in the exams they had previous years. | |
| Mar 13, 2019 at 9:28 | comment | added | Nox | @Hannebambel I concur. I always could remember the questions of my exams for up to a week (sometimes more) after the exam in a way that I could write them down, not verbatim but close. I can't see an honest institution trying to forbid this way of "leaking" exam questions. | |
| Mar 13, 2019 at 8:31 | comment | added | Angew is no longer proud of SO | @Hannebambel Or, as an old joke about Economics goes, they can keep last year's questions if they change the answers. | |
| Mar 13, 2019 at 2:22 | comment | added | laolux | I would like to point out that while in some places exams are kept secret it still happens that students sit down after taking the exam and write down the question from their memory in order to hand on the exam nonetheless. Professors should be aware of that practice and not reuse questions. | |
| Mar 13, 2019 at 0:13 | vote | accept | Luke B | ||
| Mar 12, 2019 at 19:51 | history | answered | Buffy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |