If a professor refuses to elaborate on the contents of the cheat sheet, what becomes fair game?

Question

I'm a student from Germany and currently preparing for some exams. I got an email from one of the professors that contains information about the cheat sheets you are allowed to write and use in the exams. These consist of four DIN A4 pages (so default writing paper) you can write your “Formelsammlung” (formulary, literally: “formula collection”) on. This is important, since the issue is, what does he mean by this?

Depending on the professor, this can mean anything from “Really only formulas, if you write a single word, it will be counted as an attempt to cheat” to “Do what you want with it, I couldn't care less”. Most professors go with a more liberal approach, but there are some who don’t want anything but formulas. What almost all exams have in common is that you are allowed to use one of those cheat sheets. Usually I would just ask the professor, but he explicitly stated in the mail that he refuses to elaborate on that:

Ich werde auf Nachfragen der Art „Was darf auf die Formelsammlung?“ nicht antworten. Eine Formelsammlung ist eine Formelsammlung.

(I will not answer questions in the style “What is allowed on the cheat sheet”. A formula collection is a formula collection.)

Which is the cause of my question: If the professor refuses to answer, what becomes fair game?

EDIT:

Due to numerous complaints the professor has just written another email. He clarified what he meant, which was: No examples of appliances of formulas with example numbers, and no labeled graphs. I assume no circuits either, but now I know that I can at least put somewhat descriptive labels on my formulas and put graphs without labeling.

Zahlenwertbeispiele, konkrete beschriftete Skizzen o.ä. sind NICHT erlaubt.

Answer 1

I disagree with the other answer here by Buffy; write whatever you want and as much as you want. If your professor refuses to communicate allowable scope or restrictions then there are none. He cannot reasonably hold you to restrictions that exist only in his imagination. (Also, keep his email in case there is a dispute over this.)

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Update: Additional information has been added to the question after my answer, showing the actual email lines the professor sent. In my view, his statement could be taken to imply that he is one of the professors who wants to you restrict your sheet to only formulas (i.e., no accompanying textual explanation) and so he has elaborated on what he means (contra the original question). This complicates the matter, but his refusal to clarify further still operates in your favour. Since many people already voted on the original question and answer I am posting this as an update rather than revising my original answer.

Answer 2

There is actually a book genre called Formelsammlung (typical example). Those works that I am aware of contain words and even whole sentences. You might want to keep the relative share of formulas and sentences in a range that you can justify with a printed Formelsammlung.

Answer 3

There isn't a "fair game" because it isn't a game at all. The best advice in such a case is to interpret the words strictly and conservatively. If you make more liberal assumptions and are wrong, you don't get points for trying. Is there a "ref" than can call fairs and fouls?

Perhaps, however, you can get some information from former students of this prof how they have behaved in the past.

What you need is a "safe game", not a "fair" one. And gaming an educational system isn't always winnable.

Answer 4

I will just say what I would do.

First, evaluate how much would you benefit from writing anything else but formulas. If the benefit is small I would not bother and follow Buffy's advice.

If the benefit is very big, I'd make two cheat sheets. One that is strict, and contains only formulas that I'd keep just in case and one that is useful for you. Then I would send an email to the professor, with the attached cheat sheet saying something along the lines

Dear Professor X.

Since I was not absolutely sure what you meant by "Formelsammlung" I am attaching my cheat sheet in here. If there are any problems please let me know before the test.

Thanks in advance,

monamona

Or whatever you feel comfortable with. That way the professor is at least more responsible to whether or not your cheat sheet follows the lines. (and you have already prepared a back-up if the Professor has problems with your current version).

Answer 5

Speaking from my own experience as teacher at German universities: If the professor cannot be bothered, then they believe the cheat sheet will not make a huge difference anyways. Even more so because four pages is already quite a lot. The professor is simply not into testing your memorization skills. So simply follow their instructions by the letter and you will be fine. But also be aware that investing all your time and effort only into preparing the "best possible" cheat sheet is probably not the best way to allocate your ressources. I'll try to explain to you why.

I think that cheat sheets are particularly common in math courses. Mathematicians do not value memorization pretty high. What's more important to them is the understanding of the concepts and the skills to perform computations and logical deductions. (And with regard to computations it is often considered most valuable that the correct algorithms are used; small errors in the computations typically result in only moderate score reductions.)

A typical exercise in such an exam is to perform Gaussian elimination on a small system of linear equations. A cheat sheet would not help you much if you have not thoroughly practiced the algorithm before the exams. Even if you put all steps of the algorithm onto the sheet, you will simply lose too much time when you try to reproduce it for the very first time.

Another example is computing an integral by substitution or by integration by parts. You can put these rules on the cheat sheet. (It is indeed a good idea because it is easy to get them wrong when one is nervous.) But you would hardly be able to apply these techniques without having developed an intuition on where and how exactly to apply them.

Writing a cheat sheet is a good idea nonetheless because the process of writing

1. helps with memorization;
2. is a good warmup (you can refresh your knowledge and load it into a region of your memory that can be quickly accessed by your "central processing unit");
3. gives you an overview of all the material, and it might tell you which topics might be worth more practicing.

Note that for all this to happen, it is crucial that you write you cheat sheet yourself. And it might be a good idea to do it in handwriting, not with the computer.

Also, having the cheat sheet with you during the exams is a good psycholgical trick and might help to lower your level of nervousness.

And remember: The best cheat sheet is the one onto which you don't have to look during the exams!

Answer 6

I personally would do 1 of each kind. If you are allowed to use and are told "that one is not allowed" you have the other as backup. I have had to do this for a few of my classes.

Answer 7

Wikipedia has this on the "Formelsammlung" page:

Eine Formelsammlung ist ein Nachschlagewerk, das fachgebietsbezogen meist naturwissenschaftliche oder mathematische Formeln enthält.1 Es werden in Formelsammlungen in der Regel keine näheren Erklärungen bzw. Beweise dargestellt. In Form eines Buchs oder einer Broschüre dient die Formelsammlung unter anderem als (zugelassenes) Hilfsmittel in Prüfungen oder als Lernmittel im Unterricht.

Translated by my favourite AI automated statistics-based translator this means:

A collection of formulas is a reference work that usually contains scientific or mathematical formulas related to a specific subject. As a rule, no detailed explanations or proofs are presented in collections of formulas. In the form of a book or a brochure, the formulary serves, among other things, as an (approved) aid in examinations or as a learning tool in class.

This seems pretty straight-forward to me, and matches my experience in the past. In school (Bavaria) we had a little blue Formelsammlung IIRC, and it was exactly as in the quote. Lots of formulas, no explanations. Of course there were words and sentences to structure the formulas where it made sense, or to explain something about the syntax.

I cannot remember to be allowed to use a Formelsammlung at Uni, but I would go with that. Cram your 4 pages full with formulas; use titles or little intro words as necessary, and you should be quite fine.

Check out this Formelsammlungen Sekundarstufe I - Bayern - Realschule: Mathematik - Physik - Chemie - Formelsammlung - LehrplanPLUS and use the "Blick ins Buch" feature to read some of the pages. If your prof gives you trouble for your four pages, and if worst comes to worst, you can show him a book like this. There are plenty of words, sentences, explanations etc.

And to elaborate on what you should not write:

• No proofs.
• No elaborate explanations (like a whole paragraph with free text on how to use the formulas, or with the "algorithm" how to solve problem X in general).

Here are more examples:

• Geometric formulas
• And another one
• And another one

Answer 8

First of all, exam conditions should be properly specified, as it is unfair to make the exam a guessing game as to what you can do and what not. Most examination rules, boards, etc. recognise this. I would consider organising to contact the professor centrally, e.g., via the student union to urge him to specify what he means. This does not only help you but also future generations of students. (You could also just show him this Q&A to demonstrate that things are not as clear as he thinks they are.)

However, going by your quote, I wouldn’t assume malice or laziness on the side of the professor, but rather a common misunderstanding of how language works:

he explicitly stated in the mail that he refuses to elaborate on that:

Ich werde auf Nachfragen der Art „Was darf auf die Formelsammlung?“ nicht antworten. Eine Formelsammlung ist eine Formelsammlung.

(I will not answer questions in the style “What is allowed on the cheat sheet”. A formula collection is a formula collection.)

This second sentence strongly implies that your professor thinks that “Formelsammlung” is a clear specification. His preemptive rejection of questions on this suggests your professor has given out a similar ruling before, received questions and was annoyed by this – since he thinks his statement is clear. (Note that being generally annoyed by student questions on exam details is an occupational hazard for professors. The amount and kind of questions students can ask even on clearly stipulated exam rules can be staggering.)

Of course the problem is that “Formelsammlung” (formula collection) is not sufficiently clear but can, e.g., be interpreted:

1. literally, such that it is only a collection of formulas (including explanations what the respective symbols mean);
2. following the style of a particular “Formelsammlung” your professor has in mind;
3. broadly, including everything that can be deemed worth memorising, e.g., algorithms, circuit diagrams, descriptions of devices and experiments.

Somebody who writes “Eine Formelsammlung ist eine Formelsammlung.” is almost certainly the kind of person who interprets language overly literally (and assumes everybody else should too) and thus means Interpretation 1. So if I had to put all my stakes one interpretation, this would be it. There is a slight chance of Interpretation 2, in particular if there is one very established standard formulary for your field.

This is further evidenced by the amount of pages you can use, which is very high: For every exam I ever took, I could fill the relevant information on a single sheet (without writing particularly small). Four pages suggests that your professor think a space restriction is not necessary, since he has a content restriction in place. If I allowed for four pages in an exam (without content restriction), I might as well have an open-book exam, as some student will manage to write every solution to every exercise ever made on that sheet.

Answer 9

The fact that the professor itself doesn't want to answer and spent his time explaining what he thinks belongs on the sheet doesn't mean that TA's won't give you answer when you ask them.

Especially if you already have a set of sheets prepared you can easily ask your TA whether or not it is allowed when you meet them.

Answer 10

What you describe is kind of a limited "open book exam". You're allowed to look up things, because you're expected to solve transfer problems. Let's say you can write down the value of pi to the needed number of digits, as the professor expects you to solve problems involving pi and not remembering many digits of such a constant.

Limiting it to one page has some advantages, as students need to think about what's important and write it down. This selection and noting is already a repetition. In addition, a full "open book exam" may lead to people bringing tons of books (Scripts, formularies, etc.), so it is reasonable to give a limit.

One (possibly two-sided) Din A4 page is, what should be reasonable for the things needed for a fair exam. If you need more, you probably didn't know how to select the really relevant things.

In that spirit, I would say you can write down anything. I think the refusal to answer questions in the e-mail has the purpose that students cannot ask "Will I need section 2.37 of the script on my cheat sheet?"

The problem is, when you really fear that "write a single word" is cheating, you will need clarification. Maybe you can find someone who took the exam last year and can tell you about their cheat sheet? Maybe they can even provide you their sheet and some hints what the exam was about.

Answer 11

I am working at a German university, and from my point of view, he has answered the question quite clearly. "Eine Formelsammlung ist eine Formelsammlung" is a clear statement that he only accepts formulas on the sheet. Nothing else. End of discussion.

That he does not want to answer any further questions on this topic only means that he does not want any further discussions about this.

If you don't want to get into trouble, you should follow the rules and stick to formulas.

Answer 12

Your school will have an academic integrity office whose purpose is to investigate academic misconduct (so cheating, plagiarism etc.).

If your professor won't lay out what the restrictions on the cheat-sheet are, refer the matter to the academic integrity office and they'll be more than happy to find out for you.

The last thing they want is a professor arguing a student has cheated when the student reasonably believed that what they were doing was allowed just because the prof was too lazy to answer questions.

Answer 13

Couple of things.

Firstly, referring to the materials or notes allowable in a formal examination as a "cheat sheet" seems like it reveals something about the mentality here.

Secondly, your professor may be sufficiently familiar with you to know that you're attempting to probe the outer limits of the wording and defeat the constraint, rather than align your own understanding of a "formulary" with his.

There is a school of thought which is not that you will be held to the letter of the law, and the obligation is on those laying down the law to be unambiguously precise about the form of every possible violation.

Instead, the law is laid down merely to note that there is the existence of a policy, and it's incumbent upon you to familiarise yourself with the purposes of the policy (such as, to relieve the students of the need to memorise a large number of formulas), the conventional shared practices around it (such as what others are putting on their sheets), and use your good judgment to cooperate with the policy.

You may be asked to account for yourself later, and you may be judged and penalised if someone else thinks your judgement was not normal or correct.

The exact information that ends up on the cheat sheet is probably not important. What is important is that a group of students conform to a shared norm about it.

Depending on your appetite for the risk, you can either be conservative and write down only formulas, or you can take your chances on what you write and risk being declared a cheat.

What you probably want to do, but cannot, is simply write down whatever you want but risk no consequences.

The reality is that all the time spent considering the margin of what might or might not be acceptable on the formulary, would probably have been better spent studying and memorising whatever questionable information you had wanted to include in the formulary.