3 ms·

This article is mostly a paraphrase of this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProRevenge/comments/e8f0z1/not_my_revenge_but_my_professor_against_cheaters/

by yorwba 6y ago

This article is mostly a paraphrase of this Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProRevenge/comments/e8f0z1/not_my_revenge_but_my_professor_against_cheaters/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProRevenge/comments/e8f0z1/not_my_r... Which has this edit at the bottom: > Edit 2: Hi guys I'm writing this 5 months after the initial post. I'm glad this post is getting attention again and I'm once again receiving messages from people wanting to get in touch with the professor or students from the class, so now that this post has run its initial course, I'll burst everyone's bubble by admitting that I mostly made this story up. It's based on a real incident that happened in my department a couple years ago, but I wasn't in the class personally, I only heard about it third-hand from someone I didn't know that well. So while the general plot and end result of the story is true, I changed some details to keep the professor and school anonymous, and took creative liberty in writing it from a first person viewpoint. Unfortunately the part about my department letting students go to the bathroom during exams with their phones was true, and is still true to this day, and to my knowledge the incident this is based on is the only time that a professor actually took a stand against this shitty policy. > So yeah I don't know the professor personally since the class he taught is not part of my program's curriculum, so I won't put anyone in touch with him or anyone else who knows about the real incident and could expose his identity. > Before anyone reports this for being fake, I will once again stress that while I changed the details, the actual events played out in a similar way and the real professor did in fact get his revenge on the cheaters.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
That read exactly like an 'apocryphal' story (make up for effect). I was suspicious from the first sentence. I wish more HNers could read articles for 'fake news' tells. Especially ironic as the article purportedly was about fake news.
Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> Unfortunately the part about my department letting students go to the bathroom during exams with their phones was true, and is still true to this day ...what else can you do? You could confiscate phones before a test, but a student who was determined to cheat could have two phones. Do you not allow students to use the bathroom? Do you give them a pat-down before and after they leave the room? Both are plausible strategies I suppose, but strike me as highly invasive.
- teorema 6y ago
  You let them go to the bathroom but in such a way they're not together, and not allow students to return to items after the responses are submitted. You also don't allow them to leave until they have submitted a response to all presented items up to that point. Present items one at a time, require a response to one before presenting the next, and don't allow returns to previously presented and responded-to items. If you wanted to be really thorough you'd timestamp everything and maybe offer different versions of the test to different students.
- shalmanese 6y ago
  A school mandated field trip might involve a bus ride 2 or 3 hours long and it's understood that there probably won't be bathroom breaks along the way. They might make a special exception for one of two students occasionally but, by and large, the expectation is students should make the appropriate arrangements ahead of time and this is not an onerous provision. If this burden can be borne routinely for bus trips, why not expect the same from an exam setting?

by yorwba 6y ago

JoeAltmaier 6y ago

That read exactly like an 'apocryphal' story (make up for effect). I was suspicious from the first sentence. I wish more HNers could read articles for 'fake news' tells. Especially ironic as the article purportedly was about fake news.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> Unfortunately the part about my department letting students go to the bathroom during exams with their phones was true, and is still true to this day ...what else can you do? You could confiscate phones before a test, but a student who was determined to cheat could have two phones. Do you not allow students to use the bathroom? Do you give them a pat-down before and after they leave the room? Both are plausible strategies I suppose, but strike me as highly invasive.

teorema 6y ago
You let them go to the bathroom but in such a way they're not together, and not allow students to return to items after the responses are submitted. You also don't allow them to leave until they have submitted a response to all presented items up to that point. Present items one at a time, require a response to one before presenting the next, and don't allow returns to previously presented and responded-to items. If you wanted to be really thorough you'd timestamp everything and maybe offer different versions of the test to different students.
shalmanese 6y ago
A school mandated field trip might involve a bus ride 2 or 3 hours long and it's understood that there probably won't be bathroom breaks along the way. They might make a special exception for one of two students occasionally but, by and large, the expectation is students should make the appropriate arrangements ahead of time and this is not an onerous provision. If this burden can be borne routinely for bus trips, why not expect the same from an exam setting?