I had a similar reaction. I was surprised that this school's policy forbids looking at old exams. I checked my alma mater's policies and they do not. Students o

I had a similar reaction. I was surprised that this school's policy forbids looking at old exams. I checked my alma mater's policies and they do not. Students openly sought out copies of old exams from upperclassmen or from repositories kept by a few cliques/clubs. Some professors themselves provided a collection of old tests so everyone had easy & equal access. I guess an important difference is going for engineering, it was trivial for professors to change numbers & details from year to year so old tests could aid study but not provide answers.