They did not, in fact, pass the exam on their own merit; they failed it miserably. Furthermore, in situations where they find the correct answers to the questio

They did not, in fact, pass the exam on their own merit; they failed it miserably. Furthermore, in situations where they find the correct answers to the questions that will be asked, or even just the specific questions that will be asked, and then passed the exam, they would not have demonstrated that they could do so on their own merit, as an examination can only be a smallish sample of the knowledge they are expected to have in order to justify a passing grade. In this case, they cannot even appeal to that perennial cheater's excuse: "what matters is being able to get the right answer, not how I got it." Here, they demonstrated utter incompetence at that task! Their knowledge was so impoverished that they could not even identify blatant errors.