Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams • Hacker News Board

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#51

Post by calibraxis » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 9:26 AM UTC

timthorn wrote: post #46

calibraxis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the impression that these people are fighting for the right to have more decent lives and better schools. If so, organized cheating is a cost of the unequal system they live under. Reminds me of Basho's chief architect (the Riak company), who advised at Ricon's closing keynote that you should lie and misrepresent yourself to anyplace doing interesting things, as he did at Apple (where he got to write a distribu…

> Once in "the real world", we discover that corporations and governments routinely lie, cheat and steal. Really? I'm not sure I've experience of this. Might be a geographic/cultural thing, I guess, but business and governance in the UK doesn't seem to be particularly corrupt.

I wouldn't use the term "corrupt". For example, a mafia's members can be quite upright in following the institution's rules. Likewise, at the height of when the UK sent legions of killers outside its island, to terminate and replace the rules other people must live under, it's not important if anyone was particularly corrupt.

When an institution is at its core about lying, cheating and stealing, then it redefines the rules to make these actions just and moral... part of its own natural functioning. This filters down into all its sub-institutions, like its economic and educational systems.

(Then "lying, cheating and stealing" becomes anything which goes against its functioning. For instance, "terrorism" is redefined to include defending your country against the terrorists some foreign power sent to control you.)

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#52

Post by chris_wot » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 9:33 AM UTC

vehementi wrote: post #25

chris_wot wrote: post #7

This is going to effect innovation and education in China very badly. If there elite University students are getting there by cheating, then it means there elites aren't really elite: just better at being dishonest.

Devil's advocate: grades are a stupid thing; if someone sits in class and learns and for the exam needs to cheat in order to keep up with cheat-driven-grades-inflation, we have not made a comment about that student's ability or anything. The elites may yet be elite.

All that proves is that exams aren't the best way of assessing someone's ability. However, cheating doesn't show ability in anything, other than deviousness.

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#53

Post by sly010 » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 9:42 AM UTC

This may be obvious, yet unmentioned in the article, but if you are a Chinese student, you can take this exam exacly once, and this is the one single number they will judge you on. Understandable if you are upset. Perhaps if no single exam would be so important and you were able to retake them whenever you want, there were less pressure for cheating. Our education and qualification systems are indeed unscalable. Are we in a need for a more granular and more subjective way of "quantifying" peoples achievement?

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#54

Post by ig1 » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 9:53 AM UTC

awakeasleep wrote: post #19

damian2000 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone gets what they want except the chinese companies who employ them in their first job.

It's ok, they only have to implement plans stolen from other companies.

Flagged. Lets keep xenophobic comments off HN.

[Edit: s/racist/xenophobic as per conversation below]

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#55

Post by barry-cotter » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 10:00 AM UTC

timthorn wrote: post #46

calibraxis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the impression that these people are fighting for the right to have more decent lives and better schools. If so, organized cheating is a cost of the unequal system they live under. Reminds me of Basho's chief architect (the Riak company), who advised at Ricon's closing keynote that you should lie and misrepresent yourself to anyplace doing interesting things, as he did at Apple (where he got to write a distribu…

> Once in "the real world", we discover that corporations and governments routinely lie, cheat and steal. Really? I'm not sure I've experience of this. Might be a geographic/cultural thing, I guess, but business and governance in the UK doesn't seem to be particularly corrupt.

You live in a high trust society with an impartial and competent state, where the rule of law is a real thing and opportunities for real, lucrative corruption are relatively limited. Given the demographics of this website there is an above average chance you work in an industry or sector that is dominated by literal minded men that tend more autistic than the general population, and associate mainly with people who are basically bourgeois in their values. All of these characteristics make the level of rat bastard weaselness in your environment lower than it would otherwise be.

Nonetheless the upper echelons of the corporate world in the UK probably resemble those in the UK in that sociopaths are ten to twenty times more common in the executive class than the general population. I can't see any reason politics would not favour the same group in the same way.

For further reading see gwern's notes on psychopaths and the psychology of power.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/fzy/notes_on_psychopathy/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/dtg/notes_on_the_psychology_of_power...

I have also heard good things about Ashok Rao's Psychopaths, Losers, Clueless series.

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#56

Post by monkeypizza » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 10:02 AM UTC

ig1 wrote: post #54

awakeasleep wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ok, they only have to implement plans stolen from other companies.

Flagged. Lets keep xenophobic comments off HN. [Edit: s/racist/xenophobic as per conversation below]

It's interesting you assume he was being racist, rather than culturalist. I think it's equally valid to assume he was talking about mainland Chinese business culture.

Is it controversial to say that mainland Chinese companies (as we're talking about here) commonly steal or clone business plans?

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#57

Post by smky80 » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 10:06 AM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #43

anon-cheater wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a great system, but unsustainable for the volume, you are right. As a non-cheater who has been blessed with a lot of academic success, this article upsets me so much. my academic success has been dearly earned and I feel like cheaters completely undermine my efforts. True, cheaters don't have the knowledge and maybe I am a step ahead of them, because I actually put in the effort. But still, it feels like some…

I get the impression that these people are fighting for the right to have more decent lives and better schools. If so, organized cheating is a cost of the unequal system they live under. Reminds me of Basho's chief architect (the Riak company), who advised at Ricon's closing keynote that you should lie and misrepresent yourself to anyplace doing interesting things, as he did at Apple (where he got to write a distribu…

> ... routinely lie, cheat and steal. Because it's effective

It's a prisoners dilemma thing. It works while they are suckers to cheat, but the refutation of that entire way of thinking comes when everybody cheats and everyone suffers.

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#58

Post by icebraining » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 10:16 AM UTC

leke wrote: post #44

icebraining wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm not Chinese, but I think they're right. Fairness requires impartiality, and they're being discriminated against. The solution should be to implement the anti-cheating measures everywhere, not just in a few schools.

I think it's wrong for people to jump on the band wagon. It just adds to the problem instead of making it a minority thing which can be easier to deal with.

But is it a minority thing? That doesn't seem to be the case.

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#59

Post by eshvk » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 10:42 AM UTC

Afforess wrote: post #45

glesica wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has most to do with the student. If the student wishes to acquire knowledge, most American universities can provide the student with a great deal of knowledge. If you are not at such a university (unlikely, though some schools are significantly weaker in some disciplines than other schools, so YMMV), then such a university is generally just a transfer application away (protip: admissions standards are different…

I agree, and disagree. Having recently been a student in an American university, I found that in a number of my classes, having a wish to acquire knowledge puts you at a disadvantage. When the majority of your peers are "working in a group" (read: academically sanctioned cheating) and you are not, your grade is likely to suffer. I was able to grasp and learn the material better in the long run, but at the cost of not…

> Having recently been a student in an American university, I found that in a number of my classes, having a wish to acquire knowledge puts you at a disadvantage. When the majority of your peers are "working in a group" (read: academically sanctioned cheating) and you are not, your grade is likely to suffer. I was able to grasp and learn the material better in the long run, but at the cost of not having a great GPA.

You are possibly conflating "working in a group" with "academically sanctioned cheating". There are several situations where working in a group happens:

1. Cooperatively solving an assignment as a group, e.g. a programming assignment where pieces of code are divided amongst the members. In such a scenario, I would argue that if you were solving it on your own, you were being stupid. Sure, you learnt how to solve a technical problem on your own; on the other hand you missed out on learning how to work in a group.

2. Studying together in order to comprehend the material better. I am not even sure how this could be interpreted as cheating.

3. Solving say a theoretical assignment together where in reality one person solves the damn thing and everyone else copies the solution. Most math/theory classes (in a decent school) acknowledge that this can happen and have exams to smooth out the grades.

> This situation forces any student interested in maintaining a high GPA to focus more on the grade and not the material. The delicious irony being that students who are most eligible for graduate studies are those least intellectual.

Really? Tell me more about these graduate programs that look only at your GPA. If you are so damn well intellectual, you should be out there working with professors on research projects and whatever to show that you are cut out for graduate school.

Re: Chinese students and families fight for the right to cheat their exams

#60

Post by stfu » Sun, Jun 23, 2013, 10:46 AM UTC

calibraxis wrote: post #43

anon-cheater wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a great system, but unsustainable for the volume, you are right. As a non-cheater who has been blessed with a lot of academic success, this article upsets me so much. my academic success has been dearly earned and I feel like cheaters completely undermine my efforts. True, cheaters don't have the knowledge and maybe I am a step ahead of them, because I actually put in the effort. But still, it feels like some…

I get the impression that these people are fighting for the right to have more decent lives and better schools. If so, organized cheating is a cost of the unequal system they live under. Reminds me of Basho's chief architect (the Riak company), who advised at Ricon's closing keynote that you should lie and misrepresent yourself to anyplace doing interesting things, as he did at Apple (where he got to write a distribu…

In my personal value system I value the one who is able to beat a system through a clever hack much higher than the one who follows just the instructions to the point how somebody else planned it out.

After all in you world of non-cheating companies you would have to be strictly agains the business practices of companies such as Uber or Airbnb. After all they were certainly breaking the rules when they first started out and are still facing some serious legal battles.

I believe that everyone has the personal responsibility to challenge the rules, to question them, to demand answers why they are there and whom do they benefit. If the answers are unsatisfying it comes down to the personal evaluation: Is it better to follow the rules, challenge the rules, or break them.