Cheating was one of the few interesting school activities. We had to think of ways to cheat. It was like hacking. We had to monitor the teachers movement and think of ways to remain unseen and unheard while cheating. Do we arrange those that know the subject of the exam in ways in which they can help the others or do we use cheat sheets? In what circumstances was one better than the other? In which circumstances were both or neither appropriate? Cheating is an interesting technical problem and I enjoyed working on it.
Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
31–40 of 81 posts
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a bullshit way of phrasing it. Let's stick to how I said it. What matters is that you end up with the right thing. If you can easily get the right thing by copying somebody else, then do that. That doesn't excuse your not learning how to do it on your own, but there's no nobility to finding out the answer yourself, beyond what personal satisfaction it brings you. I code using other people's languages and other…
There's no honor in taking someone else's hard work and passing it off as your own. Looking at someone else's website for visual inspiration is a far cry from copying someone else's paper or having a friend do your math homework. Please tell me you see the difference.
"Cheating" does not necessarily mean taking someone else's work. I have cheated before by taking my own work (usually equations and the like) into exams in which I was not supposed to have them. This is technically "cheating," but what it really came down to was that I didn't want to spend hours memorizing information I would only use on one test and then immediately forget.
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#33I had too much of an ego in my abilities to believe someone else had a better answer than me. So no.
Let me add that back in school, I immediately lost respect for anyone I caught peeking at my papers. I never hid my tests, as a matter of fact I pushed the papers forward for all to see, but it wasn't out sharing or kindness, more like contempt for anyone who would lower himself to call my work their own. I felt like I could withstand scrutiny and justify my work.
It was even better when the smart kids copied from me, specially when our eyes met and I caught them cheating: it was established right then and there who was whose bitch :-P
Two real-life problems I have had with my non-cheating principle are:
1) My inability to trust the quality of most people's work, specially if I know about the work and I'm passionate about it. I have a habit of going over people's code with an eye towards catching their "inevitable mistakes". My own mistakes pass in peace, undisturbed, of course.
2) Inability to take hints and advice. I take advice when I seek it. Unsolicited advice, specially when others are there to overhear it, or when I feel like I could have arrived at the same conclusion on my own given enough time; such advice goes unheeded. I might even deliberately make a mishap just because someone helped me mid-task.
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#34Define cheating. I fobbed off most of my Physics A-Level (the highest qualification UK schools give out) work and just read "A brief History of Time", "Turning tides: Physics in the new age" and another book I cant remember the name of and aced it.
Obviously I got accused of cheating - and it could well be argued I had an advantage over my classmates (who struggled with an inadequate text book!).
The definition is subjective: but, writing answers on your cuffs helps no one :)
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Define 'cheating'. I've never cheated, but I voted 'it depends', because, as always, everything depends on intentions and circumstances. I can perfectly understand people saying 'this assignment/test is ridiculous. I'm not going to put any effort in it and rather copy/cheat and spend my time in a more productive way'. Now I don't think you should copy from someone if that person objects. However, I've never worried a…
I can perfectly understand people saying 'this assignment/test is ridiculous. I'm not going to put any effort in it and rather copy/cheat and spend my time in a more productive way'. I can understand why someone might say that, but it would still be immoral and dishonest of them to cheat. When you take a class, you enter into a contract (often an explicit academic honesty policy) to not cheat. If you find the assignm…
> When you take a class, you enter into a contract (often an explicit academic honesty policy) to not cheat.
There's quite a difference between a university where you're on your own volition and high school where you're obligated to stay. The morality of cheating in high school is a lot different from cheating in a university.
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
"What matters is getting the right answer." Oh, so it was your principled commitment to "what matters" that caused you to cheat, eh?
That's a bullshit way of phrasing it. Let's stick to how I said it. What matters is that you end up with the right thing. If you can easily get the right thing by copying somebody else, then do that. That doesn't excuse your not learning how to do it on your own, but there's no nobility to finding out the answer yourself, beyond what personal satisfaction it brings you. I code using other people's languages and other…
What you wrote is mostly just rationalization, in my humble opinion.
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#37No. Well, I did cheat one time in third grade. I regret that I didn't cheat more, though. It would've taken me through loads of useless bureaucratic shit and whatever I really could learn, I learned anyway.
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#38I cheated a lot in high school, a couple times in college. I don't feel guilty, but now I know the only person I cheated was myself.
I think it depends on the form of cheating. Cheating on anything you can do through learning - yeah, that's cheating yourself. But (in my high school at least) I've noticed that many homework assignments are pure busyword: there is no intellectual value to be gained through their completion, and all you are doing is wasting your time when in reality you could put it to a better use.
In those cases, I would not feel guilty in the least, and do not think I would be cheating myself either.
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#39I guess I'm the first person to say that yes, I did cheat, and no, I don't feel guilty. What matters is getting the right answer. If you stop before you get the right answer, then you're responsible for that. If you take a shortcut to get the right answer, then it's not a bad thing until you get to a situation where you refuse to do what it takes to get the right answer. Given a choice between wasting my time on mean…
Why bother going to school if this is how you view it? I think the problem with cheating is that it's fundamentally dishonest. It's not that you're using someone else's work to accomplish something, as we all do this every day in our jobs, it's that you're lying and presenting that work as your own.
Why bother going to school? Because some of us are legally obliged to, and not doing so would be breaking the law.
It's dishonest, yes, but when you're in a situation where your two choices are spending time learning something on your own versus not copying a busywork homework assignment from a friend... the first stops seeming so unethical.
Re: Poll: Were/Are you a cheater?
#40I did try to cheat. However, it's much more common thing in Poland than USA (or so I heard). I noticed however, that whenever I've selected material for cheating and then put it on those little sheets of paper I actually learned this material in the end. So cheating was a great way to learn something! Than, by simple logic taking what I prepared wasn't beneficial, as I could be caught.
In American schools (even universities), the use of cheat sheets is often officially permitted.