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

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

#91

Post by b0rsuk »

The article reads as if it was something from The Onion. It's funny, then you realize it's real, and it become scary.

I got a very similar vibe from "Journey Beyond Tomorrow" by Robert Sheckley. It's half SF, half satire, and very witty. The book chilled me a few times because I realized things he makes fun are happening around the world, just on a smaller scale (for example, people committing crimes in order to be sent to jail. Free food and shelter). When reading the book, I had to make breaks not because I was tired, but because it was like overdosing laughing gas.

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

#92

Post by Volpe »

eshvk wrote: post #59
Afforess wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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.

Out where? Do you mean in between your class load? (I'm not too familiar with US graduate schools)... I thought your GPA was exactly what they looked for?

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

#93

Post by moonese »

jmduke wrote: post #13

Entrance exams treat undergraduate admissions as an O(n) problem. As anyone who has worked in undergraduate admissions will tell you, it is far more complex than that. But when n grows prohibitively large, you have to go with solutions that are less than ideal. My alma mater, thirty years ago, eschewed the traditional college application in favor of a more homebrew approach: since it was a small liberal arts college,…

Entrance exam is a big thing in China, it will determine one's future, and we all take it quite seriously. Cheating is reported every year, but not in large cities, and this is the first time that someone will 'fight' as their children will not being able to cheat. Comparing to the total number of students who take the exam, 9,120,000 this year, cheating is really really quite small, from my experience, I never heard of cheating around me for entrance exam; and we also feel very ridiculous for such thing could happen here in China.

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

#94

Post by blindhippo »

stfu wrote: post #60
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…

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…

Wallstreet is calling, it's for you.

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

#96

Post by mpyne »

Volpe wrote: post #92
eshvk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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. Out where? Do you mean in between your class load? (I'm not too familiar with US graduate schools)... I thought your GPA was exactly what they looked for?

During undergrad. It's not like the Engineering college at a given university is that hard to find.

And while GPA is nice, any group selective enough to care is also going to check the transcript. Getting a "C" in Diff Eq. is far different from getting a "C" in "Intro to College Math", for example.

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

#97

Post by glesica »

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…

GPA really isn't all that important for graduate study. GRE score, personal statement, letters of recommendation all matter more, provided the GPA is reasonable. This is, of course, also dependent on the program you are applying to. But with hundreds to choose from, it is usually possible to find a good fit.

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

#98

Post by glesica »

Volpe wrote: post #92
eshvk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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. Out where? Do you mean in between your class load? (I'm not too familiar with US graduate schools)... I thought your GPA was exactly what they looked for?

No, GPA is not generally a priority in graduate school admissions. You need a reasonable GPA, but a 4.0 is totally unnecessary. GRE scores and other factors like letters of recommendation and research projects with faculty members during undergraduate are usually more important.

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

#99

Post by rdouble »

Volpe wrote: post #92
eshvk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

> 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. Out where? Do you mean in between your class load? (I'm not too familiar with US graduate schools)... I thought your GPA was exactly what they looked for?

GPA is unimportant to graduate work if you have good research recommendations and skills that the grad department you are applying to needs.

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

#100

Post by gwern »

icebraining wrote: post #40
redbit wrote: post #23

"We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat." I can't imagine how people can say it out their mouth. Just like when someone kill, due to fairness you kill too. I am a Chinese, and I feel shame on this kind of Chinese logic. They use wording like fairness, human right not seek for proper, but their benefit, I have see too much ridiculous in my homeland.

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.

> Fairness requires impartiality, and they're being discriminated against.

> The relatively small city of Zhongxiang in Hubei province has always performed suspiciously well in China's tough ''gaokao'' exams, winning a disproportionate number of places at the country's elite universities. Last year, the city was cautioned by the province's education department after it discovered 99 identical papers in one subject.

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