exam cheating and offences

Does anyone actually know of anyone caught or disqualified for in-exam cheating or offences (like writing after time etc)?

Over many years I have never seen or heard of it once, and I don't really think it's surprising that people just do what they like.

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Reply 1

kastiel

I've never witnessed it, or seen anyone I know caught out for it, but my college always tell us about 'this one kid that had his phone on him in an exam and it rang' or 'the kid that hid an earphone in their hat', but I doubt those people actually attended our school.

Mostly we are too damn scared of ruining our exams to tempt anything!

Reply 2

Lotus_Eater

In my first year we were allowed to take in texts provided they weren't annotated. Some clown took in an annotated one. Disappointingly there wasn't a scene. He was confronted, didn't challenge it, and was escorted out. I would have been much happier to witness a screaming match, and him wrapping himself round the work-table before finally having to be literally dragged out by security yelling "dude, don't tell my dad" over and over again.

Reply 3

DjamesH94

Yeah I've never seen anything happen either unfortunately. I've seen people write after time and the exam invigilator just stands there like a lemon when they come to collect their paper in and let them finish off the sentence. I remember one kid wrote in blue for the whole of the exam,then only realised at the end. He had to trace over everything he'd written in black so it could be scanned. What an idiot.

Reply 4

Carnationlilyrose

One of my students more than 25 years ago (I know, I know) tried to pass off for coursework a short story by a very, very well known writer as his own, and denied it when questioned by everyone up to and including the head. In cases of this sort, the school has to flag it up to the exam board in order to retain the confidence of the board that it is a suitable centre, which it did, and it was brought to the attention of an examiner who happened to have a copy of the book of short stories in question in his office at the time, apparently. (This was before Google and even the internet was invented.) The boy in question was given a permanent ban from all exams from that board, and I have a niggling idea that this was extended to other boards as well, but I'm not sure about that after such a long time. I've used it as a cautionary tale to all students ever since.

Reply 5

Changing Skies

Original post by carnationlilyrose

How on earth did he think he'd get away with that? :redface:

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Reply 6

Carnationlilyrose

Original post by Changing Skies

How on earth did he think he'd get away with that? :redface:

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He was very dim, tbh. He was also desperate. We bent over backwards to get him to admit it so we could just give him a school punishment for being a bit daft and just get him to write something else we could use instead, but he wouldn't back down. The cover sheet you have to sign for coursework is very clear about the penalties of cheating and we kept on pointing it out to him, but he just wouldn't crack, no matter how many of us tried to coax him. He was like a startled rabbit caught in headlights but he wouldn't accept the lifelines we kept trying to throw him and we had no choice in the end. It was really quite tragic.

Reply 7

username1331498

Someone in one of my classes copied someone else's coursework, thus he achieved 3 marks out of 30.

Reply 8

Changing Skies

Original post by carnationlilyrose

Oh that sounds terribly sad really, what a shame! At least you did all you could :sad:

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Reply 9

Carnationlilyrose

Original post by Changing Skies

Oh that sounds terribly sad really, what a shame! At least you did all you could :sad:

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Yes, we really, honestly did. We tried reasoning, coaxing, shouting, everything. He just couldn't bring himself to swallow his pride and admit it, and he's paid the price for the rest of his life.

Reply 10

Clip

I wasn't so much thinking of essay and coursework plagiarism - I think that's pretty much a given and also I have no doubt it gets detected.

I'm talking about the actual sit-down exam type stuff.

For years, from the first public exams I ever remember having, certainly in GCSE there were always a hardcore of people who would write looooong after the time was up. And invigilators would make all sorts of threats but never actually do anything.

Just this year, there was a 10 minute spiel at the beginning of the finals about how writing must stop immediately on time, it's an exam offence and blah blah blah - yet people do it and nothing happens. So what's the point? A couple of years back, the head invigilator made a point of telling all candidates how 9 people had been caught already etc. I don't believe a word of it.

Reply 11

usycool1

A girl purposefully took in notes a couple of years ago and wrote some notes on her arm a couple of years ago. She was caught and got disqualified and lost her uni place or something like that.

Also our physics teacher told us about how once one of his colleagues tried to cheat years ago (before I joined the school). Basically, he told us that there was this girl who didn't do her coursework at all. When the marks were due to be sent, her teacher said that she scored an A in it to the exam board, even though she hadn't done it. But then when the exam board wanted to moderate some of them, her "coursework" was one of those randomly selected. So the teacher sent off someone else's coursework instead, changing the name to her name etc. and claimed that that was her work. Our physics teacher (who is also head of physics) found out though and the other teacher lost his job. :erm:

Reply 12

Octohedral

Original post by usycool1

Also our physics teacher told us about how once one of his colleagues tried to cheat years ago (before I joined the school). Basically, he told us that there was this girl who didn't do her coursework at all. When the marks were due to be sent, her teacher said that she scored an A in it to the exam board, even though she hadn't done it. But then when the exam board wanted to moderate some of them, her "coursework" was one of those randomly selected. So the teacher sent off someone else's coursework instead, changing the name to her name etc. and claimed that that was her work. Our physics teacher (who is also head of physics) found out though and the other teacher lost his job. :erm:

Wow, that's really weird - why would a teacher cheat for a student? Even if he was doing it to boost his own class grades you would think he'd go for a B at most.

Reply 13

DedicatedWizard

Original post by Octohedral

Wow, that's really weird - why would a teacher cheat for a student? Even if he was doing it to boost his own class grades you would think he'd go for a B at most.

Omg maybe the girl had some hold over him or something??? :eek:

Maybe the teacher had a thing for her! Lol, I kid, hope it wasn't the case haha... :rolleyes:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 14

Drewski

When I've been an invigilator we've booted people out of exam halls halfway exams for persistent talking.

When people have written after the limit our Exams Officer has written on their papers saying as such.

Reply 15

waveydon

Last year in my GCSE French writing exam (not in the hall) a boy in my class forgot to switch off his phone and it went off. His ringtone was ''Who Let the Dogs out?''

Reply 16

Clip

At a previous university:

This skatergirl who never ever wears skirts came into the exams with a knee length tartan kilt on. She showed us later that she was wearing hold-ups and had crib notes under them. So hot.

Reply 17

Paralove

At the school I've been going to for sixth form, apparently they have had people disqualified every year bar once in the last five or so years. Some girls for writing notes on their legs so they could pull up their skirt, another for having a phone on them....

I know people who cheated in the GCSE languages controlled assessments - one was by writing it in her pencil case, another in pencil in a dictionary and then rubbed it out as he went along, and then another had the writing assessment written and just swapped the paper on his desk with one in his bag when the teacher wasn't looking.

Reply 18

midnight phoenix

I heard someone wrote the answers in henna in arabic and the invigilator could read arabic so they got caught
don't know much, I don't even know if its true, girl wasnt from my school

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Reply 19

hiphop97

Original post by Clip

In another high school around the same area as mine, the head boy cheated in his Geography exam: Some blazers have those REALLY big pockets in them which can fit a textbook in them? Well this kid did just that and pulled it out, he got caught but due to him being head boy nothing happened.