The art of cheating

Leigh-Anne Brown Arizona Daily Wildcat Some notorious methods of cheating include writing answers down on you desktop right before the test and copying answers on hands or on the bill of a hat. Overachieving cheaters actually hire a person to attend all their classes for them.

But those students shouldn't feel so bad - some of their peers go a few million steps further by hiring a person to attend all of their classes for them.

For $2,000 there are ringers out there who will impersonate you for a semester - attend all your classes, do all your papers, and ace all of your tests.

That's not just an urban legend, either - it's a fairly common occurrence. Two UA students said that they know of at least seven people who are doing this right now.

And even if you do have so much free time to kill that you do go to classes yourself, you probably don't have time to be taking notes. There are more important things to do, what with all of the beautiful ladies to stare at, magazines to be read, and Arizona Daily Wildcat crossword puzzles to be solved.

And studying? Forget it. Professors can't really expect you to read those big, ugly books that you paid so much for. To maintain any semblance of a social life, studying is out of the question.

Several UA students admitted to cheating in a Catalyst survey last week. Students cited test files, plagiarism, and the old copy-off-your neighbor routine as common ways to beat the system.

Cheating is common and sometimes necessary. That's why this feature is here - to enlighten you all about the art of cheating. But before you read on, take this disclaimer into account:

Students engaging in academic dishonesty diminish their education and bring discredit to the academic community. Students shall not violate the Code of Academic Integrity...

That's straight from page 29 of the course catalog, so beware. Cheating isn't the way to go, and it can put you on the fast track to skid row. But if you ever just have to, you should at least be well-informed.

Students

For the most part, UA students are divided into two camps: those who cheat, and those who are afraid to cheat.

I don't know if it's worth it at all, freshman Erin Breidenbach said. If you get caught cheating in college, the ramifications are too high.

But those are just the words of a freshman. Other students take the plunge into the marvelous world of dishonest academic roulette.

Names have been changed to protect the guilty. We even let these cheating fools pick their own code names.

I cheat all the time, said a man wearing a Sigma Alpha Epsilon hat who identified himself as Ronald McDonald. I just cheated on my Plant Sciences test a couple days ago.

McDonald's testament to academic unreliability should be taken to heart. When one of his friends walked by and heard that McDonald said that he had cheated on a test, his friend said, You took a test?

McDonald said that he didn't believe that fraternities, sororities, or any other organization kept a file of past tests to aid students in the cheating process.

No, I've never heard of test files existing, McDonald said. I wish they did.

Then there were the two engineering juniors sitting on the UA mall. At first when they were questioned about their cheating history, they scoffed. Not us, they said.

But upon further thought, the men recanted. Before they started spilling, they chose code names Beavis and Butt-Head.

Beavis and Butt-Head remembered a few engineering tests they took together where they - huh, huh - talked about the answers before they wrote them down.

At first, it was just the two of us, but then more people started doing it, Beavis said. I felt guilty about it for about two minutes.

Three girls wearing Kappa Delta Chi clothing shed a little more light on the test-files issue.

I don't cheat, but you don't consider test files cheating, do you?

The other two girls shook their heads.

Everybody uses those. That's not really cheating.

The girls said that files of tests for past classes were available at almost every fraternity and sorority, and the Minority Student Services Center.

A man working at the Minority Student Services desk said that the organization does not keep files of past tests.

A man wearing a Pi Kappa Alpha hat confirmed the existence of test files, but he wouldn't specify where exactly they were available. He added that he has obtained a copy of an Econ 200 test before he took it.

There are old test files that you can get, said the man, who identified himself as Mike. They're never exactly the same as tests that are still given out, though.

The most enlightening insights into the world of cheating came from two women sitting in the lawn outside the Kappa Kappa Gamma house. One girl, code name Annie Pridget, said that she cheats often.

I have papers written for me. They cost $10 a page, Pridget said. I've used friends' papers, and I've looked on other peoples' papers on the test.

Pridget said that paper-writing businesses are prevalent.

You can just get the phone number for someone who'll do it from one of your friends, said Pridget, who also said that you can download papers off of the Internet.

One time I had a homeless Vietnam vet type a paper for me. He's good. He guarantees A's.

Pridget and the other woman, code-named Marisa Adams, gave several examples of ways to cheat:

- Write answers under your hat, then look up at them during the test.

- Sit next to a friend who knows the answers

- Get a hold of a test file.

They're so easy to get, Adams said. You just have to ask around.

Pridget and Adams then described a more elaborate scheme - one in which students hire another person to attend classes for them for the entire semester. According to Adams, it's not hard to find someone to pull off the switcheroo - but it costs $2,000.

I know of at least seven people who are doing that right now, Adams said. It's so expensive.

phil villarreal

Rooms

Four gargantuan classrooms stand out at the UA as the largest on campus - and easiest to cheat in. Students are herded into these rooms for mass lectures and mass tests.

Catalyst has given all of these classrooms nicknames: Social Sciences 100 (The Big Easy), McClelland 207 (The Loft), Modern Languages 350 (The Dump), and Harvill 150 (The Cave).

Each has its own aura - what you can get away with in the Big Easy won't cut it in the Loft.

The Big Easy

This classroom earns its name because it's one of the easiest to copy in. Seats in this room are so close together that it's practically impossible not to look at your neighbor's paper.

The close seating arrangement also provides a smooth flow of whispering. Sit next to a friend and you two can team up on each question. You can argue points and counterpoints as to why the answer is or isn't all of the above.

Answers by committee. Only in the Big Easy.

The Dump

No one will ever accuse this Modern Languages auditorium of being pretty - first of all, it doesn't have actual desks. It's just an auditorium with seats. From its infinite resources, the UA has provided little wooden boards at the front of the classroom for students to take notes on.

The boards are a hassle, but a blessing in disguise for those of the cheating persuasion. The boards, which apparently have been in use since the Jurassic era, can be easily scribbled on. Students throughout history have written formulas, vocabulary words, and even whole essays on these boards.

Surprisingly, there's still enough space on most of them for you to scribble down answers for the ol' Econ midterm. Take a pen, pencil, or pocket knife and become a part of history.

The Cave

The Cave at the bottom of the Harvill building is mighty scary. To get there, students must descend a deep path of stairs and swing open a huge door.

This one is a little tougher to cheat in than the Dump or the Big Easy. It has no prohibitive qualities, but the seats are just a little bit more spaced out than those in the Big Easy and Dump.

For those who have honed their cheating skills, the Cave can be a happy home. Amateurs shouldn't be so gung-ho here. You might have to actually extend your neck to look on someone else's paper. The professor will then chop it in two.

The Loft

Business students know McClelland room 211 well. McClelland's a new, sparkly building with cutting-edge technology - a cheater's nightmare.

The desks are made of pencil-resistant plastic, so you can't scribble notes.

But there is a ray of hope.

The Loft is imposing but has a weakness, just like the Death Star that you might remember from the movie Star Wars. The weakness lies in the upper left and right wings of the classroom.

On the wings, seats are stratified steeply. Students sitting in row two of the wing are practically right above those in the first row. You can look right down on anyone's paper - just make sure it's the same exam version.

Seating space is limited in the wings, so get to tests in this classroom early - the early bird gets to cheat its way to the worm. -

phil villarreal

What the Profs say

It's said the best defense is a good offense. In the art of cheating your professor is Public Enemy #1 and knowing what he or she knows will prevent you from getting caught.

Some profs ascribe to the belief that a cheating student punishes himself.

My philosophy is innocent until proven guilty, said Elizabeth Vierling of the biochemistry department. For such teachers, the real penalty for insufficient attendance or studying comes when that knowledge is put to the test on a later test or even worse, in a real-life situation.

In spite of this, many students attempt rather elaborate cheating scams that sometimes actually work. But more of these fail. History professor Richard Cosgrove recalled a group of three students who all wrote the identical essay for an exam, and then turned them in simultaneously. When he started reading the second paper, Cosgrove noticed the vagrant identicality and he also observed that the students had the exact same errors in their papers. Note: if you're gonna do the group thing, be sure to double check your facts, and don't leave at the same time.

Another example from the stupid student archives comes from Dr. Jon Solomon, professor of Classics. On one test, approximately eight members of a fraternity memorized the answers to a test from a previous exam. However, all the answers were wrong, and the time wasted to memorize could have been spent studying and maybe getting at least a C.

Probably the worst example of an attempted cheat gone awry came to us courtesy of the MIS department. While no one professor we spoke to had all the details, the basic story goes like this: A student ran out of the exam room carrying a copy of the test. Someone managed to catch the student while a TA called the police. In the end, the student faced not only administrative action, but also had to go to criminal court.

Most professors do take certain actions in order to prevent cheating. Be prepared to tackle TA's acting as monitors, teachers that never use the same test twice within three years, essay-only courses, misinformation from Cliff's Notes or test files, and the inevitable one-seat-apart seating arrangement.

Of course, you could always just study.

rebecca missel