Cheating the Cheater

SCHOOL EXAM SCANDAL MAKES SOME TEACHERS  EXTRA VIGILANT
By Stephen Wilson
Second City Teacher


(Moscow, Russia)  -  Very few students enjoy exams.  So when a college lecturer advised me 'to try and enjoy the exam as if it was some kind of fun marathon race or game,' I thought he was afflicted with a sick sense of humor.'

                However, he meant well! Good teachers do their best to calm down uptight students who are apprehensive about their final school exams. One teacher reassured school students by stating, 'If you fail your exams it is not the end of the world.'

                For some Russian school students currently sitting their final exams they had excuses to feel more nervous than most students.

                Due to a recent scandal where the answers to exams in the Russian language were being blatantly published in the Internet, examiners and supervisors have decided to become much more vigilant than usual. Some would claim too zealous. 

               They seem to see cheats just about everywhere. The skeletons are not only coming out of the wardrobes, but just about everywhere.

               Final years students taking exams told a Russian English teacher that sitting their final year exam was a nightmare. Normally, the exam is supervised by an almost half-senile teacher who periodically dozes off or buries herself in a book while students take exams. Not this time!

               Students told one Russian English teacher that supervisors kept on coming up to them and peering over their shoulders. When a student asked to be allowed to go to the toilet, she was followed by a teacher who watched her every move! 'Quite right', a Russian told me.' Toilets are a traditional place where students try to cheat.'

                Supervisors scrutinized rather than supervised students. They may have only made some of the school students more stressed out and distracted them from doing well in their exams.

                Perhaps this over-zealous attitude is uncalled for. It borders on a hysterical reaction. It is often not too difficult to track-down cheats who have used on-line answers.

                Ekaterina Sheglenko stated that all the cases of on-line cheating can be followed back. She declared, 'If it is confirmed that there are indeed cases of cheating, usually in an hour or two we can establish the identity of the offender, then the commission will decide whether to annul the results without the possibility to retake the exam'.

                Nevertheless, education officials, perhaps feeling pressure from the public of how they might be too lax in cracking-down on cheats, have become more zealous in attempting to prevent potential cheats making a mockery of the system.

                 However, students might have a problem at being able to find the 'correct answers' from a person claiming to sell the right kind. Many con-men claiming to sell the 'right answers' have simply invented an imaginary exam paper with imaginary answers! Who can the conned student turn to? He can't complain that a conman unfairly cheated him because he did not allow him to unfairly cheat! There are no laws to protect students unfairly being sold false answers to unfairly cheat in the classroom!  So the cheats ought to understand they themselves might end up being cheated. Few people feel sorry for a cheated cheat!