The question I propose is this: can professors ever really stop students from cheating? My answer would be an emphatic no! Every test day, students spread out and put away all things. Professors instruct students to take everything out of their pockets and place your bags at the front of the classroom.
As a quick disclaimer, I will say that I do not endorse cheating, as I do not cheat. I do, however, acknowledge that I have seen and heard many stories about peers managing to find innovative ways to cheat. I use the term "innovative" because that is the best term to describe the lengths that these students go to cheat. Here are a few examples of how to finesse (cheat).
Glasses
Be wary of glasses. Since a professor cannot tell students to remove their glasses, it is the perfect spot to hide a cheat sheet. A young man told me that he would create a cheat sheet using a small piece of paper and roll it up. He would then take out one of the screws in his glasses and stuff the piece of paper into his glasses before test day. Making sure to sit in the back of the class, this young man proceeded to take out his cheat sheet, despite the professor instructing all persons to place all their belongings in front of the class.
Water Bottle
A normal bottle of water can become the perfect cheating instrument. During one of my first few years of college, a young lady used this method to gain an edge in a difficult class we took together. She pointed out to me that the bottle of water sitting on her desk had answers written on it and every time she took a sip she glanced at the spot she wrote down the answers. This may be a played out tactic now, but, at the time, I found it clever.
The Mystery
There are just certain cases where I do not even have an explanation for how some students cheat. Back in high school, we were set to take our final exam in one of my classes. The teacher brought in three other teachers and spread the whole class out to take the test.
There were around 30 students in the class. If there ever was a way to stop students from cheating, this would be the way to do it — or so I thought. Later that day, I found out that a student in our class had taken pictures of the entire test for the upcoming periods who would also be taking the same exam. I have no idea how he managed to take out his phone and take a picture, but he had done it. As a matter of fact, he took multiple pictures.
To my understanding, there is no way to really stop students from cheating. Teachers can make it harder to cheat, as they should, but students will still find a way. Where there's a will (or an age of technology and progressive thinking millennials), there's a way.
I applaud those of us who study hard for the test because we are sitting back baffled at the new ways students are getting an edge. At least, they are learning to be innovative, I suppose.
