How to cheat in exams using mobile phones and calculators

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 19:39:36 UTC, "John Porcella"
<[email protected]> wrote:

: If you are so ignorant of English grammar and/or *****ing you should not
: post on Usenet.

That should have had a comma after "*****ing".

Ian
--

---

› See More: How to cheat in exams using mobile phones and calculators

On Sun, 11 Dec 2005 01:03:19 UTC, Guess who <[email protected]>
wrote:

: On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 19:47:36 +0000 (UTC), "John Porcella"
: <[email protected]> wrote:
:
: >Sorry, could you translate that into English?
:
: Let's keep this simple. I just observed you nit-picking your way
: through a series of messages leaving your trite, useless digs in your
: wake, including this one. So don't take this too personally, but
: [and I rarely use this common English expression]...
:
: ...Piss off !!!!

For once, I am in agreement with Mr Who.

Ian

Your remark would be correct only if the person whom you are
quoting intended that you would pause after you had
read his word, "*****ing".

However, is there one rule for you and a different rule for
the person whom you are quoting?

By the rule that you suggested, your sentence, "That should
have had a comma after "*****ing".", should have had a
comma after, "after".

(EOE :-) )

Ian Johnston wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 19:39:36 UTC, "John Porcella"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> : If you are so ignorant of English grammar and/or *****ing you should not
> : post on Usenet.
>
> That should have had a comma after "*****ing".
--

"Guess who" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Sat, 10 Dec 2005 13:11:09 +0000 (UTC), "Bernard"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Interestingly four years ago when my son took his GCSEs, someone took a
>>mobile into one exam despite all the warnings from the teachers, part-way
>>through the exam the lad's mother rang him up to find out how he was
>>getting
>>on.
>
> And the penalty?

All I know is that he was escorted out of the exam hall and not allowed to
continue with the exam. Whether there were wider penalties imposed, I've no
idea.

Imagine the conversation.

Ring, Ring

"Hi son, how's the exam going"

"I'm just about to be disqualified mum"

Regards

Bernard

<[email protected]> skrev i meddelandet
news:[email protected]...
>>In very recent times, it has become a necessity to pass tests in literacy,
>>numeracy and ICT before being allowed to qualify as a teacher. I found
>>the
>>three examinations quite straightforward, and mainly an insult to the
>>intelligence. As I was leaving the test centre, I asked the
>>administrators
>>if many people failed, expecting them to say no. They admitted that loads
>>of people on PGCE courses failed these tests! The door opened behind me
>>and
>>somebody came out of the examination room, in tears, because they failed
>>one
>>of the tests! The administrator was right!
>
> Someone came out of the examination room in tears because they had
> failed a test. I suppose the tests must be marked as they are taken
> then.

Nah, sometimes you just know ;o)
One example would be if you failed to answer the majority of the questions.

In message <[email protected]>, Bernard
<[email protected]> writes
>
><[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>>
>>>
>>> It would be hard enough to get a mobile into a public exam and use it,
>>> and if you are caught cheating at GCSE, you fail all your subjects AFAIR.
>>>
>>> Al
>>
>> I'm talking about 'tests' / 'mocks' not real exams.
>Ignoring the morality of cheating for a moment, what is the point of
>cheating in a mock. A mock is meant to provide exam practice or is that the
>point, it is used to practise cheating.
>
>Interestingly four years ago when my son took his GCSEs, someone took a
>mobile into one exam despite all the warnings from the teachers, part-way
>through the exam the lad's mother rang him up to find out how he was getting
>on.
>
>Regards
>
>Bernard
>
Is this an urban myth?
I've heard *exactly* the same story except with reference to "A" levels,
not GCSE's.

BTW As an ex-invigilator, why not write a few questions on your sleeve,
go to the toilet (accompanied) and get the answers sent via text to you?

You need to have a quick text finger though...

(Standard exclusions on the point in doing this obviously apply).

--
Jeremy Boden

"Jeremy Boden" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In message <[email protected]>, Bernard
> <[email protected]> writes
>>
>><[email protected]> wrote in message
>>news:[email protected]...
>>>
>>>>
>>>> It would be hard enough to get a mobile into a public exam and use it,
>>>> and if you are caught cheating at GCSE, you fail all your subjects
>>>> AFAIR.
>>>>
>>>> Al
>>>
>>> I'm talking about 'tests' / 'mocks' not real exams.
>>Ignoring the morality of cheating for a moment, what is the point of
>>cheating in a mock. A mock is meant to provide exam practice or is that
>>the
>>point, it is used to practise cheating.
>>
>>Interestingly four years ago when my son took his GCSEs, someone took a
>>mobile into one exam despite all the warnings from the teachers, part-way
>>through the exam the lad's mother rang him up to find out how he was
>>getting
>>on.
>>
>>Regards
>>
>>Bernard
>>
> Is this an urban myth?
Not the way my son told me the story at the time, unless I wasn't listening
properly.

David R Tribble wrote:
> I'm a software engineer, and usually three or four of us interview
> candidates. Two of us do technical interviews, and we can rate a
> person's proficiency and experience pretty quickly. We don't expect
> memorization of things that we ourselves have to look up, but we
> do expect understanding of relevant programming concepts.
> The most revealing questions are, "so tell me what problems you
> had on your last big project and how you solved them".
>

That sounds like a sensible interview method, unlike many IT interviews
I've attended where they insist on a pathetic "technical test" which is
put together by someone who must've had to look up the answers himself.
In one recent one there was a rough pad which had been used by a
previous candidate and it appeared he had phoned a mate for help.
He got the job but I heard later he was hopeless at trouble shooting.

On Sat, 9 Dec 2005, Pierian Spring wrote:
> Richard Smith wrote:

>> I've taught undergraduates programming and found that some of them get
>> it 'instantly', probably because they already knew it and it is just
>> revision for them, while some of them never get it. Eventually they
>> memorise enough stuff to scrape through their exams, but they will never
>> be truly good at it because they don't have the right type of brains.
>>
>> (And a few of them even manage to get 1st class Computer Science
>> degrees! Employers, you need to *test* these people at job interviews,


> That's disgraceful!
>
> You are part of the education infrastructure that awards degrees
> that you say are meaningless and you expect the real
> examinations to be conducted by prospective employers?
>
> No wonder that any maths degree awarded in recent years is
> only as good as the "A" levels of 30 years ago!
>
> It used to be that all teachers had at least "O" Level passes
> in Maths and English but even in this NG there are so-called
> "teachers" whose *****ing and grammar are appalling.

Richard was writing about Computer Science degrees, not Maths degrees.

To be fair, Computer Science is about a lot more than programming.
I've been quite heavily criticised by people in the IT industry when
I've been involved in this sort of discussion in the past for being so focussed
on programming. They tell me that only a small part of the workload in
IT these days is programming oriented, and they don't want a Computer
Science degree to be primarily a test of programming skills.

To me, it's still the core skill of the subject, and I'd expect anyone
with a 1st class degree in Computer Science to be a competent programmer.
But we do see people who have gained high marks in the other modules in
the Computer Science degrees, enough to be awarded a 1st class overall,
while not doing particularly well in the programming modules, and having
chosen modules which don't require programming skills wherever possible.

Matthew Huntbach

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005, John Porcella wrote:
> Matthew Huntbach wrote:>

>> You are wrong. I have 16 years of university level teaching, and
>> in my experience the belief that learning==memorisation is the
>> second most common cause of student failure (behind only laziness).

> What I like about the A/S and A2 system is that there is some attempt to
> reward analysis and evaluation, not mere rote learning.
>
> I am surprised that at you have found that students believe that learning
> and memory are equated so directly.

Not all of the do, but it's a significant portion. There still seems to
be a widespread assumption in our society - look at any newspaper article
about exams - that examinations are all about memorisation and regurgitation.
Maybe that's because most of the people who write newspaper articles come
from an arts background where memorisation plays a more prominent place in
exams. However, I find the most pathological cases tend to come from
overseas backgrounds, or from cultures which place a heavy emphasis on
memorisation.

>> I teach computer programming, and I suspect the same applies to
>> the sort of stuff Andy teaches. The number of actual facts we have
>> to teach is fairly small, but the concepts are quite abstract.
>> If you understand the concepts, you can build up detailed examples
>> as required to solve problems given to you.

> I always prefer understanding the material, since it takes the strain from
> having to memorise the wretched material.

Indeed. But getting kids to understand this isn't always easy, particularly
if memorisation has been a reasonably successful tactic in the past.

Matthew Huntbach

On Sat, 10 Dec 2005, John Porcella wrote:
> "Richard Smith" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> Matthew Huntbach wrote:

>>> You are wrong. I have 16 years of university level teaching, and
>>> in my experience the belief that learning==memorisation is the
>>> second most common cause of student failure (behind only laziness).
>>>
>>> I teach computer programming, and I suspect the same applies to
>>> the sort of stuff Andy teaches.
>>
>> You are right regarding programming - it does require understanding.
>> However...
>>
>> 2. 1st/2nd year programming is the very easiest part of Computer
>> Science.

> I feel that that is dependent on the student! I find it hard to believe
> that all would think that.

Yes, for Richard and I that is true - for a relatively small number
of people, programming is an easy task which comes naturally.

For a large number of people, even those who one assumes must have some
interest in it as they've chosen to do Computer Science degrees, it
doesn't. Look at any conference on Computer Science education, and
you'll find one of the main topics being discussed is why there's such
a high failure rate in 1st year programming, and why so many students
enter the 2nd year wanting to do as little programming as they can.

>> Everyone I know who had a brain suitable to learn programming had already
>> taught himself how to do it by the age of ten.

> Of course! This looks very closed! In your definition of who has a brain
> "suitable to learn programming" it is a necessary condition that the person
> be male and self-taught by the age of the ten, then I am not surprised that
> that is what you find, since you do not allow for the possibility that
> somebody may be able to program, but not be male and self-taught by the age
> of ten.

Well, I had never touched a computer when I started my Computer Science
degree, but it still came naturally to me. These days it is unlikely that
anyone coming to university, particularly to do Computer Science, won't
have had extensive experience with computers, but not everyone will have
sat down and written programs. It's still the case that one gets a few people
who start programming at university and find they have a natural gift for it.
Richard's figure of about 5% of the population doesn't seem far off to me.
And they aren't all male!

>> I've taught undergraduates programming and found that some of them get
>> it 'instantly', probably because they already knew it

> Then they have 'got' nothing from you, since they already had it, as you
> freely admit and it is just revision for them, while some of them never get it.

> So, in conclusion, you end up not teaching those who knew it already, and
> those that do not know it already do not ever get it from you! So how are
> you managing to get a salary from the educational establishment if you teach
> nobody anything that they did not already know?

Well, I am sure it is the same in other areas. Some people have a natural
aptitude for sport, some people have a natural aptitude for playing music.
That does not mean there is no role for sports coaches and music teachers.
I freely admit I have no aptitude whatsoever for either of these, and
anyone trying to teach me has had a frustrating job. Teaching people who already
have the natural skills is a far more enjoyable experience, because there's so
much more you can do with them.

In the case of self-taught programmers, I find many of them have some
quite naive ideas about programming, and it requires a lot of effort to
get them out of this and to think in a more structured and abstract style.
Indeed, there are some Computer Science educators, and I have some sympathy
for them, who warn against self-taught programming, feeling that it leads
into "bad habits" which are more difficult to teach people to get out of
than it is to teach progamming from scratch to someone who has never done
it before.

>> Eventually they
>> memorise enough stuff to scrape through their exams, but they will never
>> be truly good at it because they don't have the right type of brains.

> Or they do not have the right type of university lecturer! After all, you
> have admitted that you teach none of them!

Go and look at some of those papers in conferences on teaching Computer
Science. What Richard reports here, and it's my experience as well, seems
to be absolutely universal - you find people across the world saying
exactly the same thing. There are thousands of us doing the job -
are we ALL hopeless at it? NO-ONE, despite the thousands of us working
at it, seems to have found the magic trick which turns people who find
programming difficult into people who find it easy.

Matthew Huntbach

In article <[email protected]>,
Alun Harford <[email protected]> wrote:
>For example (chosen based on the list of groups), A-level "Mathematics" was
>memorising algorithms for solving set problems, and throwing the stuff on
>the page when asked. [...]

No it isn't. It's just that that's the way it is [too] often
taught, with encouragement from the Revision Guides.

>Yes - you can understand the material instead and derive everything as it's
>needed, but that puts you at a significant time disadvantage,

Not so in maths. Not at university, not at A-level, not at
GCSE level. If you *understand* what you are doing, you can be doing
your thinking while you are writing, and you will not be losing any
time at all. If you don't understand, it is often hard to be sure
which memories you're trying to recall.

> and if you're
>not very careful you'll drop marks that those who memorise the material are
>bound to get.

If you're careless you'll lose marks anyway. My experience is
that those who try to memorise drop marks by not remembering sufficiently
accurately, and even more so by getting into a total mess with no way out,
whereas those who understand what they are doing are able to diagnose and
correct their mistakes.

It may be different in other disciplines ....

Elsewhere in the thread, the example was given of needing to know
how to do "least squares". Two comments -- (a) if you don't use it very
often, then you are much more likely to forget a mysterious formula than
to forget the understanding that leads to an "obvious" formula; (b) you
may possibly meet other similar situations, where memory won't help, but
an understanding will help you either to relate your new problem to the
ones you can do or to realise that "least squares" is no longer the right
way to proceed and that you need professional help.

--
Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK.
[email protected]

In article <[email protected]>,
Matthew Huntbach <[email protected]> wrote:
>> I always prefer understanding the material, since it takes the strain from
>> having to memorise the wretched material.
>Indeed. But getting kids to understand this isn't always easy, [...].

But do they memorise this?

--
Andy Walker, School of MathSci., Univ. of Nott'm, UK.
[email protected]

In sci.math John Porcella <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> "Richard Smith" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> In contrast, some of the 3rd and 4th year CS classes are much more
>> difficult and only a small percentage of students could ever be expected
>> to truly grep them.
>
> "Grep"? Meaning?

grep is a Unix utility that searches for character patterns in text
files. I assume Mr. Smith is using it in the allegorical sense of
"grepping" through the course material to gain the valuable knowledge and
understanding contained within it. (He also may be making a pun from
the similarity between the programming term "grep" and the pop-culture
term "grok," which was coined by Robert Heinlein in "Stranger in a
Strange Land" and is used to indicate deep understanding of a subject
or situation.)

--
Wayne Brown (HPCC #1104) | "When your tail's in a crack, you improvise
[email protected] | if you're good enough. Otherwise you give
| your pelt to the trapper."
e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 -- Euler | -- John Myers Myers, "Silverlock"

In sci.math guv <[email protected]> wrote:

: Agreed. There's nothing worse than grammer cops - apart from top
: posters! ;-)

It's *****ed "grammar".

Justin