A lep is still a ball

/Don't know why I remember that

That kid must have a really big pocket.

The high school student who was cheating on an university entrance exam in Kazakhstan.....

i no longer give a fark, i expect this from asians

Muta: I cheated my way through my Stats and Calc classes in college. We were allowed a sheet of scratch paper to do the work.

We were allowed calculators. Ti-89's can store text files...

My senior year @ Purdue, our SQL prof allowed 1 8.5x11 sheet of notes for the final. At the time, I worked 3rd shift at Kinkos's. We had a machine with a 24x36 pane of glass that could shrink 25% at a time. I could shrink 9 pages at a time. With margins cut off, I was able to get 15 2"x3" tiles on each side of the paper. Each tile contained 9 pages from the manual. In the end I was able to put the entire 250 page manual on 1 double sided sheet of paper, plus leave room for a few notes of my own. I gave it to the prof when I handed in the test. He gave me 1 pt extra credit for it.

PanicMan: Easy. Allow cheat sheets, but shorten the test time. Poorly made or copied sheets will be useless.

This. In my experiences, I learned more from creating "cheat sheets" in the classes that allowed it than trying to cram into my head every iota of information from every obscure corner of the course materials.

In High school, we were often required to make book covers to protect the school's books. They were usualy made out of heavy card paper. We were allowed to draw on the covers, so I would write notes and answers in the shape of various designes all over the covers. The come test time, I would just glance over at my closed book.

In college, just before a test, I would draw lightly on the desk in pencil (it was wood grain so really hard to see). A simple wipe of the palm and the notes would be gone.

Honest Bender: Muta: I cheated my way through my Stats and Calc classes in college. We were allowed a sheet of scratch paper to do the work.

We were allowed calculators. Ti-89's can store text files...

Heh.

The Army makes you take what are called "Skill Qualification Tests" once a year. Those are tests that make sure you know what your job is. You don't want to fail an SQT, but I can't recall that happening to anyone. Then again, we used those skills every day, being actively engaged in the SIGINT business.

Anyway, the SQT for Morse interceptors consisted of a couple of parts: One was actually copying Morse by writing down what you heard from a tape, and the other was written. The interesting part is that the NCOs giving the tests weren't dittyboppers, and didn't know Morse. So, on the written portion, if you got stuck on a question (an admitted rarity), you could tap out the question number on your desk, and if a neighboring person knew the answer and was predisposed to helping, they would discretely tap back the answer. This actually worked because the questions were always multiple choice, and A, B, C, and D are distinct enough in Morse that just the pattern of tapping sufficed to convey the message. This is also true for the numbers. Had the answers required been "A, N, I, M", we probably couldn't have managed it just via tapping.

It also helped that generally one side of the room during the test session was taking the Morse portion while the other side was taking the written, due to a lack of tape players: There was enough "QRM/QRN" going on that the faint tappings of fingers or pencil erasers wasn't blatantly obvious.

gtfan92: hobblekitty: Incidentally, after doing all that I knew the material really well and barely needed to reference the sheet.

This is what I came to say. If I was allowed a cheat sheet on a test, I barely used it because, hell, I'd had actually taken the time to write out and memorize the thing before. It was a fantastic study tool.

Exactly. The good tests are the ones where if you have to look up everything in the book, you won't have time to complete the test. Basically the book/note sheet is there to let you catch yourself if you transpose something in the formula, but if you have to desperately page through the book for every question, you'll only get 60% of the test done in time.

In real life the first thing I do after working out the solution to something is go consult my reference manuals for that part. The last thing I want to do is be the chump standing there with an incorrect fix at a meeting. So I have a giant stack of books beside my desk and they all get used.

hobblekitty: He probably retained more of the material than he realized just by recopying everything. Re-writing my notes was always an effective study tool for me.

CSB time!

When I was in high school, my economics teacher would give everyone in the class a 1"x3" piece of paper before every test. That was our cheat sheet. As many notes as we could fit onto that tiny sheet of paper we could bring into the test with us. He would also award 2 bonus points to the student who could get the most notes on their sheet. I got that 2 points on more than one occasion. I managed to fit an entire chapter including a pie chart on there one time. Incidentally, after doing all that I knew the material really well and barely needed to reference the sheet.

/CSB

Yep, your teacher was kinda clever.

Through most of college we had either note card, note sheet, or open book tests. Math and science and engin - if you don't know how to *apply* the formulas all the notes in the world aren't gonna help, especially when you have fifty minutes for ten problems with multiple steps.

Anyway, some of my note sheets are really effing things of beauty, and for the classes where I got a whole sheet - making the note sheet, organizing the info, etc. was my entire test studying routine. Worked out pretty well. Plus the look of amazement on my academic adviser's face every time I showed her my handiwork during finals was pretty awesome.

He's this close to re-inventing "book".

stonicus: Testing memorization is silly now-a-days. All tests should be open book. Knowing how to find the answers is what is important. I've NEVER EVER been at work and had my boss come up to me and say "Stop using that calculator! Stop looking in that math book!" In fact, if I wasn't using all the tools available to me, I'd probably be fired.

Recently got certified in medical coding; had to take a standardized test for it. We were allowed to copy anything we wanted into the blank space in our books, as the books are one of a coder's most useful tools. In my case, i copied the things that weren't in the code books, but knew I'd be tested on (like the cook who had to know lumens in the kitchen) - stuff like "Which govt accounting office is responsible for ____" Stuff I'd never need to know, and could find out with a cursory google.

In the real world, the books are about 50% of what I need to do my job- I use internet forums, newsgroups, google, and medical dictionaries. The disconnect between a testing scenario and the real world is mind boggling. God forbit I'm tested on things that are relevant to my work.

/out of 12 test takers, 3 passed.
//I did