Job Discussion Forums

[desertfox]

Management embarrassment at Kfupm this week. A student was caught cheating on an industrial scale during a TOEFL exam. He had managed to photograph with his phone the whole of the test, and had sent it to other members of a What’s Up group who were in the process of sending him back the answers, when he was caught by a teacher.

The teacher alerted the management who promptly tried to save face by blaming the teacher for not being vigilant enough.

Clearly not a great week for “the best university in the Middle East.”

[nomad soul]

[veiledsentiments]

I wonder how many of his friends sent him the wrong answers.

And I'd say the teacher was negligent if he had managed to photo the whole exam.

VS

[hash]

.
Another illusionary trek down fantasy lane. All kinds of things raise red flags as to the veracity of this “story”:

1- I’m sure “a” student has cheated on just about every exam ever given at KFUPM or at any other university, Saudi or otherwise……therefore, this is not such a startling incident meriting a full-blown “discussion” on this board (or any other board).

2- The story-line lacks details and is simply not credible as described. I’ve no doubt “a student cheated” and “got caught”…..that’s all I’m willing to believe.

3- For example, the LISTENING component of the exam could only be answered IF the “What’s Up” group COULD ACTUALLY HEAR THE QUESTION that had to be answered……obviously, this could not have happened.

4- If there was a WRITING COMPONENT in this exam, again, obviously no outside group could have helped with this.

5- Most of these kinds of exams are TIMED….that is, the student has to be working in a certain section of the exam and is unable to go backward or forward in the exam booklet. To be able to “copy the entire” exam under these conditions is simply not credible.

6- That a student would have such a “devoted following” among comrades “on the outside” of the exam location that they would wait for the exam to start, receive the information, study the information and almost instantly report back to the “cheater” is again, simply unbelievable. It just couldn’t have happened. Similar incidents have occurred all over the world, of course, but there’s been a time lag of about a day or at the very least a few hours before the event took place. In our case here, the SEND and RETURN had to be almost instantaneous…..absurd. Fiction on stilts.

.

[RedLightning]

I would only fault the teacher in that he bothered to report the incident at all

[In the heat of the moment]

While I was in Saudi the students got better and better at cheating on traditional, written, multiple-choice and yes/no questions. I suspected the best students had photographic equipment secreted in their headdress*, the receivers of the correct answers - the majority of the students - usually had their phones between their legs in a fold of their thawb (and you don't really want to be staring at their crotches, so this was pretty effective).

*Or could use their phones to take photos of their papers with 5/6 sets of teachers' eyes on them.

There were multiple cases of students being found out over the years, and I expect the number not caught was many, many times more. The teachers were never disciplined for this as we all know how good students are at being sneaky little bar stewards.

[nomad soul]