Is this considered as cheating? And is this fair? (1 Viewer)

[SGSII]

Hi Guys,
So recently, advance English has just completed a listening task on Hamlet.
We did not know the scenes nor did we know the questions, so basically we had to study the entire play to prep for this assessment.
However, 6-7 students were away for whatever reason they had, and got to do the assessment a WEEK later.
Walking into the assessment room (a small book room was the only room available), they did the assessment KNOWING WORD FOR WORD the questions, and the EXACT scene that they were being assessed on along with completing the task with LITTLE TO NO teacher supervision, already having prepped responses in their minds.
The point of the assessment was to test the students ability to analyse an unseen stimulus in exam conditions, however as you can see some students had an unfair advantage.
Would the students (the ones knowing the question and all) be deemed as cheating?
Should someone let the head of English know? And what should he do to maintain the integrity of the assessment?

 

[nerdasdasd]

Hi Guys,
So recently, advance English has just completed a listening task on Hamlet.
We did not know the scenes nor did we know the questions, so basically we had to study the entire play to prep for this assessment.
However, 6-7 students were away for whatever reason they had, and got to do the assessment a WEEK later.
Walking into the assessment room (a small book room was the only room available), they did the assessment KNOWING WORD FOR WORD the questions, and the EXACT scene that they were being assessed on along with completing the task with LITTLE TO NO teacher supervision, already having prepped responses in their minds.
The point of the assessment was to test the students ability to analyse an unseen stimulus in exam conditions, however as you can see some students had an unfair advantage.
Would the students (the ones knowing the question and all) be deemed as cheating?
Should someone let the head of English know? And what should he do to maintain the integrity of the assessment?

If they did get a heads up, it would be unfair....

 

[BigBadBader]

thats not fair, some of my close friends chuck a sicky to get an extra day of study for maths or the sciences. but for english, they change the questions and scenes, or extracts. i remember one time some people where away and my HT was a bit sus as he should be and decided to make them do an imprompt speech...

 

[SGSII]

Ha! Sounds like pretty cool HT!
Cos the thing with this particular assessment is that it weighed 15%-20%, and it was 'tradition' that everyone failed it LOL
With those people being knowing the question and having prepped responses for it, it has the potential of throwing our ranks around :S

 

[Uniqueness]

Blue Suede is right. People shouldn't really be telling their friends what's in the test if they haven't done it. That's just putting themselves in a disadvantaged position.

But in practical terms, I think you might be able to appeal to the head. I can't be certain but I remember something about retaking the assessment at the earliest time possible? (Did they do that?) Either that or sometimes they make the whole grade retake another exam if it's a big issue.

 

[babberz]

Nah thats not cheating I do that all the time

 

[norwegianwood]

Nah thats not cheating I do that all the time

you're the worst kind of person then

 

[nerdasdasd]

Nah thats not cheating I do that all the time

Smooth.

 

[D94]

It's definitely unfair. Even if their friends told them, that may be construed as malpractice if you say it a certain way, but even then, it's still unfair and puts everyone at a disadvantage (bar the students who know what's in it). It's also poor practice by the teacher to set the exact same scenes. Poor practice all round.

 

[btx3]

if people were smart, they wouldn't've told their friends the exact questions.

thats just dogging the boys.


ANYWAY, this thing happened to me with a biology practical, there were two classes and one class found out exactly what we were being tested on and their bio exam was 2 days after ours.

Somebody told the teacher then it went to head teacher then deputy principle and eventually both classes had to re sit a different test at the same time.

So going off what my school did, It's definitely unfair, you can complain and you should be able to do the test again with everybody there

 

[SGSII]

Update:
A few kids went up to the HT and complained that some students were involved in malpractice and had an unfair advantage against others.
Nothing was able to be done. All of those denied it when the head of English came around and had claimed they had been 'falsely accused'. And the HT claimed that there was no evidence that they were engaged in such activity so no further action can be taken.
Totally not fair

 

[nerdasdasd]

Update:
A few kids went up to the HT and complained that some students were involved in malpractice and had an unfair advantage against others.
Nothing was able to be done. All of those denied it when the head of English came around and had claimed they had been 'falsely accused'. And the HT claimed that there was no evidence that they were engaged in such activity so no further action can be taken.
Totally not fair

So not fair! Try bring it up with the BOS.

 

[titaniumwithin]

This is cheating but chances are your school won't be doing anything about it because it's too much of a hassle unless somebody threatens to bring the case to the BOS. Something similar happened at my school for Mod A where we had a viva voce and people in my grade told their friends what their questions were.

 

[someth1ng]

Terrible faculty - even at my school, even the science faculty would make sure they set a test that everyone had to do on the same day and preferably the same time or classes back to back.

It's unfair to be asking them for malpractice - do you ask a criminal if they committed a crime and let them go if they say no?

I can accept a one day gap between but I really think one week is far too long.

 

[SuchSmallHands]

Update:
A few kids went up to the HT and complained that some students were involved in malpractice and had an unfair advantage against others.
Nothing was able to be done. All of those denied it when the head of English came around and had claimed they had been 'falsely accused'. And the HT claimed that there was no evidence that they were engaged in such activity so no further action can be taken.
Totally not fair

Well if they get all markedly different results than usual you can argue further. Obviously they can't deny it's not fair if they're usually ranked around 10th and they're 1st, 2nd and 3rd in this assessment.