Re: take home exam situation
 

Depens how difficult the exam is. I would probably "sit" the exam with a good/trusted friend(s), and discuss it with them while we worked. Just to alleviate the boredom more than anything. If it takes longer than the alloted time, whatever, but I doubt it will.

Re: take home exam situation
 

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The professor doesn't necessarily have to be bluffing. You're neglecting how stupidly obvious it frequently is that people have cheated. Here are a couple of examples:


[/ QUOTE ]

If he had any clear evidence like in your example, he would have just sent e-mails to the the individuals involved that said something like, "Come into my office this afternoon, we need to talk."

Re: take home exam situation
 

[ QUOTE ]

If he had any clear evidence like in your example, he would have just sent e-mails to the the individuals involved that said something like, "Come into my office this afternoon, we need to talk."

[/ QUOTE ]

Sometimes this is true, but in my case I also did it in a very similar way, even though I knew who cheated.

I think something you're neglecting is that honesty and integrity about what work you claim as your own is very important professionally (and usually idealistically) to academics. This sort of attitude is frequently something they wish to inspire. So while I think your interpretation that he's just trying to trick people into admitting they cheated is certainly possible, I think it's also possible that he knows that certain people cheated and is giving them a chance to step up and admit it. It is also much easier for him to dock your final exam score as he says than to fail you for academic dishonesty, even if you do confess, at least if this is like most university settings that I'm familiar with.

Re: take home exam situation
 

It just seems like an awfully strange coincidence that method he's using to deal with the cheaters is the exact same method police and other authority figures use to unravel conspiracies. From what I gathered from the original post on the matter, it seems that this e-mail went out very soon after the exam was administered. It is very unlikely that he looked over all of the exams and picked out similarities that were indicative of a bunch of students working together. In fact, I think the only way this would be feasible was if the exam was scantron, and a bunch of them came out exactly the same.

Additionally, in a situation like this, what he "knows" and what he can prove are two entirely different things. Unless the students were blatantly obvious about what they did, there's really nothing he can do about it unless someone that was involved confesses.

RESULTS?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Today we got this e-mail.


It saddens me to say that several students have ignored my warning on
collaboration on the final exam.

I do have names for individuals who committed this breach of my trust
and the Georgia Tech Honor Code.

I will therefor give you a choice:

You can respond to this e-mail and admit to me that you collaborated,
and I will dock your exam grade by 40 points (out of 110).

or

I will turn your names over to your respective Departments and the Dean
of Students and, given that you have this choice, do my best to see you
dismissed from Georgia Tech.

You have until Wednesday at 5 PM to choose.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'd love to know what ended up happening here, and any info about what got this whole mess started. Please post an update if you know what happened.

Re: take home exam situation
 

are you kidding, you cheat as much as you can when you can, have someone else you know can ace it take it for you.

Honor system my a..

Seriously though you just need to pass/fail the class for a fancy piece of paper that looks good on a resume. I can't name one thing I took in a college class that I use in my everyday life or needed in my carerr.

The places I applied at only wanted to know I suffered like they did and took the classes/ graduated with a decent GPA no one asks how you passed them.

The only reason not to , is if the prof is gonan find out or you have an amzingly guilty complex about this sort of thing.