take home exam situation

[jdl22]

A class I'm taking consists of lectures, some discussions, and two exams. We're only graded on the exams. It's a graduate class so grades don't really matter.

The two exams are take home. They give the following rules:
There are three pairs of questions each pair on a distinct stapled-shut sheet of paper. You must do one question from each pair. You have 8 hours to complete the exam. You can either do all of it at once, or break it up but from the time you've opened a pair of questions until you finish that question the clock is ticking. You may consult any materials you wish but should not talk to others.

In lecture at one point the professor admitted that there is no way for them to know how much time you take, it's just the good old honor system.

So would you follow the rules?

[jdl22]

It occurs to me that I switched the first and second question wording so that 1 is asking if you will not cheat and two is asking if you would cheat. Since you can't edit polls I guess I'll stay with it.

[Yeti]

I'm surprised by the results.

[WackityWhiz]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm surprised by the results.

[/ QUOTE ]

ya, i expected question #2 to have different results. I guess I'm just dishonest.

-WW

[gumpzilla]

[ QUOTE ]
It's a graduate class so grades don't really matter.

[/ QUOTE ]

And thus there is zero reason to cheat. And you're right, the grades don't matter.

[tonypaladino]

I would definatly try to limit myself, but if I needed to go over the time I would not hesitate to do so.

As far as working with others, it would depend on how comfortable I am with the material, and how well I know the other person. In general, I prefer to do school work on my own. I despise group projects and the such.

TONY

[surfinillini]

don't do takehome exams as a group, a bunch of us in my fraternity did this in a history 100 class of 2000 people, we thought they wouldn't be able to see it...well we were wrong and 8 of us had to accpet an F as a final grade, luckily I took the class with credit/non-credit which is kept hidden from the profs so it really didn't matter for me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[mmcd]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm surprised by the results.

[/ QUOTE ]

ya, i expected question #2 to have different results. I guess I'm just dishonest.

-WW

[/ QUOTE ]

The results of question 2 (on which I voted no) have more to do with not knowing who you can trust more than anything else IMO. If I had a friend in the class, I'm certain we'd collaborate on the exam, but just approaching someone in the class is really stupid. The 1 grade doesn't matter all that much, and it would really suck to get ratted out/kicked out of school over trying to save a little time or get a slightly better grade.

i voted 81-99 would cheat, but i think that's the number that would cheat if they felt they needed to in order to pass. i also said i'd use more than eight hours if necessary. i think most people would be able to finish the exam at a reasonable level within eight hours though, meaning there's no motivation to cheat.

i'd never collaborate unless it was with someone i was really close to, would suck to get kicked out of school for no good reason.

[gumpzilla]

It also seems pretty clear to me upon reading the replies to this thread so far that people either don't understand that it's graduate school or that that makes a difference.