What did you think was going to happen when you posted the question,

"What's the worst case scenario for CHEATING on the ACT EXAM?"

Cheating, ACT Exam and your special brand of leniency don't go together - especially on CC.

[quote]you know having a water bottle present on your desk is cheating?[/quote]

No, it's breaking the rules.
It's only cheating if there are answers/formulas/whatever on the bottle or wrapper.

Regardless of it being "cheating" or "against the rules", if they specifically say "don't have a waterbottle on the desk" it is unacceptable and perfectly fair to void the test for having a water bottle on your desk.

"Your friend" deserves his test to be voided. If it's not, the ACT really needs to work out some issues it clearly has.
"His" personal character means nothing if he cheated on the ACT. Big deal that he lost time. Take it again.

As for your 50% comment, it sounds like a load of bull. Back yourself up before you say something that ridiculous.

^^
Ehh, I'm not sure it's that ridiculous. Seriously, cheating can mean a lot of things. Like putting formula in your calculator, or looking back after a section. I think people here are being too hard on him/his friend. Hopefully his test is not voided, but if it is, just sign up for the ACT again. It's simple. You're actually lucky, on the SAT, you get like a note on your score report that says you cheated that screws you up on all your SATs/SAT II's. This happened to a bully in the year ahead of me, I can't say that I wasn't laughing. Also, if you're going to cheat, for your sake, don't get caught.

Yea you guys are really blowing this out of proportion, he filled in what? Three questions? regardless, this lady definitely handled it very unprofessionally, and moreover, it really wasn't that serious. I would've walked by gave him a quick reminder and kept it moving. It's not like he continued going on after he realized he made the mistake.

^But if you're going to take that approach, where do you draw the line? 5 answers? 10? Or hell, just let them keep going through the whole section?

Cheating=bad. Period.

You draw the line using reason. That's how some people get probation for certain crimes while others get the death penalty. I'm not saying that what he did is correct, nor am I saying that it would be wrong if his test gets voided, I'm just saying in his case I wouldn't void the test.

I think that's just a little bit different.

But think about it: regardless, they punish anyone who breaks the law, whether they get a ticket or probation or whatever. They're not going to be like "Oh you only stole a can of hairspray so we'll just let you go."

I mean they could give him a stern warning, which is basically don't do this again, or else. Or take a retake and the test scores have to match up or something. I'd say the worst punishment would be to cancel the test and tell his gc, something that would be in this case like the death penalty.

Oh, I agree.

But I'm just saying that the OP seems to have expected them to just do nothing, which is unreasonable.

What FredFredBurger is saying makes sense, but is difficult to put into practice. So if cheating on three questions is not that big of a deal and only merits "a stern warning", the ACT should release a scale that converts the size of the cheat to the manner of punishment. This is how judges use their discretion to serve criminals graded sentences correlating to the severity of the crime. Otherwise, simply allowing each proctor to subjectively decide the punishment is unfair to other students and even other cheaters, some of whom will be handled more leniently than others. Since the ACT has adopted a no-holds approach to cheating, I think the only fair punishment to the OP's friend would have been to dismiss him from the room and void his test.

Sure, that's harsh, maybe even unfairly harsh. But the friend brought it upon himself. It's not like someone else forced him to cheat. There's an easy way to avoid punishment -- follow the rules. When you see the word STOP in huge black bolded letters, stop.

Like I said earlier, very few people, like myself, have no time to read anything else but the questions themselves.
Anyway, what is the worst-case scnario in this situation? What's the worst ACT can do? Just void this one test? Will they brand him as a cheater in front of his entire school as well? Will his teachers need to know about this too?

The worst they could do is not only void your test but call your parents and your school. Presumably if the Principal knows so will your GC. I know it really sucks but your friend should not have been caught cheating.

[quote]Ehh, I'm not sure it's that ridiculous.[/quote]
I wasn't saying that the idea of 50% is ridiculous (for all I know, it could even be higher). I was saying that it was ridiculous that that particular percent was given with no basis or proof whatsoever.

Go ahead and cheat, whatever, I don't care. But if you get caught, be prepared to pay the consequences and not whine about it.

Same thing goes with anything else- do whatever you feel like it so long as you are prepared for the punishment. I.e. me choosing to opt out of a school function knowing I'd probably get a detention. I knew it was wrong, but did I really care about getting a detention? No- it was my own fault. On the other hand, I would never cheat if I knew there was some slim chance that I might get caught. It's not worth the possible consequences.


[quote]Like I said earlier, very few people, like myself, have no time to read anything else but the questions themselves. [/quote]
So what? The science section itself isn't designed for you to be able to get through it all anyway.

have they ever called a school before to notify them about anything like this?

He (or you, if you like writing in 3rd person) didn't cheat smart enough.
Oops!