<p>My professor thinks I cheated on my calculus final, but I didn’t.
He believes this because I and the girl next to me got the same wrong answers. However, she got a higher score than I did, and I left the exam 20 minutes before she did.</p>
<p>He also thinks this because I had a fall down stairs a couple weeks ago, and ever since then my neck cramps up and sends shooting pains into my skull. The only way to relieve my pain is to turn my head to the side. When I explained this to him, I could tell he didn’t believe me.</p>
<p>Another reason he thinks I cheated is because he couldn’t follow the steps I took to obtain the answers. I even worked one of the problems out on the board for him, and he still didn’t believe me.</p>
<p>Now he says he is going to show my test to some other people and get back to me about it. He said at the end of our meeting that he felt it was pretty obvious that I cheated, even though I didn’t.</p>
<p>He now says he is going to give me a zero on the final and tell the dean of the department that he is giving me a zero because I copied another student’s work. He didn’t even offer to let me retake the test to prove that I didn’t cheat.</p>
<p>Then that’s bull. If you had told him you were willing to take another test on the spot to prove that you did not cheat, then he has no right to accuse you of cheating. Go persistently ask him to do a retake before it’s too late and he starts accusing you of studying for the retake.</p>
<p>I wish I had told him that I was willing to retake the test on the spot, but I was so shocked when he accused me of cheating that I wasn’t thinking straight. I sent him an email saying I was willing to retake the test, but he hasn’t replied to it.</p>
<p>From my understanding with giving out retakes, professors tend to rely more on statistical data to adjust for the difficulty of test. In order to do that, there has to be a huge sample size of students taking the test. If you were to have a retake, the professor would have to make another exam JUST FOR YOU. There are two things wrong with that. 1) More effort on the part of the professor and 2) there’s no way for the professor to know if the test he made for you was just as reliable as the test for the entire class with just one data point (your exam). But take this with a grain of salt. This is simply speculation as im only a first semester student. Unlike teachers in high school, professor tend to be more statistical in terms of interpreting test scores.</p>
<p>That’s just stupid. Even if you and the girl next to you got the same wrong answers by coincidence, the steps you both took to obtain your answers must have been different, right? See if anyone else in your class also got the same problems wrong. Go to the dean of the math department and show him the same problem you worked out on the board for your professor–it’s absurd that just because your professor couldn’t follow your steps on the board that he thought you were cheating. If your professor couldn’t follow what you did, see if the dean could.</p>
<p>OP, this is exactly what department chairs are for as far as undergrads are concerned. Send the math department chair an e-mail explaining the situation, or go to the chair’s office and speak to her/him directly if s/he has office hours this late. One of the chair’s main responsibilities is to settle disputes of this nature, and, in my experience, s/he will almost always sit down with both you and your professor to get both sides of the story and develop a compromise that works for everyone. Definitely do this as soon as possible.</p>
<p>I sent an email to the Department Chair, explaining my situation and requesting a retest. I have been getting high 60’s/70’s on the previous exam, and I got an 84% on the final. Prior to the final I studied night and day for a week and a half for the test.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s a bad situation. I really hope it gets fixed. I have neck problems too, and I had a prof tell me to stop looking around. I hope they let you retest, it’s really unfair to fail you when you didn’t really cheat.</p>
<p>Also, is there anyway to get a doctors note about your neck? Might help your case.</p>
<p>The grade difference would be the reason. Usually people get a lower grade on the final than they got on the rest of the work all semester. To a professor it seems unlikely that you would have suddenly learned all the material for the cumulative final that you failed to learn in the smaller tests along the way. High 60’s to mid 80’s on the final is a big jump. Not an uncommon jump from one test to another, but an unusual jump for a cumulative final.</p>
<p>Not to go against you or to say that I agree with your professor, but in an instance like cheating on a final, (maybe your school’s different, but my school takes misconduct UBER seriously) I’m surprised he simply gave you a 0 for the test instead of flunking you in the course. So in any case, thank your lucky stars that didn’t happen.</p>
<p>If I ever get accused of something that I did not do, then I fight. I would have marched right on over to the deans office after that meeting, and explained the situation and the lack of evidence on the professors part. There is no way I would want to see a big “AD” on my transcript for something I did not do.</p>