<p>This also happened to my daughter in a Calc 1 class. A few students were using a cheat sheet on a test. It was a large lecture hall setting where multiple sections of the class were taking the test so she didn’t know the students although she could ID them by their ethnicity (all the same) She told the professor and the next test there were a couple of professors as well as multiple TA’s. This was a class graded on curve so if students had artificially inflated grades it would affect everyone. Not sure if they ever determined who it was.</p>
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<p>Some instructors dealt with the problem of cheat sheets by having open book tests. Of course, this meant that the test contained problems that required conceptual understanding, rather than just “memorize the formula” problems. A variation was to allow a specific number of pages of notes / cheat sheets.</p>
<p>Of course, smart phones with access to Google, Wikipedia, etc. take “cheat sheets” to a whole new level, since if the test were also open internet, the instructor has to be very sure that the test problem solution is not already out in some obscure corner of the internet.</p>
<p>“although she could ID them by their ethnicity (all the same)” - I have a hard time imagining this - a group of people to your right? left? behind you? a group of friends? How many people and how what did your child observe as being the method of cheating?</p>
<p>I’m glad he did the right thing! I remember kids who cheated in high school (one guy in particular who I could tell was always looking at my test, even when I tried to block in from his view), and I never reported it for fear of being hated as a squealer. It’s a very uncomfortable situation. However, I now know there can be as big a risk in not reporting it. A college may have an honor code that is just as harsh on the student who knew of cheating and didn’t report it as it is on the student who cheated.</p>