Is this considered cheating or not? Exams?

Question

OK, so, our school has end-of-year exams and it's just under a fornight away. So to help me revise and test my general knowledge I spent a few hours downloading all the GCSE past papers and resources from the AQA website- this was around a month ago, and I've been revising from these since.

I've been using my notes throughout the year to help me revise, but my main revision has been doing these tests available on the AQA website, which I thought was perfectly OK.

Anyway, a few days ago, I'm sat in class, and someone goes "Sir, what do we have to revise for the test? How long will it be? Blaa Blaa Blaa...."

My teacher lists all the things in the exam, and is furtherly bombarded with questions. Eventually he starts talking about how easy it is, and starts to rummage about in the drawers of his desk.

Producing what seemed legit enough to be the end-of-year exam, he states that it is infact the exam.

Flicking through the booklet, he finds a question based on a vegetarian restaurant, and reads it aloud.

It's at this point when my ears prick up. "Hang on," I'm thinking to myself as I'm listening to him blabber away, "I did this question about a week ago!"

He witters away, mentioning details of another question. Of course, he doesn't say the answers, but only reads the question.

In my mind, I was absolutely freaking out, realizing I had potentially already completed the end of year exam.

So here I am in my predicament today, wondering what to do. After checking the files on my computer, it turned out I have both the mark scheme and question paper corresponding with the questions.

My conscience is really playing up right now. Should I just revise from the mark scheme, or would that be considered cheating and an advantage over my peers? Surely it'd be suspicious for me to earn the top grade in this exam?

On the AQA website, it says the resources are free to use for both student and teacher to use, so surely I'm not in the wrong here. I've already seen the mark scheme before, when I was marking this exam, so I know the answers anyway vaguely.

The temptation is killing me, but I want to get a grade off my own accord.

This exam isn't important- I'm in year 10, and this doesn't contribute towards GCSE... but I feel like I'm cheating in a way, because I've already made a stab at this exam. What should I do?

Answer 1

Not only is this not cheating, it is the standard process for completing exams at university. Whilst you are expected to complete course work to demonstrate broad understanding of a subject, reviewing old exam papers is valuable practise. Most exam boards re-use questions, slightly modified from time to time, so if you have reviewed and answered questions that come up in the paper set for your exam, you will score well because you have prepared well. That is not an unfair advantage, that is the reward for doing your groundwork thoroughly.



Oh and beware the double bluff, Teachers are not fools, if he quoted from the exam paper, that almost certainly will not be the exam paper.

Answer 2

THIS IS NOT classed as cheating! There is a reason why AQA along with Edexcel, OCR and all the exam boards put their past papers on the Internet, because it is classed as revision tools, it is also supposed to help students see what a real paper looks likes, prepare them for it and also how to tackle the question along with the mark scheme. It is supposed to prepare you for similar types of questions, of course the same exact question you did wont appear but it may be similar. Also alot of exam board sites list spec for GCSE courses which has alot of information about subjects and topics students need to know about which again people think is classed as cheating.



Although during my GCSE we re repeated going through exam papers this only made my confidence and grades get better because I practiced them and knew the style question that may be asked, perhaps you got worried because you had already seen the paper before your teacher started reading it but theres a reason why these exam boards put it on the world wide web! DO NOT PANIC!



The files are legal and are supposed to be revision tools

Answer 3

The teacher wasn't reading from this year's paper, he was reading a real GCSE paper used in a previous year. He won't see this year's GCSE papers until they are released on the morning of the exam.



This way of revising is fine, and I'm really impressed someone still at school has the maturity and savvy to do past papers. Mature students usually do this in favour of reading texts and making notes, and I suspect this is why they do better than school and college students.



I've found from the many exams I've sat that the answers to exams don't change much, but the questions do change a little. Therefore if you do loads of past papers you will be much better prepared for the exam itself. So carry on with what you're doing and good luck in your exams.

Answer 4

The best thing you can do is go to the teacher with a copy of the paper. Tell him that you have been using the paper to revise.



The important thing is that you have not told another student. This gives the teacher the chance to use the paper for the class and either give you a different assesement or let you take the same paper as everyone else, either the same one or a different one.



If it was me and a student came to me like this I'd ask them not to tell, let you get a really high score and then afterwards tell the class that if they

had revised properly they would have got the same mark.

Answer 5

Hey,

Don't worry about it, you did not do it to find out the answers, you had the best intentions in mind (your education/revision), as long as you permanently delete the mark scheme/answers from your computer to remove any temptation. I don't think that it does count as cheating because you were not memorising the answers, you were just checking ones you've already tried. If you still feel bad about it, then go to your teacher confidentially and show them the paper you did originally for revision, just to show them that you got that mark before you saw the questions and answers.

Hope it works out for you, and personally I don't think it counts as cheating :)

Tessa xx

Answer 6

You're only cheating yourself.



Like you said it's a Year 10 Mock Exam, it's not the real thing. Those exams are to help pupil and teacher understand where you are at in your education; if you lie and get a good grade, doesn't mean you're going to get a good grade when it comes to the actual real Exam.



- You could miss something really important that you didn't understand or didn't quite get and everybody's going to think you've nailed it and you're capable of doing it.

- You could be put on a Higher Paper Exam and be totally freaking out when it comes to the real thing.



Like I said in the first sentence, you're only cheating yourself.

Answer 7

THIS IS NOT CHEATING :)

at my school, we're encouraged to revise like this.

it's fine :)

Answer 8

i don"t think its cheating, all your doing is finding info

your just looking things up, that"s how you learn.

so carry on what your doing.

GOOD LUCK.