Friday, April 30, 2010
By Eric Zheng
Staff Writer
In the second cheating incident involving Advanced Placement biology classes this year, 10 to 15 students were allegedly caught buying test banks online, redistributing them and using them on tests, according to administrators.
Science specialist Lisa Cunningham said that students, whose names were not disclosed, obtained the test banks by purchasing them on Amazon.com. The website was selling the test banks for teacher use. Tests were then redistributed through a network of emails.
Earlier this year, other students was caught sharing answers to a take-home test on Facebook.
“We haven’t had many incidents like this and also don’t know what’s on the internet,” Principal Julie Ruisinger said.
Test banks for AP biology and other classes can easily be purchased online. Websites such as BuyTestBanks.com specialize in test banks and solution manuals.
“I suspected some cheating earlier in the year when I heard students who weren’t doing well in previous years were getting good grades and when students who did little work did very well on exams,” AP biology teacher Dan Sponaugle said.
In accordance with the ethics policy, students committing a first offense will receive a four-point demerit, a zero for the test, a U in citizenship and a Study Zone. The administration maintains that the distribution of the test banks falls under the category of “giving information about tests.”
“Under our old policy, the students would have been suspended outright. The new policy is very lenient and does not exact harsh punishment. We want to allow students the opportunity to improve before we reach suspensions,” Ruisinger said.
However, due to the vague language of the policy, some believe test banks are not cheating.
“Using online tests is definitely dishonest but is in no way cheating because those tests were online. No student can be held responsible in the ethics policy for using public material to study from,” AP biology student junior Summer Flanders said. “If the teachers spent more time writing new tests instead of whining about the scandal, the problem would be fixed by now.”
Most teachers feel the punishments are not harsh enough and support more strict consequences for test banks in the future.
“We should consider dropping one or two letter grades since this was obviously not a one-time deal. The scandal brings into question what these students have done all year,” Sponaugle said.
Since test banks are not specifically mentioned in the ethics policy, the faculty will discuss the topic in the future.
“Cheating is not confined to the Science Department or biology classes. Test banks exist for all subjects, and everyone needs to be aware,” said Sponaugle.
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