Transcript
A bluesky post by hyperspace, @thehyyyype.bsky.social, saying "Cheating on an exam by memorizing everything the professor taught in advance so I can easily answer all the questions. The post was made on January 24th, 2025 at 9:31 PM.
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
720 points (99.3% liked)
196
3067 readers
2037 users here now
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Moderator Guidelines
- Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
founded 3 months ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
In one notoriously hard class, my professor would post practice exams from previous years.
It turned out he also basically reused exam questions from previous years, so doing these practice exams basically landed me a perfect score in a class where the exam average usually hovered around 60%.
My peers, who refused to do the practice exams, even after I repeatedly told them of their existence and using them as my study method, accused me of cheating because I practiced using the practice exams the teacher posted with the explicit purpose of having us practice with them.
I think they were just mad I ruined the curve.
That curve system they have in some countries is pretty messed up, rather than just judging people on how well they have learnt the curriculum.
My sister in law had a medical boards exam where the top 80 % succeed and the bottom 20% fail -- regardless on how much you actually know or how well you did. They just limit how many people can become doctors.
Straight up bottom of the barrel idiocy.
I've seen something similar in middle school. Except that the teacher shown us the exact exams we were about to have. And also the answers. He was pretty desperate, but it didn't work either.
You can lead a horse to water...
Even if the professor doesn't provide them, you need to socialize around to find which frat or sorority has filing cabinets (or digital scans, I guess nowadays) of old exams. And if word gets around that you did well on tests, be prepared to be treated out and schmoozed by younger students to give them old exams and problem sets from your recently completed course. Unfortunately, studying for exams honestly (becoming educable in the subject by learning the principles) does not pay off unless the exam creator is creating problem sets from scratch. Perversely, with this degree-mill mentality of “learn the metric, not the material”,, you should avoid new professors who are more likely to be creating their own teaching materials even though the whole point of academia is to create social connections with precious generations of researchers to push science and humanities forward.
Honestly, I wish there were less roundabout ways than exams to funnel those who are only interested in getting a certification from those genuinely interested in preserving and building our civilization's knowledge.