How To Cheat During Online Exams
Students cheat during online exams for many different reasons, one being to improve their marks – the academic system places a great deal of weight on GPAs and many students want to stand out with exceptional grades.
Others may feel pressure from friends and family to cheat; and finally some students may face competitive pressure to score high enough scores in order to gain entry into college.
Screen Mirroring/Sharing
As online education has boomed, so has its methods of cheating during an exam. While most students strive for honest grades and are committed to good grades, other may take extreme measures to cheat during their exams – from using their phones for contact outsiders or mirroring screens of others, students have numerous ways of trying to cheat during an online test.
First step to successful cheating during an online test is hiding external devices. Students often hide devices like tablets or smartphones behind keyboards or desks, use apps to cover screens, or write answers down using chalk sticks – although these methods might work temporarily, remote proctoring software is designed to monitor screen activity so any attempts at concealment will eventually be discovered.
Cheating during an online exam is another common tactic, such as sharing one’s screen with a friend to assist. This can be achieved using screen-sharing apps such as Zoom or Google Meet; although this might appear harmless enough, it’s difficult to do without raising suspicion from teachers and/or being caught by remote proctoring software.
If a student is caught, they could be asked to leave the examination room and their results invalidated, leading them to fail the exam, lose scholarships or be expelled from school altogether.
Some students even go as far as hiring hackers to break into their exam system in order to cheat during an online test, a measure which has proven successful for some students. Although extreme, such actions have proven fruitful.
Some students also attempt to cheat during online exams by using laptops and other devices to seek help from others, such as using smartwatches to connect with tutors via messaging apps such as Alemira during an exam. Although this method may be difficult to detect, remote proctoring solutions like Alemira have AI-powered remote proctoring technology which can detect unusual noises, eye movements or suspicious behavior and report accordingly.
Hide External Devices
Students often rely on external devices like smartwatches, earbuds or computers to cheat in online exams. Such devices can be hidden under tables or clothes so as to be hard for proctors to detect them; or an extra monitor could be set up solely for viewing question and answer pages as another means of hiding their cheating from fellow test takers.
Some students utilize friends or family to assist during online exams by hiding in plain sight in the room without being detected by webcams or monitoring software. They provide answers in written words on paper or whisper them into the test taker’s ear; other ways include copy-pasting answers from documents or notepads onto screens before running the text through online coding software so it appears as one (or zero), etc.
Techno-savvy students often utilize advanced cheating strategies during an online exam that include using screen-sharing apps or virtual machines as means of cheating, which are hard for remote proctoring solutions to detect due to constantly emerging methods to bypass them.
Students could try using other tricks such as using a block chain to write answers, using an unorthodox calculator which stores formulas or writing answers directly onto their bodies or palms. All these methods require assistance from either an in-room proctoring software application or by conducting an eye or iris scan test in order to detect cheating in online exams.
Even though it might be hard to believe, some students still attempt to find ways to cheat during online exams. Although most methods of cheating can be easily detected by live proctors, some techniques might slip through unsuspected. If a proctor detects any unusual or suspicious activities during an examination session, sanctions could follow suit against any involved students.
Hide Devices in the Room
Cheating during online assessments and tests should be an objective process; however, this is often far from reality. Cheating has become an increasing threat since technology has advanced; some effective and creative means include using gadgets to communicate with outsiders, hiding external devices in their room or impersonating another student during tests.
An online assessment requires respondents to focus on answering questions without being distracted by their surroundings, which means finding ways to hide their phone or tablet from view. Closets, desks and even blinds may provide ample cover – one student used blinds as cover in order to whisper answers back through to another student during a remote exam! Unfortunately, high-quality audio detection features in live and automated proctoring can alert proctors of any suspicious noises they detect during proctored exams.
Respondents also make use of various gadgets that can be hidden in a room, including earphones and high-tech calculators. Some popular options are Apple Airpods-style earphones which can transmit information discreetly while another popular choice is an undetectable Bluetooth device that helps respondent search for answers online. Some students even record answers using paper before reading them out aloud during tests using smartphones as answering devices.
This method of cheating is highly effective, as it enables respondents to avoid looking at their screen and instead focus on reading handwritten notes. While this approach can sometimes prove challenging due to blurry responses or difficulty reading them, some respondents know how to resolve this problem by holding up paper to light sources or altering camera angle accordingly.
Students have also been known to fake bathroom breaks during online assessments and tests as a means of opening their notes or calling friends for assistance, which can be an easy way to cheat during such exams. Unfortunately, remote assessments require strict deadlines that cannot be interrupted even briefly for breaks between tests.
Copy-Paste Answers
Students have become more creative when it comes to online exam cheating than ever. Similar to what happens in physical classrooms, we’ve witnessed students scrawl notes onto their palms or tape paper onto monitors as a method of cheating during tests. Unfortunately, even with advances such as remote proctoring technologies in place, cheaters still find ways around online exam security systems and get away with cheating more easily than ever.
One of the most popular methods is copy and pasting answers from other people – be they online sources or those present. While this approach might appear harmless, timed tests present special difficulties; having only limited time can make finding answers an obstacle; some cheaters even resort to using multiple devices to appear more authentic when taking tests.
Relying on screenshots sent from friends as references during an online test can also be used as a form of cheating; though this could potentially put them at risk if their screen isn’t being monitored, students often take extreme measures to ensure they’re not caught cheating; this includes turning off devices to cover up activity from others in the room while remaining “normal.”
Many students taking online exams use multiple monitors to approach questions simultaneously from different angles, then provide each other with answers. Although relatively novel in origin, this technique has become more and more popular as more exams are taken online from home or other remote locations.
Some students attempt to bypass online exam security by using virtual machines, often intended for gaming but sometimes used during an exam as a means to bypass proctoring software by searching questions in another OS. Unfortunately, proctoring solutions have become more efficient at detecting suspicious behavior or any extra noise made while typing that could facilitate such attempts at cheating and make this method of cheating less effective.