[Wonderdonkey]

Cheating is such a fluid concept anyway, and it's inconsistently applied. Some schools will suspend students for using calculators on a math test; some force students to bring calculators to their tests. Some give out the questions before a test, while others expel students for distributing test questions. Some require students to collaborate or use online sources; some forbid it. It's arbitrary.

Punishment for cheating also presumes the validity of 20th century-style academic testing, which is debatable.

What is the purpose? To ensure I'm qualified for a job? A job where I am free to look up words in a dictionary whenever I want?

I'd also add this: The internet is developing quickly into a literal extension of the human mind. I don't think it will be all that long before we're connected much more intimately to the internet than we are right now with just our eyeballs and fingertips. And that means we need to reevaluate what it means to learn information versus to find information.

[apetresc]

> Cheating is such a fluid concept anyway, and it's inconsistently applied. Some schools will suspend students for using calculators on a math test; some force students to bring calculators to their tests. Some give out the questions before a test, while others expel students for distributing test questions. Some require students to collaborate or use online sources; some forbid it. It's arbitrary.

These are students sneaking cell phones into an exam, and going out of their way to surreptitiously look up answers with them. There's no moral ambiguity here.

> Punishment for cheating also presumes the validity of 20th century-style academic testing.

No it doesn't.

> What is the purpose? To ensure I'm qualified for a job? A job where I am free to look up words in a dictionary whenever I want?

These are primary school-children. There's nothing wrong with asking them to learn basic skills like literacy or numeracy (or, say, basic integrity) even if they're disconnected from "jobs".

> I don't think it will be all that long before we're connected much more intimately to the internet than we are right now with just our eyeballs and fingertips. And that means we need to reevaluate what it means to learn information versus to find information.

Sure, and there will be tests for that set of skills where accessing the internet during the exam won't be considered cheating. But in this situation it is.

[pavel_lishin]

> Cheating is such a fluid concept anyway, and it's inconsistently applied. Some schools will suspend students for using calculators on a math test; some force students to bring calculators to their tests. Some give out the questions before a test, while others expel students for distributing test questions. Some require students to collaborate or use online sources; some forbid it. It's arbitrary.

Just because the rules are different for different exams doesn't make cheating fluid.

[jdietrich]

Cheating is such a fluid concept anyway, and it's inconsistently applied. The Tour de France will kick you out for riding a motorbike; MotoGP forces you to ride a motorbike.

The rules are there to provide some semblance of a level playing field and to ensure that the relevant skills are being assessed. An elementary school arithmetic test is a pointless exercise if calculators are allowed; an undergraduate engineering test would be a farce if calculators weren't allowed.

[random3]

No, in 8th grade the teachers (and parents) are not that concerned that you you're not qualified for a job. They just need to make sure that you are able and willing to study by assessing your last (and first) 8 years of school.

At minimum they want you to be able to articulate a phrase and mostly to understand one and, who knows, maybe to have you try to make sure that you'll be able get critical thinking and hopefully not be a little manipulated, cheating prick that will vote an incompetent as a president just to prove a point to an unknown "enemy".

[ilogik]

I hated these exams as a kid, but thinking about it now, they do have a point.

The purpose of the exam is to show that you have a vocabulary, and you can understand and answer some questions about a text you're seeing for the first time.

This is important for a lot of jobs, and it isn't something you can google. Sure, you can google individual words, that is less useful if you're the one writing.