[biased_coin]

True story: One day, an assistant professor (and a first time teacher) came to class and announced that there would be a "surprise test" on so-and-so day. Not just that, the questions asked would be 5 out of 8 possible pre-announced questions.

On the day of the test, the professor wrote the questions on the board and then left the room. Almost every student in the class cheated. Some came with chits to copy from. Some copied from others. Legends though, they came with pre-written answer sheets for each of the 8 questions and attached answers for the 5 questions which were asked.

[maccard]

And in that case, (almost) everyone learns. The people who came with the pre written answer sheets studied, the people who wrote the chits studied, and the people who copied from others presumably learned _something_ in the process. Maybe some didn't, but that's always going to happen

[abdullahkhalids]

I can't agree with this viewpoint at all. If you take a viva of one of these students who came in with a pre-written answer sheet copied from a friend, a vast majority of them would straight up fail.

As TA and prof, I have seen cheaters copy word to word, spelling mistakes included, incorrect grammatical structures as is, basic mistakes like 6/2=2 untouched, because they are literally Ctrl-C Ctrl-V with their hands, with no brain involvement whatsoever.