44 Most Creative Cheating Methods That Surprised Teachers

My girlfriend works for a dental exam company which are obviously super high stakes exams. Since the exams are worldwide they have actually found people from one time zone paying people from another time zone to email questions to them right before the exam starts.

A classmate was printing the answers on his paper in a veeeerry pale grey so that it barely can be seen. Still got caught because the teacher noticed him reading an empty sheet.

In elementary/middle school we had to write a paragraph each week featuring all the vocabulary words included in that unit. One clever kid wrote something along these lines:

“One day kid’s name had to write a paragraph for English class. He sat down, picked up a pen and used these words in it: proceeds to list out all the words.”

The teacher only let it go once because she never saw that happen until then.

In a lot of my college courses I wasn't allowed to use anything higher than a TI84. So I took the guts of my TI89 and swapped it into my TI84. Never got caught.

When I was in high school I bought a pen where each time you clicked the message inside would change. I took it apart and was able to tape paper over the tube and fit things that I would need to help me on some quizzes and tests.

I have not tried this method yet and I do not think anyone did but there is a certain level of hertz in sound that only people below a certain age can hear, there are devices who play that kind of sound so if the teacher is old she/he wont hear the sound, using that the students can communicate with morse code and such. I thought about this and this is not very practical or useful but its very creative so i thought sharing my idea.

Used a text file on one of the original iPods. Teacher was fine with "listening to music" during tests. Made my life so much easier lol.

Writing down math formulas and putting them in the instructions insert of the calculator.

More recently, kids will put the answers on their smart watches. It's to the point where I make all students removes their watches and place them on the classroom counter before the test starts.

I can name the worst, and I’ve definitely shared it before, but it wasn’t my student, it was a friend’s.

She’d downloaded a worksheet for the kids to do while she was in a meeting of some sort. Kids found the worksheet’s answer sheet online and proceeded to copy the answers. Last answer said “student responses will vary.” And that’s what one kid wrote as his answer.

Other times you’ll see one kid misspells something or gets an answer wrong, and everyone who copied from him has the same error.

Physics professor posted the answers to the homework online after it was due. Thing was, he was just making the existing pages visible and the URLs followed a simple and predictable format. If you knew the URL you could look at it before it was made public.

http://fakeaddress.physics.edu/physics/HomeWork001 002 003, etc...

I used my programmable calculator to write a program for every possible math/physics question that gave me every step of the problem solving sequence along the way. They always said show your work...

So, as a teacher the smartest way I "cheat" is by giving the kids a notecard and telling them they can put whatever cheat sheet stuff on there they want. It tricks them into actually studying for their math tests.

Also a pro tip from a math teacher; most students don't know how to study for math and this is why they struggle. Think of studying math like practicing an instrument. You need to "learn a piece" by practicing multiple problems from skill set. If you aren't practicing at least 8 - 18 problems at least every day to two days then you're never going to get past the little mistakes and missteps which have probably plagued you.

I'm not a teacher, but i heard a story from my friend of a teacher who caught two kids cheating through morse code by blinking.

When my dad was in high school, he used to write out the answers on a piece of paper and tape them to the ceiling. Before the test, he and his friends would pretend to pray by looking up and putting their hands together. Would also tape the answers next to the pencil sharpener. Teacher never caught on, and thought it was heartwarming how my dad and his friends would pray together before a test.

My sister in law is a teaching assistant at her kids school. Her youngest daughter (My niece) was 7 at the time. She stole the test the night before, pretended it was homework and had her mom "help her with her homework" then sneaked the answers in to the test.

One of the other kids caught her, let the teacher know and my SIL, who was overseeing test conditions, died inside when she realised it was the homework sheet that she'd filled out.

A classmate broke the screen and keyboard of his calculator and hid his cellphone in it, so it couldn't be seen from the teacher's position. The teacher approached him from behind and caught him tho.

I had class in the AM with a kid who was a TA for my physics class the afternoon before (weird period system at my old school). He would tell me the answers to app tests he had graded the day before and I would write them in black ink on the side of the sole of my black boots. I would then sit with my leg bent with my foot on my knee and read the answers during the test. You couldn't see them unless the light hit the ink just right. After the test I would just lick my finger and smudge the answers out.

Not a teacher but here are the methods I used back in the day:

I wrote formulas on those pens that had roll out calendars. Almost got caught when I accidentally lost my grip and the calendar rolled back in the pen in such a loud way that my classmates looked at me.

I also wrote formulas on my clothes and body, the hem of my shirt and the part of my legs that gets covered by a sock.

I put a couple of chapters on the notebook app on the old Blackberry. I did this by hand which involved me copying straight from the book to my phone.

Put answers in the song lyrics in my iPod. But I didn't do this frequently, I forgot why, it was either because my school had cracked down on technology (phones, iPods, laptops) or I just had a hard time scrolling with the click wheel.

We'd straight up swap papers. I think I only did it during Trig because during exams we were arranged alphabetically and I was seated next to this dude who was really good at math. I was afraid of doing this but the fact that we were so close to each other made it less scary so I did it.

The only time I got caught was when this new teacher noticed that I kept taking out my handkerchief which had a 1x1 inch piece of paper that had some formulas. In hindsight, if I pulled a bit of sleight of hand I would've never been caught. The funny thing is, the year before, I cheated on a test with two letter sized papers.

As a student, we used to wear uniforms and leather shoes. As mine's a beater pair, i usually write on them with black ink pens. And when tests came, i angle it just enough to be seen by sunlight. Also, the edges of our uniform(button down shirts) are filled with formulas.

Music students using music sheets as answers sheet for/from other student. Notes equals the same as the answer for Scranton tests