Cheating at Chinese Universities

[tingbudong]

I didn't bother to do a thread search for this, I'm too inflamed right now.

I had my first mid-term examination at Nanjing Normal University.

Studying Chinese has been very difficult for me. I'm holding down a full-time job at a local Middle School (which I don't particularly like...to put it politically) to make ends meet.

The exam was two hours. I haven't been feeling well lately (stress, pressure...a combination of several other things) and I stalled out about 20 minutes in to the examination. This sort of thing has happened before to me, and I usually time-out for about 5 minutes to chill and pull myself together. It always works and I hit the exam hard with renewed vigour, usually with positive results.

While I was taking my five minutes, I glanced around the classroom. Out of my 14 classmates, about 8 were actively and blatantly participating in some form of cheating. They were either talking amongst themselves in their native language, comparing answers, or even coping answers off a neighbor. Aside from the occasionally 'shhhhh' my laoshi didn't seem to concerned.

This basically pushed me over the edge. I've been busting my ass, juggling a full-time and part time job, ontop of full time studies...only to come into an exam where equality should be sacred, yet it is ignored as if a social event. I don't have the strongest language skills in the class, nor do I have the same amount of avaliable study time as my peers, yet during an exam I fully expect to be given the opportunity to compete on a level playing field.

I said 'fu*k this'...rather loudly...gave everyone a scowl, grabbed my stuff and walked out (this 20 minutes in to the test). If this were a western university, half of you would be kicked out.

I've taught English here long enough to know how widespread cheating is in this country. But this is the Foreign Students Department. There should be at least a minimum.

I'm meeting with the dean later today. It is bullshit. I'm paying piles of coin for this?

[woliveri]

In my opinion I would care less what the others were doing. How does that affect you? I am going there to learn a language, what I learn depends on me and the time I put in and what I can retrieve from the teacher. This is not a competition with other people; it's a challenge of learning to and for you. I will be in China in February and if this happens it doesn't matter to me. What may matter is if the teacher marks my paper incorrectly and I can't argue the case. What the others do is of no consequence.

People who cheat only cheat themselves.

However, I don't know how they grade there. I mean, based on 100 points or do they grade on a curve. Still, though, it shouldn't matter because I would be working for a scale of 100 points.

Is my attitude incorrect?

[binbin]

I agree with woliveri. I hate cheaters too, but they will always exist and the best thing you can do is let it motivate you to study harder (which may not be possible based on your situation, but if that's the case, perhaps you should re-evaluate it anyways?)

I haven't been feeling well lately (stress, pressure...a combination of several other things) and I stalled out about 20 minutes in to the examination.

Sorry, obviously I don't know much about what you're going through, but based on your reaction (cursing, scowling, leaving) I think you should instead worry about whether you have to energy and patience to study Chinese full-time. If you're so stressed that it's affecting your performance at school, maybe you should take a break? If I had the privledge to study at a Chinese university, I couldn't care less about whether others chose to learn or waste their opportunity by cheating, and I certainly wouldn't be so disrepectful to everyone else even if they did cheat (it obviously didn't impact your testing since you didn't even notice them until you took your "break").

I said 'fu*k this'...rather loudly...gave everyone a scowl, grabbed my stuff and walked out (this 20 minutes in to the test). If this were a western university, half of you would be kicked out.

If this were a western university, you would be kicked out too.

Anyways, good luck with your studies and I hope things get better for you soon.

[Desmond]

Are you taking these courses to learn Mandarin, or to get a piece of paper in the end (or both?). If it's mostly for the former, then you'll have to realize that this cheating isn't a localized event, it's everywhere, and there's pretty much nothing you can do about it. In that sense, try not to let it anger you too much, and focus on what really matters: you learning Mandarin. So what if they "pass" the course by cheating? It has nothing to do with you.

If, however, you are doing this for the purpose of getting the piece of paper at the end and that's all that matters, then maybe you chould cheat yourself Seems easy enough to me.

[note: Children, cheating is bad! Don't take my advice to heart]

So why are you even competing with these people? They are nothing to you.

The main reason why I would be mad at them is if somehow the course was on a curve, and by them cheating, they cause you to fail. But chances are that isn't the case.

So you said the right thing: F*** them! Now forget about them. Learn Mandarin!

[yuet_sien]

I agree with Woliveri. People who cheat, cheat only on themselves.

But I do understand the feeling of Tingbudong. In my class there is a guy from the south of Europe, he just keeps hoping that his Mediteranean charm will help him to learn Chinese instead of studying. Maybe it worked for him during Elementry level, but it is very annoying at Intermediate level. If he shows up in class, he always slowing down the class because of asking really stupid (elementry) questions in English, not even trying it to do it in Chinese. One of the nice teachers tries to motivate him, but the rest of the teachers and the class don't take him serious, not anymore. He is cheating on himself, that's his problem. But I don't like it that he is wasting my time in class. We just had our midterms. I hope it is a wake up call for him. If not, it is not my problem. I came here to study Chinese, and I do my best. How others like to cheat on themselves is not my problem. Why stress about other peoples problem?

About cheating during exams, didn't you ever cheated during high school?

[Desmond]

Yes, you're totally right. Now that it's starting to affect everyone else in the class, I find it disrespectful.

I guess I'm just old and worn down from being the #1 keener in my Chinese class... I've pretty much written it off as being useful, and now 90%+ of the Mandarin I learn is on my own self-study. I hope this isn't the case for you, tingbudong, because then I'm not sure what you can do to mitigate that problem... I've never found a solution

[tingbudong]

Hey,

Thanks for all the replies.

You are right, I am here to learn Mandarin. I shouldn't care too much about the cheating. I guess it really has to do with my personal thoughts on cheating. I'm a pretty laid back fellow, but it's one of those things that I just don't tolerate. It really pisses me off when I see it happening (I once failed an entire class over it once) anywhere. No one has the right to cheat, and while it doesn't really affect me directly, I feel incredibly apathetic if I let it happen without rattling some heads.

Well, the piece of paper will be the HSK...eventually...but that's on my own. Actually, I never really thought much about what chunk of paper this school hands out...

Desmond, unfortunately, I am discovering that my time at school is becoming somewhat redundant. It was a good kick for awhile, but...

I think it is time to start looking into tutors and concentrating on self-studying.

[trevelyan]

I understand the frustration and don't think the behavior of the school is appropriate. I haven't been in a testing environment in China where cheating was that widespread. And its irrelevant whether testing is meaningful to a student -- the problem is the attitude of the invigilator/university towards the learning process, and the consequences of such a lax policy on the learning environment for students who actually do care about learning.

Through its complicity here, the university has effectively eliminated any expectations on students. This HAS to adversely affect classroom dynamics and sends a strong message that the university doesn't even take what it teachers seriously. I've also taught enough to know students who consider it acceptable to vocally trade answers during an exam aren't going to constitute a good study group.

Cheating may be widespread in China, but its not tingbudong's problem that his class is full of cheaters. Its the problem of the university in openly tolerating it, or not taking steps to mitigate the problem. It also reflects a deeper problem with the quality of education at the school. Why is the university testing the students if it means nothing? Couldn't they find a better use for the time for which the students are paying? Sounds like they're just babysitting.

So I'd be pissed off too. Tingbudong should keep his meeting with the Dean and complain as loudly as he can. If the school doesn't address his complaints, he should ask for his money back or for the school to transfer him to an institution that takes education seriously. Threaten to complain to the Ministry of Education. Nothing effective will happen before hell freezes over, but at the least he'll get some face-time for language practice and his complaints will probably push the institution to make more of an effort with his particular class.

[mind_wander]

I understand about this problem, now first off I did attend in US college in spring 2005, teaching Chinese II. I wonder how much is the extent so called "Cheating" because I only could take Chinese II because the college didn't offer Chinese III that I wanted in the US. I already had prior knowledge of Chinese I / II already , so I am ahead of the game. It was the matter of no choice, but I still wanted to fill in all those Chinese language holes I didn't actually got the chance to take. Plus all the help I got from all those chinese tv series speaking in Chinese Mandarin, slowly increases my further knowledge to read and memorize certain Chinese characters.

[wfujkramer]

understand that people are in this school for different reason. For example, I'm enrolled in university but I'm there only to work on my language and could care less about my grades, etc. Therefore, if I feel like going out with a bunch of chinese friends to play mahjong all night will benefit my language studies more than going to the test the next day, I'm going to make that decision.

But I find that the students who cheat are in the very opposite position - from speaking to a lot of my Korean friends I find that they HAVE to get their piece of paper from the school with their grades fom the university at home - - but they have absolutely no interest at all in learning the chinese language. Some experiences I have heard have been something to the effect of their program in international business (or whatever) requires them to go to china to study chiense for a semester, but the students themselves hate china, hate the chinese people, , hate the chinese food and hate the chinese language. They don't want to be here, so they're going to cheat.