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....I'm pretty sure I answered the question and then tromped on the horse carcass a few times, so I'm out of this one

Having designed cheat-proof systems for classroom education, I can say that there are a few obstacles.

1) It's extremely difficult. Basically, preventing people from cheating requires constant observation. Especially in the age of smart phones, this is incredibly difficult. It took three of us to effectively manage a class of 75 people during in-class assignments and exams.

2) It's demoralizing. These systems send a clear message: "We do not trust you." It's a horrible message to send to those who really do approach their lives with integrity. It can also be a self-fulfilling prophecy - expect someone to cheat, and they will.

3) It acknowledges that cheating is part of the culture. And once cheating is part of the regular culture, people start to use that as justification for cheating. We've actually seen that in this thread: "Everyone else is, so I have to in order to not look stupid."

4) Even in auditions, it's very difficult. Let's say two pianists play Beethoven Op. 10#2 at roughly the same level of proficiency. It's entirely possible that for Pianist #1, this is the first Beethoven sonata he's learned, and he's been playing it for two years. He can't sight-read at all, doesn't have a disciplined practice schedule, has a weak theory background, and his social skills are lacking. But for Pianist #2, this is his 3rd Beethoven sonata, he has a well-rounded repertoire, good theory skills, is self-directed when it comes to practicing, and he's a joy to work with. He practices more efficiently, and is able to accomplish in 2 hours what the other accomplishes in 3.

But the audition committee only hears Beethoven Op. 10/2 on one day. It's entirely possible that Pianist #1 had a good night's sleep and played well. He also had a new suit and looked very "put together." But Pianist #2 had a bad flight, decided to skip ironing his clothes to grab an extra 30 minutes of sleep because he didn't get in until 2am, and his audition time was right after lunch.

So yes, auditions are "honest" in that a person can't fake good technique or musicianship, but auditions paint a very incomplete picture of a person's development. And when you're thinking about a career in music, how well you play is only a part of what will make you successful.

In the context of the original question where the arguments of life and death situations were not implied, it is also hard for me to understand the precept that there are varying degrees of cheating, some of which seem to be acceptable to some while others are not;

But I also believe in moral absolutes and absolute truth (and thus, the converse). I don't do 'fuzzy' on personal ethics. There are surprisingly few grey areas when it really gets down to it, but seemingly infinite things people will try to justify. I don't personally live that way if I can at all help it,.

It is the system that give people opportunity to lie.

Blah, blah, blah! Liars create their own opportunities. I'm so sick of hearing people come up with excuses for this, that and the other! It's the systems fault...it's my parents fault...it's societies fault. B.S.!!!!! It's YOUR fault!

As a poor, penniless music student, didn't you sign an agreement of academic honesty/integrity at that college?

If discovered, it could jeopardize both of you when you wish to graduate.

IMHO, you have an interest in this female student that goes beyond writing a paper.

Edited to add: "Don't compromise yourself." Janis Joplin

I Agree SO MUCH with this! I'm so tired of all the complaint and the ability of a lot of people to skip the personal responsibility. They just feel it's someone elses' fault and nobody seems to feel the need to better themselves!

You do not know how to write good questions then. If you write questions requiring a thorough understanding of a certain subject matter, it is hard to cheat. Even an open book exam will become very difficult.

You need only one person to ensure none of the students work together. There are several ways to reduce the chance for them to work together, (1)increase the numbers of questions so that everybody will under pressure to finish their test. Therefore, the good students have no time to help others. (2) Use exactly the same questions, but scramble the numbers, so that there will be less chance that the students who sit next to each other will have the same sequence of questions. It is hard to work together if the sequence of the questions is not the same.

About the audition, it is very unlikely people who are lacking in all aspects of music like what you described will be able to beat your Pianist No.2 who has well rounded musical knowledge.

Maybe.... but this is something I'm rather uneasy about. It's easy to say 'don't blame the system' when I'm one of those people whom 'the system' most favours -- white, middle-class professionals from white, middle-class families.

I used to teach in colleges in the slum areas of North London (you know, where the riots were :/), and many of the students I dealt with had to fight 'the system' all the way. Often they were extremely poor black and asian people, often from first-generation immigrant families. They frequently didn't speak English all that well, and had no family history of education beyond primary school. Frequently they didn't understand English culture and the (mostly English, white, middle-class) staff frequently didn't understand them. They didn't know or understand many of the unwritten conventions about how educational works in the UK. They didn't, and couldn't, use middle-class professional language in their written work, and this created a bad impression among people who have a dogmatic idea about what academic writing should like like. And so on.

And yet some of these folks flogged themselves into the ground to get an education. I had students who would study all day and then work all night. I had students bring their young families to classes because, well, because what else would they do with them? Some had families who were still living in the old country, in conditions of war and famine.

It must have been ten times harder for some of these people to get along in education than it was for me, and will be (I hope) for my children. Many of them failed; many blamed the system. But if you've worked and worked and worked and still failed, what else do you blame?

If I have to have brain surgery I think I'm hoping that the brain surgeon got a 97 on his papers & exams & not a 67!!!!

And I'm sure hoping he didn't "cheat"!

It sounds like you're talking about essay questions(otherwise the difficulty is irrelevant in terms of cheating). But teachers have limited time to grade papers so tests that are exclusively essay questions are highly impractical.

Although scrambling the order of questions may help and I've known a few teachers that did that, this poses other problems. There are four answer keys to make out to start with. There still may be a student with the same version within eyesight of a student who wants to cheat. Your suggestion making the test so long that the students will be under greater pressure to finish would result in some students not finishing the test.

Your reply ignored much of what Kreisler said about other conditions that might cause a student to do a poor audition.

As a person who was involved in medical education for some years, I have to say that I would have been impressed with a medical student who got 67% in one of my exams, and gobsmacked if anybody got 97%. The pass mark for university medical exams was 40-50%, as it was for most other subjects.

You might like to thing about that as you're preparing yourself for surgery

Blah, blah, blah! Liars create their own opportunities. I'm so sick of hearing people come up with excuses for this, that and the other! It's the systems fault...it's my parents fault...it's societies fault. B.S.!!!!! It's YOUR fault!