Angel, I've never see a 'Brain Dump' site that you might be referring to
so I can't comment on that. But I know there are many kinds of exams
for which there exist study materials, sample questions from old exams,
etc., that sometimes are even recommended by the people who create the
real exams. As long as nobody's trafficking in current questions it's
not cheating.
'In University' (you must be not from the US) I never once took an exam
that I had any expectation had exactly the same questions on it as a
prior exam. Professors always ask new questions for each exam, or at
least reword them so students can't simply memorize answers from an
earlier exam and cheat that way. The only few exceptions are
standardized tests like SATs used for college entrance screening, for
which the questions are the same for a long time and are therefore
guarded closely against the kind of cheating that the CF developer's
exam is vulnerable to for the same reason.
In college of course people study from old exams to get some kind of
idea about what to expect on the next exam. Enlightened professors
sometimes make old exams available. A very enlightened graduate
department I was in (Physiology, UC Davis) even maintained collections
of old exams in the library that students could check out, and they were
encouraged to by the professors. This made the playing field level for
everyone and was very constructive. The professors took them into
account so that they never re-used old questions exactly as they had
appeared on previous exams. Similarly, there are books of sample (old)
SAT questions that many people use to study from, but these never
contain the questions for the current exam. However, in no case is it
considered 'not cheating' to traffic in specific questions and/or
answers for a current exam (which is what we're talking about with the
CF certification exam), whether it's the SAT or any college exam. And
yes, anybody who does THAT is definitely 'cheapening' the efforts of the
honest test-takers. That's similar to buying a term paper from one of
those low-life services that sells them to cheaters.
The fellow who emailed me didn't ask 'was it hard or was it easy', he is
clearly looking for clueless people to feed him specific questions from
the CF certification exam. Thats an attempt to cheat, pure and simple.
Regards,
Karl Simanonok
Original Message:
============
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2000 19:41:05 -0300
From: "Angel Stewart" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: "Need your help desperately..."
Message-ID: <00b601c00252$e7eb3860$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Ehhmm..
You think that looking at "Brain dump" sites is "Cheating" and diluting
the
worth of the ACPP exam?
In University..did you ever go through Past Papers for the courses you
were
doing?
Or ask the people that have done the exam before what sort of questions
came..
was it hard..
was it easy..
what should be you're focus in the exam..things you should watch out for
etc.??
Do you think that people who did that were "cheapening" their University
exams?
Do you think they were cheating?
Just curious.
-Gel
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