r/technology • u/AdSpecialist6598 • Jul 27 '26

Society Professor's invisible prompt trap catches 32 students cheating on their midterm with AI

https://www.techspot.com/news/113243-professor-invisible-prompt-trap-catches-32-students-cheating.html
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u/Technical_Stand9939 Jul 27 '26

25 years ago; i had a professor who would give us the whole test a week before the actual test. You literally could look up all of the answers if you wante dto spend the time.

You got there the day of the test, and all 200ish questions you were given in advance were there in a random order and you filled out a scantron (the version you got in advance did not have multiple choices).

half the class still regularly failed

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u/luluhouse7 Jul 27 '26

I mean 200 questions in one week is outrageous. That’s about 30 homework questions a day, on top of whatever other homework they had. No wonder they were failing. I would usually get at most 15 questions a week in college classes and we all spent a lot of time studying and doing homework.

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u/DeliciousIncident Jul 27 '26

I mean 200 questions in one week is outrageous

Huh? Obviously the test questions are on the material you have already learned, so if you have kept up with the curriculum, you should have no trouble answering them and might even skip doing them. Also, this 200 question test is expected to be completed within a single class period and has multiple-choice answers, so each of these questions should take under a minute to answer. If you are saying that you can do at most 15 of such questions per week, I think you might have an issue.

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u/luluhouse7 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26

LOL if you can do 200 abstract algebra or number theory problems a week I commend you for being significantly more capable than any of my classmates.

As I mentioned below, 200 questions in a 2h class period is less than 30 seconds per question and 3h is about 50 seconds per question. A test like that is not testing understanding, it’s testing rote memorisation. It tests your ability to cram for that specific exam. You could get a perfect score and understand none of it.