Cheating in examinations: how common is it?

Today, I asked a small group of non-Singaporean Asians whether they had ever cheated in an exam. Refreshingly, the gave honest answers. Two out of three confessed that they had, in fact, cheated in an exam. I shall focus on what one of them said.

A Chinese mainlander had not only cheated in an exam, but had done so throughout her academic career at University. Not only had she cheated but she was positively enthusiastic about doing so: "It is SO exciting a feeling!", she gushed several times in the course of her account. She was thrilled to cheat.

She told of how, in her first year exams at University, "everybody cheated". Bizarrely, their cheating was a co-ordinated effort: they had devised a method of doing so that was moderately discreet (which I won't share, lest I provoke cheating by some of my readers!) - and ALL of them used the same method. One would have thought that the invigilators would have noticed that everyone in the room was wearing special clothes...but no, they didn't.

The following year, their cheating methods evolved. It involved an object which all had on their desks and which the rules of the exam did not expressly forbid from being brought in. However, this object was not what it seemed and it had been doctored to contain a lot of written information. Again, the whole year cheated in this way - and again, it was not noticed, despite the fact that everyone in the room had one of these objects on their desk.

Indeed, having listened to her account, the strangest thing of it is that no-one appeared to notice what they were doing. Perhaps, then, this is only an appearance and the academic staff are well aware of what is going on, but simply don't care.

"Why do you cheat?", I asked her with a judgement free tone.

"Because we have no choice."

"Why no choice?"

"Because if we fail, we would have to do the year again and pay the fees again and it is very expensive. Sometimes we won't be able to graduate."

So it was all about ensuring a pass, no matter what the method. Dishearteningly, she claimed that everyone in her year, at University in China was cheating. So, in that sense, every degree won, was falsely obtained. It makes me wonder, therefore, at the true level of skill - or lack thereof of all these students, when all of them felt that they had to cheat. Perhaps China's academic supremacy is a mirage of sorts - perhaps they are not as good as one might suppose.

In my experience, no one of any real talent needs either to cheat, or feels a need to do so. They know that their gift will take them through. These Chinese students didn't feel that - which leads me to question their talent.

It was sobering to watch her describe her experiences of cheating. Firstly, there was such detail in her accounts of the methods used that it was clear that she was telling the truth in having direct personal experience of the situation. Secondly, her enthusiasm for cheating was such that it was clear to me she would cheat in any and all situations in life, in which there was opportunity for gain and risk of being caught. She was a thrill seeker, and risk taker of the rule breaking kind. It gave her a "rush" to flirt with the danger of being caught doing something she shouldn't. It struck me that that kind of mind is not far from being a criminal by choice.

I have heard many accounts that cheating is common in China - but I hadn't known, until this conversation, that, in the view of these students, at least, that "everyone does it". How common is cheating in examinations in your culture or society, wherever you are? Is it an isolated problem or does it occur en masse? Comments please.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

The NUS Asian University ranking.

NUS has placed 10th among Asian universities in the latest ranking survey by QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), the company which provides the annual Times Higher Education - QS World University Rankings.

Local academics are unhappy about this, especially considering that the same company gave NUS a 4th place ranking in Asia, last year. NUS President Tan Chorh Chuan even said that the University was still trying to understand how their placement had come about.

For my part, there is no mystery to this at all. The answer lies in the change that has been made in the way the rankings are done. Up until last year, there was a "citations per faculty" category, in which NUS did well. A citation is when an academic makes an official reference to a paper written by another, in writing his/her own paper. It is a means of giving credit for work used or commented on. This year, however, this "citations per faculty" category has been broken down into two separate categories: "papers per faculty" and "citations per paper". Under this new schema, NUS received a perfect score for "papers per faculty"...however, and this is critical, it did NOT receive a good score for "citations per paper".

Now this is a very telling and quite damaging observation being made by QS. "Citations per paper" is a direct measurement of the quality and significance of a paper. If a paper makes a significant contribution or has a useful or interesting idea in it, it will be cited often. If, however, a paper is a largely a waste of, well, paper, it will either not be cited at all, or be cited rarely. That NUS fell down on "citations per paper" tells us one awkward fact about NUS - they may be producing a lot of papers, but the quality is just not there: many of their papers are of indifferent quality compared to that produced in the rest of Asia. Were that not so, they would not have secured a poor ranking in this intra-Asian comparison, in the area of "citations per paper".

It seems that NUS have not understood the idea of "quality over quantity". It is all very well flooding the world with large numbers of papers, but if those papers are not actually very good, there isn't much point to it.

NUS has fallen in the Asian rankings for a very clear reason: a measure of the quality of papers written has been introduced and, in this respect, NUS is not strong.

Rather than pretending to be amazed or puzzled by this assessment by QS, NUS should learn from what they are being told. They really need to work not on the quantity of research output but on making sure that the research was worth doing in the first place, and was well done, when done. Quality papers are what make the academic world sit up and take notice: not a deluge of mediocre ones.

There is no mileage in casting doubt on QS' methods or intentions - for they have previously ranked NUS highly. What has happened this time, is that QS have REFINED their measurements. This new survey, far from being, as local academics portray it, misleading or misconceived, is, in fact, likely to be a much more accurate picture of the true standing of NUS in the academic world. This is clear because the only substantial change in the way of measuring, is to introduce research quality into the picture. Previously, NUS had been rewarded for sheer quantity.

If NUS wants to be a truly world-beating University, it needs to start producing seminal work - work that changes the world. QS' ranking states quite clearly that that is not what NUS is presently doing - were it so, NUS would have shone not in the number of papers, but in their citations.

The funny thing is, I know how much Singaporeans love competitions and ranking tables. Now, that the means of ranking has changed, perhaps Singapore's Universities will change the way they go about their work, purely to get a better ranking. I wouldn't be surprised to see a creeping up of quality, simply out of sheer competitiveness.

We shall see.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Singaporean immigration: a modern comedy.

Singapore is becoming a modern comedy...the whole nation is just one big comic act. However, it is the sort of comedy that does groans, not laughter.

Today, we were having a meal out with the family. The restaurant had a mixed clientele of expats and locals. The atmosphere was good. The food was fine. The only worry was the staff. They were mainly Chinese mainlanders. Now, before you jump to conclusions about the intention of my remark, I would like to say that this is not about race: it is about language.

Ordering a drink should be the simplest thing in the world. However, staffing the restaurant with PRCs who would find difficulty saying: "Yes" or "No", doesn't help much.

"Drinks.", said the slenderest of slender girls from China.

"We'll have...one, two, three, green teas, please." began my wife.

The puzzled look from the waitress told us that there had been far too many words.

"Green tea. Three." repeated my wife rather slower and more carefully.

"Green tea.", she repeated, seeming very uncertain of herself.

"Yes."

"One grass jelly.", I asked.

She stared at me in the kind of silence that told me that a) she hadn't understood me. b) she didn't have enough English to tell me that she hadn't understood me.

"Grass Jelly." I repeated, with an assumed patience. "Grass...jelly..."

"Grass jelly." she echoed, getting the words right, and convincing me, for a moment that she had understood.

She went away.

We chatted.

She came back with a stack of drinks and a smile that she had managed to meet our order.

There they were: three green teas...and a Cherry Lemonade.

She pointed at the Cherry Lemonade in a hopeful way, making it clear to me that she had had absolutely no idea what "grass jelly" was and had simply picked a drink at random in the vain hope that she would get it right by chance.

"No.", I said, debating whether or not to express my irritation. "Grass Jelly. That is not grass jelly."

She gave me the silent look shared by all who don't speak the language that they are presently being required to speak. Dealing with her was like dealing with a mute: she had zero ability either to speak or understand English.

I found someone sighing very close by. It was, in fact, me.

I rose then and walked past her into the restaurant area, proper, walked up to the fridge from which she had taken the drinks, reached in and took out a Grass Jelly drink. She looked very carefully at what I had taken and where it had come from. I repeated the words: "Grass Jelly", closed the door, walked out of her work area and back to my seat.

Now, I have taken the time to describe one moment of incomprehension, in Singapore, to make a point. To get an idea of what it is actually like living in a country in which many of the service staff - who once had been speakers of English, or at least, Singlish - have now been replaced by mute Chinese mainlanders - mute in the sense that they basically speak no English at all - you just have to imagine this one encounter with incomprehension multiplied so that it encompasses a good fraction of all encounters with service staff. Imagine a country, an English speaking country, in which everywhere you go there are service staff who just cannot understand you, cannot be understood and to whom it is a struggle to communicate anything at all. That is the modern comedy of Singapore. It is a comedy because the employers here think that they are being clever by hiring Chinese PRCs on wages locals would never work for. They are not being clever - they are destroying the reputation of their businesses - because it is an absolute nightmare to get served in such places.

I can see Singapore throwing away much that made it a good place to be, in the quest for ever cheaper workers. What happens when ALL service staff are Chinese PRCs, NONE of whom speak English? What sort of place would Singapore be then? Who could stand it? Will we all have to speak to them in Chinese? Is Singapore going to lose its facility with English?

I tire of it. I tire of trying to talk to PRC staff who haven't got the first idea of what I am trying to say - even if I speak with very simple words and very slowly. I am not alone. Everyone around me is complaining of the influx of PRC staff. Yet, still it goes on, still they come.

I wonder how long it will be before companies realize that they are destroying themselves by employing all this cheap, foreign - but non-English speaking - labour? Will they realize before it is too late?

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Da Vinci, The Genius, exhibition, Science Centre, Singapore.

Leonardo Da Vinci is coming to Singapore. More precisely, the "Da Vinci, the Genius" exhibition is opening on the 16th May 2009 at the Science Centre. When I heard this news, I was both surprised and unsurprised. I shall explain.

I was surprised because I had suggested just such an exhibition to the Singaporean arts authorities a few years ago and got snubbed. I was unsurprised because I had suggested just such an exhibition to the Singaporean arts authorities a few years ago - and got snubbed.

The story is a curious one. Some gentlemen emailed me out the blue, with a project to build some of Leonardo Da Vinci's wonderful machines and exhibit them around the world: could I help in bringing it to Singapore, they asked me?

Now, I wondered, too, why they had asked me...but, nevertheless I did contact some people in Singapore regarding whether they would be interested in an exhibition of the work of Leonardo Da Vinci. I duly had a meeting with some arts people at the National Museum. To cut a short conversation even shorter, they said that Leonardo Da Vinci was not for them (perhaps he was just not enough of an artist, to interest representatives of Singapore's government art body?) - however, they suggested that I should try the Singapore Science Centre. Ah. Clearly, they thought Leonardo Da Vinci more of a scientist, than an artist, and did not want him in the Art Museum, as I had proposed.

There was a problem in their suggestion. I was already in contact with the Science Centre regarding my son, Ainan. In fact, the person I was supposedly in contact with was in charge of events - so I presume, he would, in fact, have been just the right person to contact regarding Leonardo Da Vinci. That, however, was the problem. You see, he already wasn't replying to my emails and phone calls, regarding the matter of my son. I had held a meeting with him and some of his colleagues and many big promises were made and hopes raised. Yet, when I wrote to realize some of those hopes, my mails were just ignored. I wrote quite a few times and called quite a few times - but only ever got silence.

Thus, I had a difficulty with the suggestion that I should contact the Science Centre, since the very man who would be responsible for setting up a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition there, had I brought it to him, is the very man who was busily ignoring my attempts at contact. Therefore, I did what I thought most appropriate: I did nothing further to raise the issue of a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition in Singapore.

Surprise, surprise...several years later, they have brought in just such an exhibition. I am left to wonder whether the people at the National Museum queried the Science Centre people about whether I had contacted them...and then set the whole thing in motion themselves.

Anyway, it is good that a Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition is finally coming to Singapore - even if only readers of this blog will know that I made just such a proposal to the arts authorities several years ago. It is possible that that proposal is what has led to this exhibition, however dilatorily. I suppose I will never know...

Nevertheless, I shall make a point of attending the exhibition when it opens. It is pleasing to think that people still care about the thinking of a man who lived 500 years ago. All hope is not lost in Man, when some still appreciate those who have been creative, in the past.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

Happy Mother's Day, All, in Singapore.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mums in Singapore. I am unsure if Singapore celebrates the same day as other nations, do...but if so, Happy Mother's Day elsewhere, too.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)