Internet Obsessed with Teacher’s Way of Stopping Students Cheating on Test

Internet users have praised a teacher’s unconventional way of preventing students from cheating on a test, all with the help of ChatGPT.

In a now viral Reddit post, user Jake_Corona explained the difficulties he’d been having with students “blatantly copying their neighbor’s multiple choice quizzes.” The English teacher did what he could to perturb the freshmen students, aged 15, from cheating, but they would “play dumb” and get offended when questioned.

Cheating has always been something that u/Jake_Corona despised, telling Newsweek that he “felt frustrated” about certain students trying to cut corners to get ahead.

“I was upset for the students that made honest attempts to learn something from my class, while others would resort to cheating,” he said. “It was even more upsetting that if I called a student out, I would be gaslit and they would act like I was insane for suspecting them of cheating.”

As a result, the ninth grade teacher came up with a solution by running the multiple-choice quiz through the OpenAI generative chatbot, ChatGPT. The instruction was to “generate as many different versions as possible” of the quiz. The 25 questions were all identical and in the same order, however the multiple-choice responses were ordered differently in each test.

By making 24 versions of the quiz, the teacher was able to ensure that anyone who tried to cheat got their comeuppance. Although, it wouldn’t have affected any students who simply got on with the quiz by themselves.

Afterwards, he wrote on Reddit: “The look of absolute confusion when the cheaters failed miserably while the few students who tried it on their own got decent grades was fun to see. You could tell they wanted to argue because their neighbor had the ‘same form’ but a better grade, but that would mean having to cop to the cheating.”

Due to every test being in a different order, u/Jake_Corona had to grade them one at a time by hand. Fortunately, he said it didn’t take too long to complete them all.

“I think three or four of the usual suspects per class still cheated. One girl missed 11 straight answers, which I assume was due to copying a neighbor,” u/Jake_Corona told Newsweek.

He continued: “While AI can certainly be abused by students, it can also be used ethically to improve education. I have it make a list of recommended creative activities for students to show mastery of certain skills so my lessons don’t become stale. Schools are quickly adapting to the use of AI, and people need to understand that it’s not inherently evil.”

While AI certainly isn’t foolproof and can’t replicate the knowledge of actual teachers, it can be a useful time-saving tool. Dr. Shari Camhi, superintendent of Baldwin Union Free School District in Baldwin, New York, and 2022-23 president of the National School Superintendents Association, praises the use of AI to prevent cheating.

Camhi told Newsweek that cheating stems from “fear, unpreparedness, or lack of understanding” in most cases. So in her view, a system that prevents the ability to cheat altogether is better than punitive measures taken as a result of it being done.

She said: “Most underestimate the daunting, albeit wonderful, task of being an educator. We all became teachers because we love children, we love to nurture them and bring life to their understanding of new ideas and knowledge. If we can take away some of the drudgery of the rote tasks, it’s a good idea.”

Cheating is much harder to do when assessments require creativity and expect students to demonstrate their understanding. Camhi believes that authentic assessments include comprehensive questions that necessitate a capacity “to go deep into learning”—unlike multiple choice.

“Multiple choice is a memory driven exercise easily answered in a Google search. A good performance-based assessment requires knowledge, creativity and an ability to demonstrate understanding. Chat GPT is, as of yet, unable to do this on demand and live, in person,” Camhi said.

The Online Response

The teacher posted on Reddit about his unusual technique on May 27, and it’s already gone viral with over 65,000 views and 3,200 comments at the time of writing.

The response is beyond anything he expected, but he hopes it will highlight the realties of being a teacher in 2025.

Indeed, many internet users have hailed his ingenuity to catch out potential cheaters.

One comment reads: “I think your solution was amazing, well done.”

Another Reddit user wrote: “That is how you turn multiple choice to multiple oops.”

Another person added: “This actually sounds like a useful way to use AI. Congrats on your inventiveness and hopefully your students will start to realize cheaters don’t prosper.”

While one commenter replied: “This is great! I’m sure the satisfaction of catching the cheaters made hand-grading almost enjoyable!”

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