Ernest Gomez | Realizing that it's all in your head

When I arrived at Penn, the concept of a cheat sheet was a dream come true. In high school I had to learn material - here I get to write it down on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper and put my brain on cruise control during the exam, right?

Wrong.

Homer recited The Odyssey from beginning to end by heart. Today college students throw a tantrum when a professor refuses to give them a list of ten equations during a midterm.

A 1979 study by Dorsel and Cundiff published in the Journal of Experimental Education reported poorer student performance in exams when a cheat sheet was "made and not used, compared to when it was made and used, not made or made with the knowledge that it could not be used during testing."

The data suggests that using a cheat sheet may correlate with developing mental dependence. If students need cheat sheets to recall their personal knowledge during an exam, they won't remember their course material after they graduate.

The reason for allowing cheat sheets is understandable: professors want to teach, not punish. Cheat sheets allow professors and their assistants to minimize surveillance duties during exams.

And others also defend cheat sheets by arguing that they represent the real world, since information is readily available in books and the Internet.

But many fields such as business, law and medicine actually value knowledge; credibility is built through minimal use of references. Knowing facts by heart can make the difference between bar exam failure and a seat in the Supreme Court.

Giving a student a cheat sheet is like giving Terrell Owens a Segway so he can ride it 40 yards down the field and drop a pass. It is facilitation of failure.

If students do not understand course material, cheat sheets cannot always save them. If Owens cannot catch a pass, a Segway will not be a panacea for his incompetence. In both situations, someone loses out on a valuable opportunity for exercise.

Maybe professors have become too lazy to enforce academic integrity. Perhaps we are unaware of a conspiracy plotted by an unholy alliance between the University and the paper industry.

Regardless of its cause, the "cheat sheet" culture extends beyond academics.

I will never forget sitting down with my roommate sophomore year and helping him prepare for a date. Not only did he need a list of conversation starters for the dinner table; he needed a detailed analysis of the girl's Facebook profile before taking her out.

Pathetic? Yes. Pointless? Not at all.

My roommate and I learned two important lessons. First, when a West-Coast girl says she likes "romantic walks on the beach," the Jersey shore will not suffice. Second, obsession with preparedness can severely inhibit one's personal development.

Canned conversation starters are much like the cheat sheets, lucky socks and four-leaf clovers that compel individuals to externalize their source of success and failure. I can admit to blaming a cheat sheet for a sub-par performance on an exam, and I doubt that I am alone.

Bioengineering Professor Kenneth Foster explained that "Your benefit in the long run comes from having grappled with the material... It is the process that counts, not how much stuff you can push into short term memory for an exam, so I don't feel strongly about cheat sheets."

Cheat sheets discourage "grappling" with course content. If cheat sheets were eliminated, students would have more incentive to learn material in-depth and to manage time more efficiently.

The most practical solution would come from the instructor end by disallowing cheat sheets during exams, but no professor wants to ruin a student's future by reporting an academic integrity violation.

Nonetheless, a potential cheater shouldn't be protected at the cost of everyone's educational experience. Penn's reputation may even suffer if a student with cheating tendencies is caught being unethical in graduate school, Wall Street or academia. The administration should help professors find ways to assess performance without cheat sheets.

Dr. Foster noted that "two weeks after finishing a course, you will have forgotten 90 percent of the material."

I agree, but I believe the University should fight for every last fraction of a percent of information that its students remember - it could make the difference between an average college education and a Penn education.

Ernest Gomez is an Engineering and Wharton junior from Beverly Hill, Calif. His e-mail address is gomez@dailypennsylvanian.com. Please, Call Me Ted appears on alternate Tuesdays.

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