A Defense of Samplex

An open secret in the college, it has been passed from batch to batch, under different names for stealth. Its manner of acquisition consists of cooperation within the batch involving discreetness, memory, and exam questions. Its purpose is to help students study for exams. Since our professors, who were once students like us, know about its existence anyway, the concealment strikes me strange. Accompanied by this secrecy is some individuals' condemnation of the system in question as morally impermissible, myself once included.



Why the fuzz? It's supposedly a violation of school rules and regulations. The question is which one? Surely, they claim it's the one on cheating.

After reviewing all resources available to myself on the University and College's Rules and Regulations, this is all I gathered from SECTION 2 in Student Guide 2010 Specific Misconduct, or SECTION 2 in Rules and Regulations in Student Conduct and Discipline, or CHAPTER 76 General Provisions ARTICLE 456 in the UP System Code of 2006:

A student shall be subject to disciplinary action for any of the following acts: 

(a) Any form of cheating in examinations or any act of dishonesty in relation to his studies; 

Cheating or acts of dishonesty are undefined and are instead subject to the opinion of the Chancellor (Chapter 77 Article 463 of the UP System Code, or Section 25 of both Student Guide 2010 and Rules and Regulations in SC and D).

There are several methods of cheating in exams. I've browsed university websites on what they considered part of this. They have more elaborate criteria for it. It's basically what the media portray: getting a copy of the exam one is about to take, helping fellow exam-takers answer that exam, copying off another's exam, sneaking kodigos to look at while taking the exams, sneaking to the faculty office to change one's answer, leaking the contents of the exam to those taking the same exam. . . those kinds of things that, to borrow from Kant, defeat the purpose of exam-taking.

Samplex is not among these things, I hold. First, it is not a copy of the same exam to be given the next batch of students (although there have been said to be exceptions in second year), but a copy of the previous exam taken by the prior batch of students. Albeit, admittedly, there are items that repeatedly come out in the exams, there is no way for the students to know which of those they are. The exams are supposed to be different every year, while testing for the same knowledge.

Second, the copy is acquired not prior the exam but after. Most subjects even hold feedback sessions wherein the answers to the questions are presented, in order to account for corrections and there have been a number of corrections. Sometimes, the department would post an answer key so that we would have an idea if we passed or failed, even before the official results are released. The answer key consists of only letters or words that correspond to the answers, thus assuming that we have a copy of our answers. In fact, we are sometimes provided with an extra sheet so that we could have a copy of our answers for our own checking.

There is only one subject that does not release answers after exams because the course coordinator knows about samplex and does not support the creation of it. Which is a shame because it is an essential part of learning to be able to check whether one answered the item right. According to studies I've read on effective methods of studying, knowing how one got an item wrong helps in remembering the right answer. In short, one learns from one's mistakes.

Third, samplex serves as a review material, not a kodigo. It is a collective effort of a batch to create reviewers, since the departments do not distribute sample exams. But this department prerogative is arbitrary, and not universally practiced, as other colleges in the university let the students keep a copy of their exams. It's just like the NMAT reviewers CEM, the institute in charge of NMAT, distributes for a fee, with items that often come out in the actual exam. Only, samplex is free, and unofficial. Some course coordinators support samplex, as they have even directly suggested that I study them to pass.

Hence, I argue that samplex is acceptable.