Google Searches For 'Java' Spiked During Friday's Online AP CS Exam 25
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's AP Exams — a passing score on which earns high school students college credit — are open book/open note and taken from home. So it's no surprise that Google Trends registered a spike in searches for 'Java' during Friday afternoon's AP CS A exam (more detailed exam day chart) as students scrambled to solve the two Java programming questions that made up this year's abbreviated 45-minute AP Computer Science A exam.
Looking up answers online isn't banned, but a College Board video recommends against it, saying "the information won't be helpful." Similar spikes in exam content-related searches during testing times have also been observed for other AP subjects. The end-of-year AP exam for the "more approachable" AP Computer Science Principles course was canceled for 2020, although it was to have counted for 60% of AP CSP students' scores.
Looking up answers online isn't banned, but a College Board video recommends against it, saying "the information won't be helpful." Similar spikes in exam content-related searches during testing times have also been observed for other AP subjects. The end-of-year AP exam for the "more approachable" AP Computer Science Principles course was canceled for 2020, although it was to have counted for 60% of AP CSP students' scores.
Hm (Score:2)
Pretty sure the way professionals cheat is by having someone (including parents) help them, not by googling. We found that out last year during the cheating scandal.
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Defiinitely, you just gotta want it bad enough [washingtonpost.com].
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The cheating in India happened because the stakes are so high.
The test score are the primary determinant of whether a student goes to college.
Many regions of India have a sex-ratio skew worse than China. There are millions of "missing girls". If a male student does poorly on the exams, he has no hope of going to college, his value on the Indian marriage market will plummet, he will never find a wife or have a family, and his parents will never have grandchildren.
Literally everything is at stake.
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Would be interesting to see stats on Discord use, or whatever it is the kids use these days.
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I first heard about AP when I was in grad school. At that time we only considered it an honors class. Not it seems mandatory, at least to some people. I don't understand the concept of cheating in an honors class, since it doesn't get you anything, except maybe getting the parents off your back.
Realistic (Score:1)
Obviously ... (Score:2)
Google Searches For 'Java' Spiked During Friday's Online AP CS Exam
They were just searching for ways to get some exotic coffee delivered during the exam to help them focus.
45 minutes to wade through millions of results! (Score:2)
I can only imagine that unless you already know what the problem is you're trying to solve, you're going to have a really bad time just searching for generic "java" queries.
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Reddit user etnguyen03 charted spikes for some more specific Java-related searches [reddit.com], including ArrayList, the use of which was apparently required by one of the AP CS A exam problems [reddit.com].
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Much easier to look at the docs for a class definition than searching for code to cut and paste although the latter seem very popular nowadays. Why? why? :)
Google "javadoc ArrayList"
First result:
https://docs.oracle.com/javase... [oracle.com]
Even faster, start by installing the javadoc locally before the exam! I tell that to my developer but they often reply "I don't need to install javadoc locally, my IDE autocompletes for me and shows me the parameters"! Oh well, I guess I am old school :)
More seriously, read the javad
So do it like Algeria (Score:2)
Each year, for the exams, the whole internet gets shut down.
No shit.
https://www.theguardian.com/wo... [theguardian.com]
If it were my test, I wouldn't care. (Score:2)
If you didn't prepare and you're on the clock for a test, the library of congress, Google and 5 library assistants at your disposal won't help you. If, however, you know the correct phrases to Google an answer and can come up with the right one despite not having an active test environment at hand, then your good enough to pass the test anyhow.
Smart professors know this and allow people to carry all the books they can bring along in one haul. Because you're dumb if you think that's enough to pass a test. An
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Indeed. Finding and using information from the internet is what multiplies the "intelligence" of the next generation. The ability to find the right information is probably the key skill that the future workforce needs. We know that learning new skills is a requirement for a career already. The ability to find and use information is much more useful than the ability to memorise dead tree information. The internet is an extension of your brain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] There are pitfalls in this as m
More evidence college board just wants cash (Score:2)
In any case this shows how fundamentally ineffective the test is. There is no way to guarantee that
Not sure I see the problem (Score:2)
First - even the summary says this isn't against the rules.
Second - as the summary also (sorta) says - if you don't already know the basics, a web search is probably not going to help you in a 45 minute timed exam.
Third - if you code for a living (or even as a hobby), what do you do when you don't already have the exact knowledge you need? You likely either talk it over with a knowledgable colleague or do a web search! That's what I and my IT group cohorts tend to do, anyway. So what's the problem if you do
AP CS A teacher here (Score:3)
As others have commented, none of this is super surprising. What blew me away when I was preparing my students for the revised exam format is the following statement from the College Board:
"We will be monitoring social media and discussion sites to detect and disrupt cheating. We may post content designed to confuse and deter those who attempt to cheat." That's per this [collegeboard.org] document. Part of me wondered about the ethics of that at the time.
I am currently a part-time graduate student in computer science. I know the College Board is not the most popular outfit around here, but I do believe that a student who passes AP CS A with a 4 is ready to move on to CS2 (Data Structures or Data Structures/Algorithms 1). I've had students go to the university in our city and get As in Data Structures while still in high school, because they took AP CS A as juniors. What's even more impressive is that the most recent student who accomplished that was a fairly typical student at our school --- he had to work hard in AP CS A and really grew as a programmer during the course.
who apparently misses the point. (Score:2)
I think you miss the point..
A pet stone can pass an exam being done at home - all it takes is a suitable parent/friend/whatever there.
Would you think it is legitimate to allow an 'assistant' for every student in an exam room?
The open [everything] is also quite farcical, however the non managed form of this 'exams' makes them much MUCH worse than a joke.
The parents of kids who had to sit more typical example before/after these should be suing for unfair disadvantage.
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Why?
Open book, open collaboration tests exist. In fact, we call it Real Life(tm). There are very few jobs out there where where the work environment is like a test - most likely you're going to be working and have available to you all sorts of reference materials and
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As others have commented, none of this is super surprising.
But then why is that surprising in general? People may have looked up the trends right now, but cheaters cheat. Marking Maths exams this week we also identified cheating from Wednesday's test. But two things stood out: a) no more cheating than normal, b) it was all the usual suspects including someone who has previously been issued a warning for cheating before we moved online.
Oops (Score:1)