There seems to be no end to the innovation of school students especially when it comes to inventing new ways to cheat during examinations. Apart from the tried and tested techniques used by students over the years, such as writing answers on tissues or on slips of paper tucked into shoes, teachers have reported two new cheating innovations during the first semester exams currently under way in Jeddah schools. Some boys have been found taking packets of chewing gum into examination halls in an attempt to fool invigilators. “I get several sticks of chewing gum and take off the paper. I write the information that I need on the inside of the cover and then I recover the gum and seal it with a bit of glue. I put the pack of gum back together so that it looks like it is brand new. And then what I have is not a pack of chewing gum, but a mini-textbook with all the answers I need to get really good exam results,” Ahmed Ali, a student at an intermediate school in Jeddah told Saudi Gazette. Teachers invigilating examinations, who are always on the lookout for cheaters, are continually amazed at how ingenious their students really are. “I discovered this new chewing gum technique last Saturday. While moving around the classroom as the students were taking the exam, I found a student chewing a new piece of gum every 15 or 20 minutes,” Hamza Ahmed, an English language teacher, said. Ahmed said this behavior seemed a bit odd and attracted his attention. As a result, he went up to the student and asked him why he was chewing so much gum during the exam, especially as he had never been seen to chew gum before. The student was well prepared for such a question and answered that he had heard that chewing gum has been reported to reduce anxiety especially during stressful periods such as examinations. Ahmed accepted the answer, but just by chance picked up one of the discarded gum wrappers and found that it contained all of the chemistry symbols necessary to pass the exam. “It was then that I realized that this was a new way of cheating using the inside of chewing gum wrappers,” he said. The fairer sex are not to be left behind in the race to see who can be the most innovative. Women accessories are playing a part in this semester's exams as girls have started using large broad-banded rings to help them answer questions. Nehal Ali, a high school student, described how this is done. “Girls take a small piece of paper and write all the information they need on it. Then they fold it up and stick it under the band of their ring,” she said. Ali said that the main reason girls wear such rings is that they provide a good hiding place for cheat sheets. “Unfortunately, some of our students instead of using their creative energy to increase their understanding of their lessons, use it instead to invent new ways of cheating,” Fatemah Ali, an Islamic Studies teacher, said.
