By Sharon Biju

Schools and students have had to adjust their lifestyles to distance learning since the schools closed down last year because of COVID-19. Distance learning has been a huge change for students and staff members and the experience varies from person to person.

In order to prevent cheating, proctors/teachers have enforced policies which require their students to keep their cameras on during exams in order to eliminate some forms of cheating (such as using a separate device to text friends) and ensure students aren’t engaging in anything which could be considered “suspicious.” Even with these policies in place, it is still possible for students to cheat on tests since there’s no one watching apart from the screen. In regard to this, some students feel uncomfortable having their cameras required, perhaps for personal reasons since they are at home and now they have to display a part of their personal life with the rest of the class every time they turn on their cameras (sometimes mics also) in order to be required to take a test. For some larger tests, there are more specific standards being set.

One big one rumor is that the AP history tests, the digitally taken ones in particular, will require students to download an app on their computers which track their internet access throughout the house in order to make sure they aren’t cheating with other devices.  Some students, including myself, find this an intrusion of personal space, since the internet is shared among family members and some people do not feel comfortable sharing too much information about themselves. Rather, I personally would take the test in person since all these requirements become overwhelming and confusing for students and it seems less hectic to do it in the school. However, with COVID this decision cannot be made easily, so it would be ideal for standardized testing like these to be moved until next year, when the virus’s rates are hopefully in decline.

Prior to the coronavirus, ProcturU, one of the companies which provide service by assigning professional test proctors, recorded a cheat rate of only 1% from January to March of 2020. However, during the start of distance testing, the rate broke higher scores leading up to 8% from April to June. Although there is the use of proctoring for several exams, most of the tests are conducted without the use of close monitoring, especially since the demand for proctoring has increased heavily, therefore causing companies to stop providing additional service temporarily.

As a result of distance learning, students have started to rely on online sources for help on school assignments (which has also caused a peaking business for companies selling these test and homework answers). However, regardless of how many policies are instituted or how much is done towards stopping cheating, it’s nearly impossible to do much in a situation like this, since there is only so much the schools can do to prevent cheating.