Note To Cheaters: Next Time Hire the Brains 349
An anonymous reader writes "A man and his accomplice are accused of cheating on a Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) by using a wireless pinhole camera and cellphone to send realtime images of the exam questions to a team of people supplying the 'correct' answers. One problem: the 'answer team' was tricked into the job by being told they were taking a test to qualify them as MCAT tutors. There were several clues the 'tutor exam' was bogus, including the poor quality of the images of the questions. Suspicious, the 'answer team' discovered the real MCAT test was occurring at the same time. They started feeding wrong answers to the accused cheaters and called campus security. The two accused cheaters now face several charges as a result."
Criminal Charges? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Criminal Charges? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could be fraud charges related less to them cheating, and more to them duping people into thinking they were applying for a job. But I'm not a lawyer.
The charges are bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
According to documents filed in provincial court in Richmond, B.C., Josiah Miguel Ruben and Houman Rezazadeh-Azar are each facing six charges including theft, unauthorized use of a computer, using a device to obtain unauthorized service and theft of data.
THESE are the charges? How about "conspiracy to commit murder," or "reckless endangerment?" These are the people who will be our medical doctors?!
Re:The charges are bullshit. (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't make "suspected future intention to cheat on a licensing exam" a crime. The unauthorized use of a computer doesn't even make any sense, as well as using a device to obtain unauthorized access to a service. I'd be interested to see if they can make "theft" stick: the tests usually come with boilerplate preventing you from making unauthorized copies, but seeing as they paid for the test and were given it freely, that probably doesn't apply. The tests do usually come with boilerplate saying you can't make unauthorized copies, but that'd fall under contract violation, which is a civil violation, not criminal.
The thing is, they cheated, but that's not really illegal. It's wrong, but not illegal. They didn't endanger any lives; sure, they might have at some point, but they didn't actually do anything yet. They shouldn't be allowed into medical school, they should never be doctors, but they shouldn't be arrested.
Re:Quite Scary Actually (Score:3, Interesting)
Aye, similar to my reaction, which was, "The real story here is that there is a market for this kind of cheating assistance. How many unqualified people have made it past MCAT screening this way? Have any of them provided care for me or my loved ones?"
Re:Criminal Charges? (Score:4, Interesting)
This being Canada, and all that. We take a very dim view of this type of stuff. So cheaters beware, you will be criminally nailed to the wall for it. [justice.gc.ca]
Ala:
404. Every one who falsely, with intent to gain advantage for himself or some other person, personates a candidate at a competitive or qualifying examination held under the authority of law or in connection with a university, college or school or who knowingly avails himself of the results of such personation is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Summer conviction means 2 years or less.
Re:Criminal Charges? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's more abhorrent since it's a medical test. I had the recent displeasure of working in an IT job related to med schools. From the bits and pieces that I saw of the more promising applications I processed, I'm truly horrified by the entire "profession". How could someone have such good college transcripts and MCAT scores yet write such stupid essays, I wondered? This explains a lot.
Screening for appropriate skills (Score:2, Interesting)
Although I don't entirely agree that MCAT is just testing regurgitation (it's much easier to learn everything on the test if you understand everything than if you just use brute force memorization), I don't agree with your concepts of what's necessary for being a doctor.
Doctors don't need to be "thinkers", most doctors really do need to be automatons based on all the research done by others. Their ability to remember the variety of possible diagnoses and use various data points to determine the most likely one is paramount. Doctors for the most part don't really need to be innovating and thinking in creative ways.
Note: I'm not saying what doctors do isn't useful or hard, I'm just saying that deep critical thinking isn't a a primary necessary skill.