Writing your answers on the inside of a water bottle label or on the cuff of your shorts is so last decade. Four Japanese universities have filed reports that someone was leaking the questions and answers to some of their entrance exam questions while taking the tests, thanks to the aid of question and answer website Chiebukuro, the Japanese version Yahoo! Answers.
Someone going by the user name “Aicezuki” posted the Kyoto University, Waseda University, Rikkyo University and Doshisha University entrance test questions and their personal responses on the Japanese Yahoo! affiliate site, according to Japanese news source Yomiuri. (The exams all occurred on different days, making this completely plausible that it was the work of one person.) Other test takers with web access on their cell phones were pulling up the responses and thanking the leaker in the comments.
Although authorities from all the universities say that the posted answers were mostly wrong, following Aicezuki’s advice could have potentially given the cheater a passing score. The entire seven question math exam for Kyoto University’s Faculty of Letters was leaked, and only one answer would have given the potential student no points. Cheating with the Chiebukuro answers could possibly get you a score as high as 119 out of 150, good enough to qualify for the university according to a Japanese preparatory teacher not affiliated with the text.
Aicezuki’s downfall may be that he or she focused on sharing answers for the English portions of these school’s exams. Teachers and tutors who have looked at the responses after the scandal said that it was clear the person was not a native English speaker. One of the problems was that Aicezuki incorrectly translated several of the English exam questions into Japanese, and although the response to the question he or she posted was correct, it did not answer the actual prompt. Authorities are hoping that by looking over the written tests and comparing it with the “answers” online they can find who was using the website during the exam and perhaps trace Aicezuki down.
The whole thing reminds me of this now infamous Yahoo! answer. That cheater got burned by his or her professor in the best way possible:
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