Teacher Creates 'Genius' Exam Question To Find Cheaters And Catches 14 Students

One teacher has gone above and beyond in their quest to stop students from cheating during exams, coming up with an ingenious question to identify the culprits.

Before iPhones came along, students had to think up some pretty creative ways to sneak answers into the exam hall - hidden messages on water bottle labels, scribbling on the back of a calculator cover, even good old fashioned writing on the palm of their hands.

This resulted in exam invigilators cracking down on cheating, bringing in rules such as removing labels from bottles prior to the test starting and making students hand over all notes and any pieces of paper in their pockets.

However, with the rise of technology came a slew of new cheating methods, with students relying on the likes of Apple Watches and even Bluetooth to get their answers.

One vigilant teacher became so frustrated by the extent of cheating that she decided to come up with a foolproof way of catching students out.

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As reported by the Daily Mirror, the teacher in question had noticed that students were taking far more toilet trips than you might expect during their exams.

Realising that they were likely illegally obtaining the answers to the test questions whilst sneaking off to the toilet, he created a question specifically designed to identify those who were cheating.

Taking to Reddit to explain their teacher's master plan, one of his students told of how his teacher had created a two-part question, but had purposely made it so that part B was impossible to solve.

"He purposely made part B impossible to solve, and about a month before the final he got a teaching assistant to ask the exact question [online], which was distinctly worded to be unique.

"He then created his own account and answered the question with a bulls*** solution that seems right at first glance but is actually fundamentally flawed and very unlikely that someone would make the same assumptions and mistakes independently."

By doing this, he was able to detect which students had attempted to cheat by searching for the unsolvable question online during the exam.

He busted 14 students in total, each of whom had fallen for his trap and revealed themselves as cheaters.

According to the Mirror, these students were subsequently given an overall score of zero and reported to the university for violating the academic honour pledge they had signed. Students who left the question blank or answered it incorrectly were given full credits for it.

Reddit users were impressed by the teacher's cunning plan, with one writing: "This is Amazing! I've seen some stories like this and it always makes me glad I don't use [the internet] for tests. Honestly if you're cheating on a proctored test you deserve to get caught. Study like everyone else."