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Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Greek Students’ Cheat Sheets as Works of Art
The University of Thessaloniki has organized a unique exhibition. It is a collection of cheat sheets, confiscated by professors over the years, from students of the university’s Economic Department who were desperately trying to pass their semester exams. Some pieces are works of art, or rather ingenuity. Despite their cunning, the students were caught by professors of the department, who started collecting the cheat sheets in 1984. The two displays that have been set up consist of more than 200 cheat sheet contraptions which have been categorized in 32 different types. Most notable examples of the Greek students’ ingenius attempts are a scroll of 2 meters which has been wrapped around sticks, while the exhibit also has another scroll which is literally a work of art. It is made of thin rice paper and the text has been written with a professional drafting pen. Dimitris Mardas, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics in the University of Thessaloniki, who assembled the exhibits and organized the exhibition, noted that the student must have taken more than ten hours to finish the scroll. Only if he had spent those hours studying the student might have been able to actually pass the course without the assistance of a cheat sheet. One of the exhibits is a cheat sheet index, created by a forgetful student who probably could not remember where he had hidden the papers (in his socks, shoes, pockets etc.). There is even a mini cheat book of 100 pages. In our day and age, however, students rely on technological means of cheating, using their mobile phones, tablets, and Bluetooth earphones, thus depriving the professors of the joy of finding such “works of art.”