Originally Posted by stephanie
Yes, it is the rest of the group that I am concerned about. Their relative strength in math has been corrupted, which will effect everything from class placement, to grades, pacademic prizes, and even subject acceleration........

If the other girl really did cheat so egregiously, it stands to reason that she had no idea how to do the problems on her own. This, in turn, implies that the next time she does a competition like this one, she'll do poorly. I would say that your job is to ensure that she sits on her own. You may want to ensure that she sits far from your daughter during regular tests during the school year. You could always try to have a quiet word with her teacher, without making an accusation, but just by voicing a concern that maybe something happened but you're not sure....

It's a tough problem. When I have tough problems, I try to break them down into smaller parts. In this case, they may be:

  • The girl appears to have cheated and appears to have got away with it. What kind of lesson does this teach her?
  • The other children's rankings were pushed down as a result of the alleged cheating. If the girl really did cheat, how will this situation affect them?
  • If word gets out that she cheated and got away with it, how will class morale be affected?
  • Other.

Can you rank this smaller parts of the larger problem, and then try to determine how to act based on your rankings?

Once when I was in high school, the kid who sat behind me in algebra was copying my answers during an exam. I had no idea what was going on until he nudged me and asked me to move my elbow so he could read the rest of my answers! I was pretty annoyed. Then I noticed that I'd made a mistake and graphed a hyperbola in the wrong quadrants. I'd also made another mistake on another graph. I waited until he turned his paper in and started erasing as he was passing my desk on his way back to his seat. My score: 102 out of 100 (the teacher made a mistake with the points). His score: 68 (F). It was very satisfying, and it can be a good strategy for discouraging cheaters.