Moral based question:

Daseal - so what's your question?
Is it legal? - that's easy enough to determine: check the rules. If it's not prohibited, then it's "legal". Legal, however, doesn't necessarily equate with ethical simply because no law/rule/policy can anticipate every possible permutation of facts. For example, in your corporate question, given the facts you state, sure the act is legal - that's why they are called "loopholes". You cannot be punished if you don't break the rules. People find and take advantage of loopholes all the time - some in an ethical way, and some in an unethical way.

Is it ethical? - only if you're approaching the question honestly. You seem to imply that it's the Profs job to clarify all the fudgy areas. I would disagree - see the "can't anticipate all possible problems" statement above. If you have something that causes you to question the "legality" of a particular act and you intentionally seek ignorance in hopes that it will benefit you, that, to me, is dishonest and unethical - regardless of its legality.

I always did in HS calc, but don't listen to me anyways, I was usually in the wrestling room trying to make weight.

LOL...We faced a similar predicament in our Calculus II during our finals and let me tell you the result for one particular cheater (yes, putting it on your calculator is cheating) was not pretty. The professor was able to somehow tell that he was cheating and came to his seat, asked him for his calculator, checked to see if there were formulas typed into it, took the exam papers from him and told him he's free to go home. The professor then proceeded to tell the entire class that if anyone else has formulas on their calculator they'll suffer the same fate and will be brought up for violating the school's code of conduct.

The moral of the story is don't cheat, it's not worth it.

p.s. We were told we can have a single cheat-sheet and that we may not store formulas into our calculators for the final exam.

ouch.. prof probably noticed that he was using the same buttons and doing it repeatedly, just scrolling

See this completely depends on the class and what is specified by the professor. In high school during our AP Stat test we were encouraged to put calc programs to help us speed up the calculations, infact our teacher frantically uploaded the program on several peoples calculators before the exam, because they didn't clear the calculator for the AP exam.

In other classes, like my calc ones it was expected you cleared your calculator and if you didn't have work to prove you knew what was up, you would get in trouble. But honestly if you can pick your calculator and it says nothing in the syllabus then honor committee shouldn't be able to do jack shit.

we had to show the teacher that we had cleared ours before any test, but we archived the programs which made them not get deleted when you cleared everything else

we also had fake cleared screen programs, a program that made nothing show under the added programs, etc

that was definitely cheating

Same here.
I've only had one teacher let us use notes on tests and it was a fill-in while our teacher was getting cancer treatment

JoeRedskin, you're a lawyer. If there's a practice that's looked down upon, but a corporation can do it via a loophole. Is it wrong? Answer: absolutely not, it's legal. I'm just trying to find out what makes this situation any different in the minds of most folks.

But I would really compare this more to radar detectors. I am pretty sure they are legal in Md, if I drive into Va, and still use mine, because I wasn't sure whether I could have one but not turn it on or have one I bought out of state, etc, then if I get caught, it's not a loophole, it's a ticket.

A loophole is something that is legal, and most people who use loopholes find out the exact boundaries so that they know what they can and can't do. Anyone trying to use a loophole, while keeping intentionally unaware of the rules, is asking to be burned.

In my opinion, you're just using the resources given to you. I know in high school with calculators like that, they just clear them all before the exam. If he flat out said, you cannot to x,y or z.... than its cheating. If there are no such rules against it, I think you're fine, and that exactly what I would probaboly do.

But I would really compare this more to radar detectors. I am pretty sure they are legal in Md, if I drive into Va, and still use mine, because I wasn't sure whether I could have one but not turn it on or have one I bought out of state, etc, then if I get caught, it's not a loophole, it's a ticket.

This is a terrible example. There are huge signs at the border that say: RADAR DETECTORS ARE ILLEGAL. That's clearly stated. There's no 'loophole' around that. Even if there werent the signs, there's a law, on the books, that says they're illegal. It's clearly recorded, and ignorance of a recorded rule is not reason to be able to break it.

This is a terrible example. There are huge signs at the border that say: RADAR DETECTORS ARE ILLEGAL. That's clearly stated. There's no 'loophole' around that. Even if there werent the signs, there's a law, on the books, that says they're illegal. It's clearly recorded, and ignorance of a recorded rule is not reason to be able to break it.

Maybe so, but I guess I am going off old experience, because when I was in college, it was always clearly stated at some point. I think my point was if you happen to miss the sign, you might try to claim ignorance, but in fact the rule had been posted. I would truly be amazed if a Calc professor had not at some point articulated his rule on this matter.

I've done it, and I don't care if it's cheating. *MY* objective for taking calculus was to know how to use it to solve real-world problems -- not to memorize formulas, receive a grade, or outperform the others in the class. If I know which formulas to use, and I know how/where to find those forumulas, then I can apply calculus to solve problems. That was my objective.

So, I think if you look at it with that perspective (i.e.: it's not a competition between students to get the highest grade), then I think you can justify it.

:twocents: