Pranab Wagle surged with disbelief as he opened the Remind 101 text notifying him about a security issue with the Unit 6 AP Statistics test. Due to this, all AP Statistics students were required to retake the test.

“When I saw the text, I was really confused by it. It said ‘security issues’ so my mind was all over the place wondering what happened. I was also really scared because I had studied hours beforehand and I feel like the lack of sleep went to waste,” Wagle said.

Mrs. Lona Armstrong said that several sources, including teachers and students, notified her of inappropriate behavior during the test. She had two options; one of which involved giving every student a “zero” and dropping that grade from the book, and the other being to write an entirely new test and give the students a clean slate to work with. She decided on the latter because it was not fair to the students who put work into studying for the test to end up with a failing grade.

“I was mad at first that we had to retake the test because I actually studied for it, but then I felt like it was a chance for me to do better on this new one,” Valeria Imendia said.

Wagle believes that exposure to the first test made him better prepared for the new one.

“I felt more confident during the retake because I knew what we were being tested on, so during studying I knew what to focus my time and energy with,” Wagle said.

The test was re-administered on March 11 and 12 under Armstrong’s supervision. During the original administration of the test, Armstrong was absent and appointed a substitute in her place.

“The test was not really fair in terms of length, and it took at least 10 or so minutes to actually start the test after the substitute had gotten roll and everything out of the way when Mrs. Armstrong said clearly that the entire class period was going to be allotted to the test. Either way, I suppose retaking it is just giving non-cheaters a chance to do better, and not just giving cheaters a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card. It is better than the alternative given to just give everyone a zero and void the test completely,” Scott Fryslie said.

The original tests will not be used in any way to hurt or help the students, so no one will be incriminated from this incident.

Fryslie said, “I think cheating on a test is just stupid. A test is meant to be a gauge of what you know and what you don’t. If you completely bomb a test, it’s clearly evidence to the teacher that you need to stay behind and fix something you’re doing wrong. But cheating, especially on a test that’s curved based on a scale of the general performance of students, is just a low blow.”

by KAVLEEN SINGH