The essay the invigilator noticed
During the L2 written examination, invigilators note that Tomas begins writing at minute two without planning and produces about 400 words in 35 minutes, then sits idle for the remainder. His essay on the benefits of volunteering contains a paragraph that a corrector recognises from a mock examination script Tomas wrote in December, and two other candidates at the same school have produced paragraphs that are almost identical to each other, though not to Tomas's. After the examination, a colleague finds a very similar text on a free language-learning website advertising 'model essays for B2'. The grid rewards task achievement, range and accuracy. Tomas's essay answers the task competently and is largely accurate, but contains no reference to the two documents the task required. The double correction must be completed within the week, and the school's malpractice procedure exists but has never been used.
1. Separate the three situations in this file. What evidence does each require before anyone acts?
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Treating them as one 'cheating' problem is the classic error here; they have different evidential standards and different consequences.
1. Tomas reusing his own December paragraph. This is not necessarily misconduct at all. Candidates legitimately carry memorised frames, connectives and even whole rehearsed paragraphs into an examination; that is how fluency is often produced under time pressure. The test is whether the script answers this task. His does, competently. Nothing to refer.
2. Tomas's essay and the website text. Topic similarity is not evidence. What would be evidence is substantial verbatim overlap in distinctive wording, unusual errors reproduced identically, or structural identity across several paragraphs, established by a side-by-side comparison. 'A very similar text exists on a language-learning site' is a reason to look, not a finding. Given that such sites circulate generic B2 essays on exactly these topics, the prior probability that a competent candidate independently produces similar content is not small.
3. The two near-identical scripts. This is the most serious item and needs the most care. The overlap must be in distinctive wording, not in formulaic phrases such as 'In today's society' or 'On the one hand'. The school should compare full texts, check the seating plan, read the invigilators' notes, and ask both candidates for an explanation before anyone concludes collusion. The standard of proof in the procedure in force applies, and a finding against a candidate who has not been heard will not survive appeal.
2. What is the correct immediate treatment of Tomas's script?
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Mark it on its merits, and let the grid do the work. Unless and until a finding is made under the procedure in force, the script is marked like any other. Correctors do not have authority to impose a zero or to shave points on suspicion, and a mark reduced 'a bit' is the least defensible option of all because it cannot be justified or appealed against.
The legitimate route to a lower mark is already open. The task required reference to two of the documents, and the essay contains none. That is a task-achievement failure independent of any question about authorship, and it should be recorded as such, in criterion-level language, without speculation about where the text came from.
Three disciplines for the correctors.
- Do not let suspicion migrate into the language marks. Accuracy is accuracy.
- Record the observations factually in the file - continuous writing from minute two, idle thereafter, the December mock paragraph - and pass them to the coordinator. Facts, not conclusions.
- Refer the website comparison, if it is pursued at all, as a separate question with its own procedure, timeline and right of reply for the candidate.
If the script is ultimately found to be a pre-prepared text that does not answer the task, the mark will be low anyway. If it is not, the candidate has lost nothing but a week of the coordinator's attention.
3. The two near-identical scripts belong to candidates in different classes. How would you handle them, and what would you change afterwards?
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Handle them together. Suspend finalisation of the two marks, keep the scripts secure, and put the comparison in writing: the passages, their length, the distinctive features, and the parts that are merely formulaic. Then check the seating plan to see whether the candidates were adjacent or within sight of each other, and read the invigilators' notes for the session.
Hear the candidates before any finding. Each is asked, separately and without disclosure of the other's account, how the essay was prepared. Their answers are recorded. The procedure in force determines the standard of proof and the possible outcomes - a warning, no further action, or annulment of the paper - and those outcomes should be explained to the candidates at the outset.
Watch for the mitigating explanation. If the school's own revision materials, a shared mock task or a widely used model-essay site produced the paragraph, individual culpability is much reduced, and the honest finding may be a teaching and materials-handling problem rather than a candidate problem. That is not a reason to avoid the process; it is a reason to investigate the source before assigning blame.
Afterwards, three changes: stop setting the same production tasks as mocks and as live examinations; make the document-reference requirement in the task do real work, since a pre-prepared text will fail it; and write a short, usable malpractice procedure, because the first time a school uses one should not also be the first time it reads it.