The Photographs of Last Year's Paper
Two nights before the academic phase test - 40 multiple-choice mathematics and physics questions, pass mark 70 per cent, one resit only - a candidate in your study group of six produces photographs of what he says is last year's paper, obtained from a senior who has since left. Four of the group have already worked through it. The candidate offering it, Cpl Lim, is a friend who has been struggling: he scored 52 per cent on the diagnostic, and a second failure would end his cadetship. He argues that it is 'just practice', that the questions are recycled every year anyway, and that 'everyone in the intake has seen it'. You have not looked at the material. The test is invigilated, closed-book, and standing orders state that possession of unauthorised assessment material is a disciplinary offence both for the holder and for anyone who uses it. Another member of the group tells you quietly that if you report it, 'you will have no friends on this course'.
1. Set out the competing values and what the standing order actually requires of you.
Read the worked answer
The values in tension: loyalty and compassion towards a friend who is close to failing, against integrity, fairness to the candidates who sit the same paper, and the safety of a selection system that is supposed to identify competent people.
What the order says, read carefully: possession and use are both offences. That has two consequences. The easier one is that I must not look, copy or forward the material. The harder one is that staying silent is not a neutral position - the material is still circulating among people who will sit the same paper, and silence makes me a participant in a result I know to be false.
Verify before you accuse. It is possible, though unlikely, that this is an officially released practice paper. One factual question to the course office settles it. Until then, treat it as live material.
Why it matters beyond the rulebook: if the paper is real, the pass mark measures nothing, someone who cannot do the mathematics may be selected, and every honest candidate is disadvantaged. This is not a victimless shortcut; it corrupts the instrument the whole course exists to operate.
2. What do you actually do, in order, and what do you say to Cpl Lim?
Read the worked answer
Sequence:
- Do not look at it. Say out loud, plainly and without a lecture: 'I'm not going to look at that.' The group needs to know where one person stands.
- Ask a factual question: where did it come from, and has anyone confirmed it is an official release? Not an accusation - a check.
- Tell Lim the conclusion before you tell anyone else. Give him a short window, ideally before the next period, to hand the material in himself. Self-disclosure is treated very differently from being reported, and it is also the honest route.
- Report through the proper channel - course officer, instructor or the confidential reporting route - stating what I know and what I do not, with no speculation about who else used it.
- Do not organise a group cover-up, and do not campaign. If others used it, encourage them to disclose; the decision is theirs.
To Lim, in private: 'I'm not reporting you, I'm reporting the material. You already have a route through this - the resit, and remedial help.' Then make that real: three sessions this week on his weakest topics, official past papers, and a referral to whatever study support exists. Refusing to collude is not the same as abandoning him.
3. How do you handle the 'no friends on this course' pressure, and how do you weigh the consequence for Lim?
Read the worked answer
Treat the social cost as a known price, not a reason. It is predictable, it is rarely as permanent as it sounds, and it is being used as leverage precisely because it works. Keep it low-key: state your position once, do not moralise at people, do not recruit allies, and do not discuss who said what. Most groups settle within weeks; a reputation for discretion plus firmness is worth more than popularity.
On Lim: his removal, if it happens, is a consequence of his choice to obtain and use the material, not of my report. But I can reduce the harm without touching the integrity issue: encourage self-disclosure, help him study, and be honest that the resit is a real route rather than pretending the risk away. What I cannot do is buy his place with someone else's fairness.
The counterfactual matters. If the material turned out to be an officially released practice paper, I would have lost a little goodwill and nothing else. If I had used it and it was live, I would be facing expulsion and an integrity finding that follows me into every subsequent selection and security clearance. The asymmetry of those two outcomes is the whole argument.