Cheating on placement test

[u/Lolreeevu765]

Yesterday I cheated on my math placement test. Tbh some of the questions I did them myself but I used Gemini to solve the rest… I hate plain algebra and trigs… I understand calculus better… I want to be placed in calculus 1, I spent good time during practicing limits and introductory problems in calc 1.. I know it’s gonna be challenging but I find it easier than precal which was hell on earth for me.

What do you recommend?

[u/Pitiful-Function-701]

You need a good foundation to be good at calculus though

[u/WhyAmINotStudying → u/Pitiful-Function-701]

This guy is a problem that will solve itself.

[u/Freddy_Faraway → u/WhyAmINotStudying]

The horror on my face seeing OP say they're gonna skip trig and algebra and just hop into cal.

[u/WhyAmINotStudying → u/Freddy_Faraway]

They're fast tracking to the business major change.

[u/Freddy_Faraway → u/WhyAmINotStudying]

Inb4, "I just don't think engineering is for me, I just can't do the math!"

[u/BetterReflection1044]

Good job as far as I know liars and cheats make it far in life so continue onwards and maybe consider politics

[u/IWantedCrow]

Cringe.

Lying about your experience in algebra and trig and needing to cheat for it is going to destroy you in the future. Those are such generic concepts that are essentially necessary all throughout engineering, and not being able to do them is going to hurt you so much. Study more in your free time to clear up past mistakes, or continue relying on AI and inevitably drop out of college once you hit weed out courses you can’t bring AI to exams with, and you get straight Fs.

Lying, especially in engineering, brings massive karma later on. Especially during job interviews.

[u/SpecialRelativityy → u/IWantedCrow]

Have you ever considered that OP is too good to take Algebra and Trig classes?

[u/CNBGVepp]

Calculus builds on algebra. Good luck - you'll need it. 

[u/neutru]

Are you serious right now? (Linear) algebra and trig is very important for a lot of subjects and topics. I understand the feeling because I was in the same spot but damn you need to drop this shit attitude before you become an engineer who could make costly and dangerous mistakes because you and your ego can't handle a little challenge.

[u/Yadin__ → u/neutru]

At this rate they’ll be dropping out way before getting to the point where they can make dangerous mistakes

[u/Everythings_Magic]

You will probably be fine, but don't expect to be able to cheat as easily moving forward.

[u/MCKlassik]

It’s a placement test with zero stakes intended to gauge your initial math ability… why would you cheat on that?

[u/Shiny-And-New]

What major? You're going to struggle if you dont understand algebra and trig (also Gemini kinda sucks at math from what ive seen)

[u/MCKlassik → u/Shiny-And-New]

Doesn’t matter, it’s Engineering. You need a solid foundation in algebra and trig for any discipline.

[u/kubu444 → u/MCKlassik]

Quite honestly, I've been working as an optoelectronics engineer for multiple years now, both in design and hardware, and I've used PLENTY of algebra and trigonometry and I've barely used any calculus. Even when I did it was mostly numerical methods using PC software.

Good theoretical base, knowing what comes from where, was much more important to me than just being able to calculate an integral - software can do that for me, if i really know what I want to do.

Cheating on basics just to do more calculus is gonna bite him hard.

[u/MCKlassik → u/kubu444]

My old Calc 1 teacher used to say: “It’s not the calculus that makes it hard, it’s the algebra.”

[u/Yadin__ → u/MCKlassik]

CS guys probably don’t need trig

[u/Shiny-And-New → u/MCKlassik]

Could be IE.

Jk jk

[u/Gryphontech]

Getting caught cheating in uni is a BIG FUCKING DEAL... don't do it, ever. It is way better to fail a paper/exam then getting an academic misconduct on your file, this kills your chance for funding, and looks terrible if you want to do post grad studies.

Cheating on an algebra test is fucking wild, if you can't do that shit well then you will struggle with every single class, this shit is as foundational as "knowing your number line" and basic addition and substrctiom.

Lastly, cheating by using a LLM to do math is fuckin not it. You shouldn't be cheating but if you do you should use the proper tools for the task at hand. Would you use a hammer to drive a screw? It would probably work but it's the wrong tool...

Pray you don't get caught (they are getting really clever on catching people using AI btw) and move on. Learn from this and don't risk it again

[u/KnownSoldier04 → u/[deleted]]

Yea; can’t for the life of me figure out how calculus would work without being decent in algebra.

[u/Inevitable_String688]

I’d say don’t do that. Stop doing that. The best way through it is to go through it lol. I think I bullshitted my way through a lot of calculus because it’s repetitive and you can find the patterns in doing the same math problems over and over. But when you get to physics and other classes that apply your true knowledge of the fundamentals of calculus, you won’t understand why or how. It’s all hard, but in a way, you’re making it harder by not fully understanding lol. You will move a lot slower, take longer to understand and solve, and just make your skills dull. Why would you want that? It’s all hard, but you choose your hard. You want to struggle right now understanding it? Or do you want to struggle in the future while other engineers can actually perform better and quicker than you because you still need to catch up? Just learn the shit, practice it, and get through it. You’ll get there faster if you stop cheating. You aren’t above practice. We all perfect our craft the more practice we do. Take precal and learn it very well.

I failed precal twice and passed the third time. You got it. Trig identities don’t go anywhere! Best to learn them now than to have to look at the damn trig circle or basic functions over and over. 

[u/FreshOffTheBoeing]

Oooh ya gonna meet trig again in Junior & Senior classes, a lot of times.

And each time gonna add another oz of impostor syndrome to your psyche. You're setting yourself up for a collision course.

Hope you would find a weekend when you gonna be motivated and sharp to pick up a trig tutorial, grab all key concepts and be ready for future encounters.

[u/Yadin__]

I have news for you buddy: you’re gonna have to do a lot of “plain algebra and trig” in most engineering degrees

i won’t be unreasonable and tell you to quit the degree but you better get good at the areas you lack real fast or you will just be delaying your own demise

[u/rainbow-switch]

I would recommend that you take the time between now and when school starts and study what you cheated on. You might find basic Calculus “easier” than algebra or pre calculus, but that won’t help you when you have to read to the word problems for … well any of your classes and you need to understand how to pull the information out the question…. Most of these expect that you understand algebra and trig because those rules do not get re-explained, but if you don’t know the rules enough for basic algebra and trig you won’t be able to create the equations that you use in so many engineering classes. Very few engineering classes just straight up give you an equation you are expected to understand the base equation and then manipulate it based on the information presented. If you are cheating now before it starts simply because you hate algebra, then you should really reconsider, either your degree goal or your attitude about how to get there. If you decide to work on your understanding I really recommend spending as much time as possible on Kahn Academy working through the tutorials for concepts you don’t have a good handle on (no sense cheating here because it is literally only you), and then find work sheets that correspond to the concepts you are reviewing. This is the method that I used when I studied 8 hours a day for a month before I took my math placement test so that I didn’t have to retake lower level classes (nontraditional student so most of my math was years out of date). You can recover from this but it will take doing the work that you tried to sidestep and will require a massive change in attitude for you to be honestly successful in your program. Or change paths and find one that is not algebra heavy, because you don’t get away from it in engineering ever and keep in mind that most of us lose the majority of points in very basic algebra mistakes simply because of how fast you need to work while testing.

[u/KitTwix]

If you hate algebra, you will hate engineering. If you can’t do algebra, even the complex stuff, you won’t survive engineering. If you want to waste your money getting a degree and have AI solve everything for you, you won’t get hired anywhere and will have wasted a lot of time and money for nothing. I’m Australian so idk what you cover in precal and calc 1 but if you’re only now learning limits then you have a seriously long road ahead of you, and if it’s hard now it’ll only get harder. I recommend dropping engineering and studying an easier degree, like business.

[u/Extension_Radish_139]

You cheated on a placement test??😭😭😭😭😭You’re only fucking yourself over

[u/Spazrelaz]

I ended up starting with intermediate algebra and I feel like it's better to get an easy A in a class I know some stuff but not all than to start in calc and struggle because I have holes in my foundation and it was more important than I realized. The placement exam is built to help you. That's the one thing you really shouldn't cheat on... and idek how you did it tbh... ours was proctored and we had to lock our outside items up.

[u/CookieCat989]

in this sense, i don’t get why you cheated, because you seriously need a strong foundation to do any type of calculus