Cheaters Never Win Mystery Cache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
I’m a high school math teacher. I’ve been teaching for 14 years, the last 7 have been all geometry. Here’s the dilemma:
In the last part of the year, I had some suspicions about cheating on tests and quizzes. I had to catch them, but I knew I was on my own, no help from the Pentagon. When I catch them it is going to mean I will give them a big goose-egg in the grade book. I hope the cheaters were not getting away with it for the past 4 months. Part of the problem was that the students fit together as well as the hexagons in a honeycomb. They all took up for each other, like a conspiracy. Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ These students were suddenly getting 87% without doing any homework and they had previously gotten between 55% and 61%. I would need to focus my attention on the front right quadrant of the room. I had a good plan. In September, a co-worker had told me a way he caught cheaters in his Algebra class. We were doing a little trig (chapter 8), but I like to include some information from previous chapters. I decided to make a very difficult problem involving parallel lines (info from chapter 3). Then I would change the numbers on each of the tests so that the problems looked the same, but getting the same answers would be impossible. After putting the plan into action on the unsuspecting students, I was almost anxious to grade the papers. I had not been anxious to grade papers since my 1st year (a year I would rather forget). I caught them!!! I was even able to get a confession when I asked the students and showed them the proof. I was pleased. I had broken a cheating ring. They were writing binary code in their calculators, then swapping. The calculators easily converted the code. I somehow got the support of the parents and showed the students a lesson. Even though they passed for the year, they got negative comments on their records and 60% for the final grades. Mission Accomplished. 
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ybbxvat sbe qrpvzny qvtvgf bs Abegu (1fg ovt cnentencu) naq Jrfg (ynfg cnentencu), svyy gurz va naq svaq gur pnpur.
Qba'g tb vagb guvf jvgu nal cersvk-rq vqrnf nobhg trbzrgel.
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures