<2022/1/27 postscript> Reports of the “Common University Entrance Test” cheating incident.
It was reported that “an image of a ‘World History B’ question was allegedly sent to an outside party, including a University of Tokyo student, via an Internet application during the time of the test for the Common University Entrance Test held on January 15. This person is suspected of transmitting the images and asking to answer the Japanese language question as well.
According to officials, a man claiming to be a University of Tokyo student contacted the Admission Center and others after the exam, claiming to have received an image of World History B of Geography, History, and Civics on the morning of January 15, 2022, via the Internet phone application Skype. The man began communicating with a person he met on a tutor referral website, and received a request to “solve the problem on a trial basis” during the time of the exam. He received multiple images of the problems and replied with the answers. Later, he realized that the problem was an actual question from the common test and became suspicious and reported it.
The person who sent the image claims to be a “female student in her second year of high school. It appears that she is a user of a tutoring registration website, and requested answers as part of a tutor’s grading assignment. The National Center for University Entrance Examinations and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology are confirming the fact that this is a fraudulent act, and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, which was consulted, is investigating on suspicion of obstruction of business by deceptive means.
1. cheating on Kyoto University entrance exam
In 2011, there was an incident in which a preparatory school student who took the second examination of Kyoto University wrote “questions” on the Internet bulletin board “Yahoo! Chiebukuro” with his cell phone during the examination time and received “answers”.
The prep school student was arrested by the Kyoto Prefectural Police for “obstruction of business by deception,” but the Yamagata Family Court made a “no disposition” decision.
2. cheating in the Kakyo(Imperial examination)
The Chinese government’s 1,300-year-long “Kakyo” examination for bureaucratic promotion also seems to have involved a variety of “cheating”.
For example, there are books so small that they fit in the palm of a cheating examinee’s hand, and there are surviving underwear of cheating examinees with hundreds of thousands of fine characters written all over them.
But could the cheating test taker read the fine print on the tiny books and underwear without being spotted by the proctor? Perhaps they would have found it right away, and all the hard work of making the smallest of details would have gone down the drain.
3. cheating by the great writers of the Meiji period
(1) Natsume Soseki
Natsume Soseki, a great writer of the Meiji era (1868-1912), once cheated on a math exam during the entrance examination for the Preparatory Department of the University (the predecessor of the former Ichiko High School, now the Faculty of Liberal Arts of the University of Tokyo).
Soseki passed the exam thanks to cheating, but the person Soseki cheated with unfortunately failed the exam. In “My Lapse of Student Years,” Soseki wrote the following.
これは、大学予備門の入学試験に応じた時のことであるが、確か数学だけは隣の人に見せて貰ったのか、それともこっそり見たのか、まアそんなことをして試験は漸っと済したが、可笑しいのは此の時のことで、私は無事に入学を許されたにも関らず、その見せて呉れた方の男は、可哀想にも不首尾に終って了った。
This was when I took the entrance examination for a university preparatory school. I could not solve the math problem, so I asked the person next to me to show me, or maybe I looked at it secretly, and I finally completed the exam.
The funny thing was that even though I was successfully admitted, the man who showed me the correct answer was not successful.
(2) Masaoka Shiki
The haiku poet Masaoka Shiki , who was also a friend of Soseki Natsume , once cheated on an English exam during an entrance examination at the University Preparatory School.
Not knowing what “judicature” meant, Shiki asked the man next to him and was told “hokan（法官）” (judge). He actually meant “hokan” (judge), but Shiki misunderstood and wrote “hokan（幇間）” (flatterer/adulator) on his answer sheet.
Is it a coincidence that the story is very similar to Soseki’s cheating story? Or was the entrance examination very generous at that time (around 1884)?
In “A Drop of Sumi Ink（「墨汁一滴」）” he writes.
余が大学予備門の試験を受けたのは明治十七年の九月であつたと思ふ。この時余は共立学校（今の開成中学）の第二級でまだ受験の力はない、殊に英語の力が足らないのであつたが、場馴れのために試験受けようぢやないかといふ同級生が沢山あつたので固より落第のつもりで戯れに受けて見た。用意などは露もしない。ところが科によると存外たやすいのがあつたが一番困つたのは果して英語であつた。活版摺の問題が配られたので恐る恐るそれを取つて一見すると五問ほどある英文の中で自分に読めるのは殆どない。第一に知らない字が多いのだから考へやうもこじつけやうもない。この時余の同級生は皆片隅の机に並んで坐つて居たが（これは始より互に気脈を通ずる約束があつたためだ）余の隣の方から問題中のむつかしい字の訳を伝へて来てくれるので、それで少しは目鼻が明いたやうな心持がして善い加減に答へて置いた。その時或字が分らぬので困つて居ると隣の男はそれを「幇間」と教へてくれた、もつとも隣の男も英語不案内の方で二、三人隣の方から順々に伝へて来たのだ、しかしどう考へても幇間ではその文の意味がさつぱり分らぬのでこの訳は疑はしかつたけれど自分の知らぬ字だから別に仕方もないので幇間と訳して置いた。今になつて考へて見るとそれは「法官」であつたのであらう、それを口伝へに「ホーカン」といふたのが「幇間」と間違ふたので、法官と幇間の誤などは非常の大滑稽であつた。
それから及落の掲示が出るといふ日になつて、まさかに予備門（一ツ橋外）まで往て見るほどの心頼みはなかつたが同級の男が是非行かうといふので往て見ると意外のまた意外に及第して居た。かへつて余らに英語など教へてくれた男は落第して居て気の毒でたまらなかつた。
I think it was in September of the 17th year of Meiji that I took the University Preparatory Examination. At that time, I was in the second grade of Kyoritsu Gakko (now Kaisei Junior High School) and did not yet had the ability to take the entrance examination.
My English skills were not particularly strong, but many of my classmates suggested that I take the test to familiarize myself with the situation, so I took it as a joke with the intention of failing the exam.
I did not prepare at all. However, some subjects were easier than I expected, but it was English that gave me the most trouble.
I was handed a question paper and timidly picked it up, but at first glance, there were almost no questions I could read. First of all, there were many words I didn’t know, so it was impossible to think about or make sense of them.
At this time, my classmates were all sitting at desks in one corner (this was because we had promised to keep in touch with each other from the beginning), and the person next to me was telling me the translation of the difficult characters in the problem, which made me feel as if I understood a little more, so I answered appropriately.
At that time I was having trouble understanding certain characters, and the man beside me told me it was “hokan（法官）.” However, the man beside me was also not fluent in English, so two or three people had passed it on to him in turn. However, no matter how I thought about it, the meaning of the sentence would not be understood by a hokan (flatterer/adulator), so although I was skeptical of this translation, there was nothing I could do as it was a character I didn’t know, so I translated it as hokan（幇間）.
Thinking about it now, it was probably “judge（法官）”, but this was passed down by word of mouth as “Hokan”, which was mistaken for “flatterer”, so the mistake between judge and flatterer was quite comical.
Then, on the day that the results were to be posted, I didn’t have any confidence that I would go all the way to the Yobimon Gate (outside Hitotsubashi) to check it out, but a guy from my class said he’d definitely like to go, so I went and, to my great surprise, I had passed. On the other hand, the guy who’d taught me English had failed, and I felt so sorry for him.
(3) Ishikawa Takuboku
Ishikawa Takuboku, a poet, was expelled from Morioka Junior High School because of cheating.
By the way, I was surprised by something I heard recently. I heard that in the semester examinations of a certain private university, students are allowed to “bring in textbooks, reference books, etc.”.
I think this is the same as saying “cheating is OK,” but is it because otherwise there would be a large number of “not allowed” students?
The origin of the word “cheating” is the English word “cunning” (cunning, sly), but the Japanese word “「カンニング」（kan ningu)” is pronounced “cheating” (fraudulent behavior) in English.