The Boston GLOBE used to have a lot more backbone before they were sold to the folks who own the NY TIMES. Saying that, they still produce some investigative journalism. But, their website now requires PITA registration, inconsistently. So, looking for another source for this story – I found that one of the websites they zero in on has posted the whole article.
The Army is investigating whether thousands of soldiers cheated on promotion exams, including tests of how to operate high-tech weapons, by obtaining the answers from unauthorized websites run by fellow soldiers, according to Army officials.
The Globe found sites offering copies of more than 1,200 different exams from military correspondence courses with the answers provided. One site said it had 500,000 hits per month and thousands of registered users. Message boards on the sites suggest that soldiers know they are violating the rules, while some of their comrades rebuke them in Internet chat rooms for cheating the system.
Some of the tests cover such highly technical matters as how to operate the guidance system on a Patriot missile, including measuring firing angles and elevations. Other sensitive areas include how to distinguish between US troops and enemies using aerial photos; how to conduct a patrol in wartime; how to keep armored vehicles in proper formation in battle; and how to protect classified documents.
Another examines how to operate the shoulder-fired Stinger missile, an Army weapon that is also used by terrorists. The questions cover how to activate the missile, determine the most promising targets, and utilize different firing techniques.
Uh, do you think there are a few folks who aren’t in the US Army who might use these websites, too?
I hope access to some of these goodies is a bit more difficult than access to the operating manuals.
We used to have a motto when I was in the army.
If you ain’t cheatin you ain’t tryin!
To quote one of the new American philosophers,
“Git er done”
or a well heeled large company,
“Just do it”.
Neither entails obeying rules.
Using braindumps to pass military certification exams? No wonder a lot of these guys leave the military for IT work in the DoD.
The Army correspondence courses are not promotion exams although completion of them does count toward a promotion point’s system for the grades of Sergeant and Staff Sergeant.
more than 1,200 different exams from military correspondence courses
If they are like any of the Navy correspondence courses I took, they were printed in bulk 5-10 years ago – and the answer keys are not varied for any particular course.
Case in point: When I was an E-4, a classmate obtained the two phone-book sized courses required to qualify for the E-5 exam. The answer sheets were like scratch-it lottery tickets – and all the questions were multiple-choice or True/False.
He scraped the crap off all the answer sheets, and for $20 his wife would spend her evenings transferring the correct answers to an unmarked set of answer sheets.
It took several years, but the Navy finally replaced the scratch-it answer-sheets with optically-scanned answer sheets.
Big out-cry when that happened, because you didn’t know if you passed until after you sent the sheets in to be graded – and might have to take the course again. At least, that was what people complained about publicly… ;p
Well, since it appears that the majority of new recruits are coming out of high-schools, and the majority of those schools are in… shall we say, less than supurb socio-economic hotspots (ie: ghettos) – and since those schools arent really well funded by the government (remember, stupid people are easier to control) the students dont really have the means or will to study and actually LEARN – so they cheat.
Since the only way they could pass through high-school tests was to cheat,its the natural progression of things leads to them to being cheating on tests in the Army/Navy/Marines, etc
Does this actually surprise anyone?
Maybe there is, somewhere in cyberspace, a chat room where terrorist veterans give the new American recruits advice on how to fire a hand held missile launcher.
well i got a question how about people in a mos that you need 798 points to get promoted. the onyl way to get promoted is to cheat. Now think officers and wo dont have to do shit but buy thier time till promotion i know alot of people that cant get promoted due tot he high points involved.