In theory all the students could take the time to prepare answers to all of the questions, but the point, the students says, is that they do not.

Fleming claims it is not so easy. "The questions vary quite considerably," he says, acknowledging, however, the existence of the student packets.

"I do not think that any-thing of that sort, of passing notes from year to year, is good," Fleming says, "but what can I do?"

"You could stop handing out questions, but you couldn't prevent any moderately intelligent student from figuring out what these topics could be," Fleming says. "I just think that if students don't want to get the good out of the course it is very hard to do anything about it".

Formal or Informal Cheating

Dean Jewett says that an excess of shortcuts techniques could prove to be problematic.

"I wouldn't regard it in a formal sense as cheating. It is not against the rules to not go to class. What it is is poor pedagogy," he says.

"I don't think it is cheating," echoes Dean of Undergraduate Education Lawrence Buell. "If I give an examination, I don't mind if the questions become public knowledge. If I teach the course again, however, it is up to me to introduce the kind of variety that is going to keep the old material from substituting for real preparation of knowledge."

Students also agree that some techniques to circumvent course requirements could be unfair to large portions of the class.

"You feel as if you deserve more if you actually did the work that was required of you." says one first-year.

So, in the words of another students, "it is not outright cheating that occurs at Harvard. It is cheating the system. It is playing the game."

Honor Code

Many college have attacked the problems associated withn cheating by instituting honor code systems that govern questions of academic honesty.

Several students say they would support the idea of Harvard adopting a similar university-wide code of ethics.

Professors and administrators are skeptical, however, on the grounds that it is both impractical to enforce, and that ambiguous ethical questions are not the responsibility of the University.