I refer to Dr Vivian Chien's letter defending the students who used model answers for their examination (South China Morning Post, July 23).
While it is understandable that students feel a great deal of pressure to perform well in their exams, it does not give them licence to cheat and deceive - which is exactly what those 600 students did.
Dr Chien claims the students 'produced their own answers on the day of the examination without any act of cheating or fraud' and that they 'were in no circumstances acting in a fraudulent manner to get the model answers'.
She's right about the latter - the students did not get the model answers fraudulently but they are guilty of cheating and fraud. Fraud is defined as 'the use of false representations to gain an unjust advantage' (Concise Oxford Dictionary ).
By regurgitating a model answer, the students deliberately tried to mislead the Examinations Authority with an inflated display of their abilities to gain admittance to university.
Dr Chien goes on: 'If the model answer is better than their own creativity, why should one not produce the best for the examination?' The answer is simple: in most circles, that would be considered plagiarism, 'the act of taking and using the thoughts, writings, inventions, etc of another person as one's own' (Concise Oxford Dictionary ).
