More Cheating

Didn't hand back the exams today because I didn't want to give back n-k of them and then deal with the k other students since I haven't yet filled out the cheating paperwork.

There were a few cases where a student with absolutely no work at all got the right answer. To the question on the other version of the exam.

One of the problems was to calculate a few iterations of a dynamical system with a sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Two students with different initial conditions ended up getting exactly the same values reported to exactly the same number of decimal places.

Not to long ago on This American Life, Ira Glass noted that there seems to be a trend of journalists reporting on unexpected side effects of the recession -- like dentists seeing more broken teeth because the economy is stressing people out and causing them to grind their teeth at night. Can I blame bad economic times for the excess of egregious cheating I've uncovered this semester? Or am I just better at spotting it? Or my students less savvy at covering it up?