Shpargalki

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that in Russia, students who cheat to succeed in their school work are unlikely to be turned in by their fellows. Even if their dishonesty is discovered, cheating apparently carries little stigma in the realm of post-Soviet higher education. This is possibly a holdover from the Communist era when, after all, truth counted for little (even in scientific matters), and sound political doctrine counted for everything.

Indeed, devices used to cheat on examinations are now the centerpiece of an exhibit at the museum of the Cherepovets State University. The theme is shpargalki, "which ostensibly are crib notes, but in most cases mean cheat sheets."

There is the jeans skirt with 70 numbered pockets beneath the front flap, each containing a tightly rolled scroll of white paper, about 10 inches by 2 inches, onto which answers to questions passed out by the professor ahead of time have been printed in a fine font.

There is a woman's black-leather belt, whose buckle depicts a jaguar with a spiked collar springing into action, with flaps on the reverse side that open like wedding invitations to reveal stray facts. Then there is a sports jacket with enough secret mechanisms to keep a cardsharp flush for decades.

The skirt was donated by a young woman who graduated recently, but only after enhancing her odds on the economics final. The belt was bequeathed by a first-year student, now a major in philology, who had been floundering in Russian literature.

Students began bringing items after word spread that the organizers were seeking acquisitions, says Tatyana Posokhova, the exhibit's curator. As far as she knows, none of the donors was caught cheating.

A wall of the small, one-room museum is dedicated to cheat sheets themselves, papers of various sizes and folds that carry the markings of indelible, and sometimes invisible, ink. So-called "accordions" are the most widespread. Cheat sheets on which answers have been pressed into paper with a blunt instrument -- leaving an impression that cannot be seen from a distance -- are called "bombs." Some have been penned on pocket tissues, reintroduced to the pack. Another has been scrawled -- by parents, no less -- on the foil wrapper of a bar of chocolate.

Our favorite exhibit is of a pair of women's panties, on the front of which (in black ink) logarithms and mathematical formulas have been written in black ink. Upside down.

We must confess that this presents to us difficult questions regarding use. That is, it is not entirely clear precisely how this item was to be covertly consulted in the course of an examination. All suggestions by our intrepid band of research mice have seemed inadequate and, in some instances, attempted reenactments have led to personal embarrassment, vertebral displacement, or both. Of course, it remains unclear whether the notes were to have been used by the wearer, or by an accomplice.

Our experiments were conducted by professionals, using a closed course. Do not try this at home.

Can we make this stuff up?

No, we cannot: Chronicle of Higher Education, 9/16/2005.