HSC 2023: Students paying tutors, using AI to write perfect exam essays

HSC students have been accused of “cheating” after revealing they pay tutors to write their essays, and use AI bots and detection programs to ace exams. Here’s what parents need to know.

HSC students are buying essays, using AI, and repurposing former student’s work in a series of sneaky tactics used to ace this year’s exams. 

The Daily Telegraph can reveal a black market inside NSW schools, which includes the sale of psychostimulant drugs like Ritalin for as little as $2 a pill, has expanded to buying pre-written exams from tutors. 

Students tackling HSC exams have revealed they are taking advantage of a lack of AI detection programs in written exams.

ChatGPT is being used by students to write exams. (Photo by OLIVIER MORIN / AFP)

While others were tasking tutors – and paying hundreds of dollars – for written essays that could be ”memorised and rewritten” in exams. 

The moves comes as a HSC marker revealed they were not aware of any AI-detection programs being used to check essays for this year’s HSC, as NESA warned students of “serious penalties”. 

HSC 2023: Why black market Ritalin is being sold to students preparing for exams

Veteran tutors David and Shellie Higinbotham, of Kip McGrath in Springwood and Penrith said the tactics from “unqualified tutors in the industry should be seen as cheating in the HSC”.

“This is a tactic used by inexperienced tutors and HSC students way too often," Mr Higinbotham told The Daily Telegraph.

“Qualified teachers are taught from day one not to use these tactics, and any highly-respected tutoring company has programs in place to train their students how to write essays, not write them of them.

“This has been happening for years, it is not surprising that HSC students are still using these tactics.”

Shellie Higinbotham said students would have to “look at yourself in the mirror and know that you have cheated”.

HSC students have revealed tactics used to ‘cheat’ their way through exams.

A former HSC student, who did not wish to be named, said it was common for students to ask their tutors to write their essays, “I mean that’s what they’re paid for”.

“When you’re paying like $100 an hour they’re not going to say no when you ask for them to help, you write an essay or use their old essays as ‘inspiration’,” he said.

A current HSC student said she was planning to use a memorised version of her boyfriend’s English Essay, “which were written for him by his tutor”.

“It’s easy – I just have to memorise it,” she said.

Another HSC student said she used a series of AI websites in order to build her English essays, before running them through a series of AI-detector programs in NESA installed systems to check for AI-written responses.

A smartphone and a laptop displaying the logos of the artificial intelligence OpenAI research laboratory and ChatGPT robot. (Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP)

A 2023 HSC marker said she is unaware if AI detectors will be used during the marking process of the exams.

“Schools … are becoming more sophisticated in detection methods,” she said. “(programs like) Quill bot and Grammarly can be used to camouflage AI and that’s a problem.”

A NSW Education Standards Authority spokesman said the organisation “take cheating and malpractice in academic work and exams very seriously”.

“Students reproducing work that is not their own is against HSC rules and serious penalties apply,” he said.

The NESA representative warned students that the reproduction of memorised responses “rarely answers the full question and is discouraged”.

“HSC exam questions differ in focus and content every year,” he said. “Marks are awarded for how well the response addresses the full scope of the question.”