College Times

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We’ve all been there before: whether you’re a studious, responsible scholar, reading all assigned texts and then some; or a late-night crammer, skimming chapters and note-cards all hours of the night – unfair tests do not discriminate. Professors find it fair (or, possibly, sickly amusing) to write up tests that draw on “extra” sections, obscure, under-the-breath mentions during lectures and, worst of all, footnotes. You’ve studied your ass off, it turns out, for the wrong test.

That’s where new website www.FreshExams.com comes in. Visitors to the site can browse actual tests submitted entirely by other users, allowing students to view sample tests or, quite possibly, actual tests from their particular instructor, free of charge.

FreshExams.com owner and operator Bryan King, a senior at UConn, recently spoke with College Times about his enterprise, his hopes for the site, and the possibility of future repercussions from administrators and professors.

College Times: What made you want to start up freshexams.com?

Bryan King: Mostly because at UConn, I realized a lot of the professors don’t actually prepare students for exams. I mean, it’s not hard for teachers to hand out old exams, and the only reason some don’t is because they’re too lazy to, they don’t feel like making a whole new handbook. So you either have the teacher who, year after year, uses the same exams, which doesn’t really help you, and they don’t even hand them out, or you have – I’ve only had a couple classes where teachers have given me sample exams. And personally, my friends and I find that studying off a sample exam – not even like a real exam – helps greatly. Because you can study for the whole class, but if you’re not aware of the type of questions that are going to appear on a test, it’s not worth it. We’ve all gone into an exam after studying all night and been like, “crap, these aren’t [based on] information that we studied, and these questions aren’t reflecting what I know. And, there’s really no other resource online for exams. Exams nowadays are worth a hell of a lot more than they used to be.

Do you hope to turn a profit off of this idea eventually? People don’t usually spend that much money on something they don’t hope to net some sort of return from.

My idea is kind of that everything should be available to people. There are exam banks online that you’re paying out of your ass for, over $200 bucks, and you’re really not getting that broad of a selection. There are a lot of exam sites that specialize in actual assigned exams, but as far as college exams, I saw that there was nothing there. Yeah, I’d like to get my money back, and I used to run Google ads on there, but maybe you make $10, but I realized that’s not what I wanted, because I hate going to sites and seeing ads all over the place. I’m not a fan … I’m kind of doing this just to – it sounds stupid, but just to give everyone else some extra study help. I’ve had a hell of a hard time in school the past couple years. I get a hell of a lot more excited just seeing more users.

Couldn’t the site be considered cheating? Do you fear some sort of recourse?

Personally, I have not heard anything yet. That’s not a worry of mine, though. I had a class, economics, at UConn, and the professor uses the same exam year after year. So three-quarters of the class, they find that exam from their friend, they memorize everything, but if you didn’t have that to go off; going into the test, it was a specialized area that you didn’t really study. It wasn’t equal distribution of what he said was on the test. I’m not really worried about backlash, or anything like that. If it happens, it happens. My freshman year at UConn, I got tossed out of UConn twice because I didn’t have my priorities straight. Even if I do get in trouble for it, seeing a couple thousand kids be able to get free exams and do better on their exams and not hear shit from their parents; it’s worth it.

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