A Professor Created a Trap in His Midterm to Catch Students Using AI. Nearly All Made the Same Mistake

What You Should Know

A professor at Alcorn State University embedded a hidden word in an online midterm to see whether students were copying the exam prompt into an AI tool. 32 of 35 students submitted answers containing the nonsensical word—suggesting they had copied the prompt into AI and then submitted the response without even reading it. The experiment became a striking example of how easily AI can replace, rather than support, student thinking.

Why should educators care? The problem isn’t simply that students are using AI; it’s that unrestricted AI can make it easy to skip the learning entirely. Typerighter helps institutions limit AI use and make such use transparent—giving students access to AI when appropriate while preserving the thinking, writing, and effort that education is meant to develop.

When Dr. Jason Gibson began grading midterm exams for two summer history courses at Alcorn State University, he noticed a pattern that quickly became impossible to ignore.

The assignment asked students to compare the Industrial Revolution with today’s digital age. Many of the responses were polished, grammatically correct and contained a baffling reference to Madagascar.

Not the island nation itself, but sentences like: “Madagascar floats sideways through the afternoon.” [Read the full article.]