A cheat sheet or crib sheet is a concise set of notes used for quick reference. "Cheat sheet" may also be rendered "cheatsheet".
Cheat sheets are so named because they may be used by students without the instructor's knowledge to cheat on a test. However, at higher levels of education where rote memorization is not as important as in basic education, students may be permitted to consult their own notes during the exam (which is not considered cheating). The act of preparing a so-called cheat sheet is also an educational exercise, thus students are sometimes only allowed to use cheat sheets they have written themselves. In such usage, a cheat sheet is a physical piece of paper, often filled with equations and/or facts in compressed writing. Modern students often print cheat sheets in extremely small font, fitting an entire page of notes in the palm of their hands during the exam.
The term can also apply to the fully worked solution for exams or work sheets normally handed out to university staff to ease marking.
Read more about Cheat Sheet: As Reference Cards
Famous quotes containing the words cheat and/or sheet:
“Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat ... the redeeming things are not “happiness and pleasure” but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Some days your hat’s off to the full-time mothers for being able to endure the relentless routine and incessant policing seven days a week instead of two. But on other days, merely the image of this woman crafting a brontosaurus out of sugar paste and sheet cake for her two-year-old’s birthday drives a stake through your heart.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)