In high school in the United States, I took an AP history course. Students in the class became convinced that the teacher did not actually read the many, many essays he assigned us.

One day, on the spur of a moment, several of us decided to find out. I had already written my essay, but another student who got poor marks in the class hadn't done much of one. I wrote an essay for him during Spanish class. (The Spanish teacher realized what we were doing and was okay with it.)

The other guy rewrote my work in his own handwriting.

We hand them in later that afternoon.

A week or so later, we get them back. I get the high marks I had been getting throughout the year. My other essay, in another's student's handwriting, gets mediocre marks. That's how I got two grades one day and lost a lot of respect for my history teacher.

He completely went by student reputation, not the effort put into any given essay. Even though these essays would eventually be judged blind during the AP testing...