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    If an exam was given in a previous year you can assume that it was, in some sense, published. Wise professors should assume that the questions are known. It is foolish to assume otherwise. If students are sworn to secrecy on how they are tested, then it is students from prior years who have cheated. I can accept this if "exam that was not released" means only that it was never given previously, nor published in any venue in any form. Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 20:00
  • 6
    @Buffy I have had some professors who release their exams as a matter of course, and I have others who only let you see your exams in their office and you can't take it with you. Without more detail on the culture/field, we really have no idea what the expectations are for this student. I didn't mean to suggest the student knowingly cheated; but they should know what the expectations are before going into the meeting. I agree a prof who assumes their questions are 100% secret is a bit naive. Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 20:26
  • 7
    -1 if I could since no cheating occurred (obtaining past exams that have already been used can't be cheating since anybody from the previous years can potentially leak them and it is a professor's duty to enforce justice by preventing cheating. In this case, the only way to ensure fairness is to release the exams publicly so that no one depends on his personal network). Designing new exam questions can be an daunting task but it is the prof's job to do so. It would also not be fair to profs who do their job correctly to use exclusively past exam questions. If it happened, the prof messed up. Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 21:05
  • 4
    @AzorAhai: If someone has a copy of an exam... you might well consider taking the copy as unethical. But reading the copy of a previous exame once it is out is not unethical (we can argue about exact circumstances), but in particular it is not cheating. Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 21:29
  • 15
    I disagree... Training with previous exams should not be considered cheating. There is NO certainty that even a single question matches between exams. Professors reusing questions is NOT the student's fault. We should not punish students for practicing well and using available resources. This is hard-earned success and not sneaky at all. Furthermore, after exams, I often wrote down the questions as far as I was able to remember them. I used this material to practice with other people who took the exams later on, e.g., in the next year. Also cheating? Commented Mar 12, 2019 at 21:46