In an effort to prevent sixth graders from cheating in national exams, the Iraqi government cut off internet to the entire nation from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. on May 14, 15 and 16, internet performance company Dyn Research has reported.

In Iraq, standard evaluation exams are conducted on the same days for every student in the country and schools usually receive the test papers in the hours leading up to 8 a.m.

"We asked the Communications Ministry to shut off internet services because we knew that some students — those who are lazy — started to use the internet to try to get [the answers]," said Education Ministry spokeswoman Hadeel al-Ameri to nbcnews.com.

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"Security departments were able to arrest some people caught trying to leak the questions and we also found out that there were a few people in the [Education] Ministry who used to leak questions," she added.

Students and teachers further explained that a Facebook group called "Leaking the Final Central Exams Questions 2015" existed last year, through which people paid as little as US$9 to get exam answers.

The government plans to shut down the internet again during the the upper school exams that start on May 25. (kes)