When I was in school, the only way to get an A on a chemistry lab was to have your plots exactly match the expected outcome of the experiment regardless of what the shoddy lab equipment rendered. Since getting a B on a lab meant risking a B on your report card even if you got As in all the other chemistry assignments, the students competing to get into top-flight colleges would assemble around the lunch table and fit those curves. These are the people doing this kind of thing.