The accompice's job was to assist if he knew the answers. Presumably the fraudulent major planned to drop out if no helpful coughs appeared and he didnt know the answer himself either. The accomplice could also be heard having whispered conversations with his neighbour checking the correct answers, before he did the coughing bit. Their trouble was, they hadnt practised enough, so it didnt look smooth, it was all too obvious the poor old major hadnt got a clue. And he got too greedy. If he'd copped out at £64,000 or whatever, he'd probably have got away with it. But the longer he went on, the higher the pile of evidence against him grew, so there was eventually no chance statistically of claiming the coughs were random. It was also very unlucky for them that the major hardly new any of the answers himself, so the coughing had to be deployed too often.If the major had been a quiz qhizz they might have got away with it.