We are hosting a 16 year old German exchange student and this topic came up recently at dinner. She attends a private Catholic school in Germany and says pretty much all students there routinely cheat on their tests. My daughter atttests that cheating is widespread at our local high school. (She, of course denies any involvement.)

In the dark ages, when I was in school the consequences were severe and usually involved a large, wooden paddle liberally applied to the backside - with no distinction made for gender. That, as well as having your test conspicuously marked with the big, red "F" and posted on the bulletin board for all to see.

Is cheating in school really so widespread these days? Since students can re-take tests or do extra credit why bother to cheat?

 

I graduated from high school in 2000; I don't recall any mass cheating. Sure, we'd try to get a leg up every chance we got, but nothing like stealing the test and copying it for the whole class.

Then again, I just drifted through high school and still got out with Bs, so I'd imagine the poor soul who has to cheat through high school is going to settle into a career as a French Fried Potato Technician or a Hamburger Analyst for McDonalds.

XXL

 

Cheating still occurs in my kid's high school and the consequences haven't changed. They still get the red "F" in big letters and a trip to the Principal's Office.
While I was in college back in the Dark Ages, I took a mini-course on Eastern European Cinema ( don't ask why a Chem major would take that course) and one of the movies that we watched was a Russian short documentary about kids in grade school. When it came time to test the kids' knowledge, the teacher would hand out tests and leave the room. An older student would pass the answers around the room so that everyone did well on the test. I always thought that was rather odd, but it was definitely a socialist move.

 

I graduated highschool in 2002..I would also say that it wasn't like...full blown stealing tests and that kind of cheating...but theres a lot of plagerizing and such. On a test it wasn't like everyone was cheating..but if the opportunity came and the risk wasn't high enough to easily get caught...a "hey whats question 5" would fly by. It's almost impossible for a teacher to punish a student for cheating on a test now a days because theres no proof. The worst could be detention...not suspension or expulsion.

 

Not at my HS, you get suspended for plagarism and if you have a "cheat sheet", etc, you're going to get suspended. In my math class, 80% of the people copy homework and half that many cheat on the tests.

 

Actually had a HUGE case here in Kansas, near Kansas City. The biology (?) teacher had a big project that was recognized as the first serious research paper the students write in their career as a student. A handout was given at the beginning of the assignment that defined cheating and plagarism. She caught about 1/3 of the class copying the reports directly from the internet (used a snooping software). Failed the students and the PARENTS raised holy hell about their sweet innocent babes getting screwed by this mean old teacher. The Superintendent changed the grades so that EVERYONE passed. Teacher quit and was being interviewed on Bill O'Riley a couple months later. No students failed the class but the Superintendent was fired and several school board members lost their positions.

 

Cheating still goes on in school (I'm a junior in HS) but its only 1 or 2 people in a class who usually try to cheat on tests and such...

I admit, I have cheated, but ever since HS, I dont think I ever have. It just comes too easy and the tests are set up to where you cant cheat very easily anymore. A couple of my teachers actually mix up the questions on everyone's test sheet...so one person's #5 might be another persons #12

 

Why cheat? Because the ramifications of not doing well can effect your whole life.

Colleges and universities are getting more and more picky about the students they enroll. Good grades and class standing are very important, as are extracurricular activities, volunteer work, references, etc. That's a lot of pressure to put on a teenager - so they cheat.

Combined with harder classes and work loads and after school work, study time is decreased, only adding to the need to cheat.

 

Cheating happens, but it isn't that widespread. I notice alot of cases where there is an easy possibility for a not-so-good student to cheat, but they don't. You can get through high school by cheating and still get an A however, most of the people who cheat aren't A students. There will come a time when cheating is no longer possible. Apparently it is hard to do in college, and in most all cases a person will fail the class if caught. If a person does make it through college by cheating, then they won't know the material to be successful.
So, in other words, it will catch up to them.
Then again, the stuff I learned in high school and below wasn't that important. It is not well taught and is only used to make me "well-rounded." I know what I want to go to college for, and it has nothing to do with knowing vocabulary or facts and statistics. So, if I were to cheat on something like that, I would not be hindering my education in the slightest bit. As a matter of a fact, a person could cheat all the way through school and make up for any missed material in college--- well I hope so, cause I don't cheat and I'm not learning much. I'll admit that I have written a few things down on my desk before, and it was wrong, but it doesn't hurt my education.

 

When I was in college we would have several people come in every morning and go around from person to person to try and copy their homework from them. It was mainly because of 2 reasons. 1. They did not do the homework and 2. They did not know how to do it. If they came to me, I would ask if they at least tried to do the problems. If not, I would try to help them out with the problem while they done the work like doing the calculations. If they did try the problem and just could not figure it out past a certain point, I would try and help them figure out where the problem was. Many times it was just a simple calculation or formula error. For the ones that never even tried the homework, they were the ones that usually just copied the problems from the people who would let them.

This was a bad problem for our class especially during my Bachelors degree progam. Almost every morning on days that we had homework due, at least half of the class would be in the Library copying from the few who actually done the homework. Our instructor got onto them a few times. Now if I had a trouble with a problem, I would go in and ask someone else what they got for an answer or how they went about solving it. Most of the time, I figured out where I made the mistake.

I do not feel sorry for the ones that copied other peoples homework, because they were the ones who could barely pass the tests or quizzes. And most of time, they were direct questions from the homework. Sure there were times when I just could not understand a few of the problems or just couldn't remember something. But I worked hard and got good grades on the tests and graduated with a 3.87GPA for my Bachelors. I thought about cheating a few times, but then decided I would take what I earned. We had one person fail the course and several others who barely passed. These were the ones who were always copying others.

 

My son graduated #2 in his HS class last year. During his freshman year, the kid who was #1 cheated on some of his tests and my son knew it because he was in the same honors classes.
In one instance, my son received a B+ (the only B he ever got in his life) and the other kid got an A because he cheated. That one B+ cost my son the #1 class ranking, but it never bothered him like it did me. When he graduated, I asked him if he ever felt cheated because his grades were all his doing, without cheating ,and the Valdevictorian (sp?) got there by cheating. He was very philosophical about it. He said that the kid only had his class ranking and it wasn't that big of a deal to my son. He said that after their freshman year, the kid worked hard for his grades where as my son's came easily. My son didn't begrudge him a thing.
I'm glad that I didn't make a big deal about it with him. I would have passed off my parential neuroses onto him.

 

Cheating will always occur...................when humans are involved.

At all levels


Remember Enron, that was/is a form of cheating