TEXT 2. CONSEQUENCES OF CHEATING

Academic dishonesty has become a big issue. Teachers always say, "Keep your eyes on your own paper. Anyone caught cheating will fail this exam!". They watch students like a hawk during examinations. Some people complain that cheating is on the rise, that more and more students are cheating. They think it is easier and easier for students to get away with it. Some say teachers are even letting cheaters off easy. Why are some students cheating more? Some students who cheat say, "We have to cheat in order to get ahead in life. Besides, everyone is doing it. It's no big deal!"

"Big problems at home", "I was sick", "I lost my notes", "I forgot the test", "My book was stolen"...all of these are excuses in order not to study for a test, and you can always find a good one. The next day without excuses, you must take the test. You need a good grade in order to pass the course, and you are hoping for a miracle, but the point is that they don't exist, so the easiest solution is to cheat! Does it sound familiar? Well, perhaps once in a life time each one of us has lived this kind of situation and has cheated without looking at the consequences of this act.

Everybody should be taught not to cheat from the school days because the problem is that most of the time it is not a matter of once in a life time. If you are successful the first time, the most probable thing is that you will repeat the act; and if you are doing this very often, it could bring serious consequences in both the short and the long term.

In the short term, maybe you won't be caught, and you will get good grades without studying, which sounds fantastic, but you are wasting your time and your money trying to "learn" by cheating. It is not such a good method. In the end, who will be deceived? The teacher or you? Well, I am pretty sure that you will be the only loser. If you get caught, you will be in trouble because you can be expelled from school or the university, or at least you will get a zero (0) on your test and a bad reputation, not only with the teachers, but with the other students as well.

In the long term, there are also big consequences for the cheaters. You may graduate from school or university by cheating, but when you will be asked to use your knowledge in other situations, as for example at work, if you didn't learn much in the university because you are a cheater, how would you solve problems, give ideas, behave in a meeting or perform in general on your job?

My father used to tell me that cheating at school was like forging a check. Well, at that moment, I thought he was exaggerating, but now I understand his words because when you cheat, what you are doing is taking knowledge that is not yours and using it as if it were. It's the same as forging a check. Besides, I think whoever is accustomed to cheating won't see any problem in doing bad things in the future, such as stealing ideas from others and plagiarizing works.

If everybody just knew the importance of knowledge in their lives, I think that people wouldn't cheat either in universities or in schools. The problem is that when you are a kid, you don't see the long term, and most of the time the only important this is the grades. In other words, what happens is that there is a lack of conscientiousness about the subject when you are at school and sometimes at the university.