Cheating is too common today, and what the teachers are doing to “prevent it” isn’t working. 

In almost all high school movies or TV shows, it is almost certain you will find a character doing some sort of cheating, such as looking off someone else’s test, looking at writing on their hand, using their phone or other smart devices, and unfortunately, it is common in real life too. Although cheating happens more frequently in high school, it can start in middle school too. Rochester Institute of Technology says that the most common reasons students cheat go as follows: desire to get a good grade, fear of failing, poor time management, disinterest in assignment, and belief that they will not get caught. We can see that a lot more stress is put on today’s students, but this is no good reason to cheat; none of them are. 

Hard working students don’t deserve to be out-ranked by students who cheated their way to the top. This unfair advantage could go as far as corrupting a school’s ranking system and putting those who deserve to be at the top, lower. Imagine stressing over a test all week and studying all week to prepare only for a kid to look off your test and get the same grade. Is that fair? Imagine looking off the smart kid’s test when all you did to prepare was absolutely nothing. Is that right?

Since cheating has become such a problem, we propose that teachers take some time before the test to collect electronics. The teacher can also rearrange the class so that no student is next to another to make looking off of someone’s paper more difficult as well as more obvious. These little things can create an impressive decrease of cheating students and more true grades.