I did, and when I was doing it, I didn’t feel the least bit guilty or ashamed about it. Maybe I am justifying something that shouldn’t be justified, but I am really not plagued by the guilt that society assumes I should be. I’ve only technically done it once. It was in the senior year of high school, and I was taking a course that was mandatory for graduation; we could either take it junior or senior year. It was a complete bullshit course that was supposed to help us plan and figure out the future. It was such a complete waste of time, the course was dreadful, and the teacher even moreso. Without going into too much details, the teacher was a complete buffoon and the grades she handed out often didn’t reflect our work, but rather her feelings about us personally.
By the end of the course, I was sick of doing work that didn’t matter. She assigned us a big project on choosing a career and writing about why we would suit that career well. Instead of putting my time in, I use the project my friend did, who took the course in junior year. I changed the names, but other than that, it was word for word. When I got the project back, she gave me a 95%, and she had given my friend 75%. I guess she liked it better the second time around.
There was another time I almost cheated. I was also getting burnt out in biology class and didn’t have much energy left to learn about the excretory system. I studied for a bit, and then decided to write on a piece of paper all the information that I needed. The teacher would routinely hand out photocopies of the exam, but asked us to use our blank paper to write the answers on. That class was easy to cheat in, and I knew several people who cheated without ever getting caught. I walked into the test that day with the piece of paper with the information. I had it on my desk the whole time I was taking the test, but I found that I had put more into my brain that I thought, and I didn’t really need the piece of paper. I ended up not taking a single look at it.
I still have no feelings of guilt about the plagerism. With all the moral outrage of cheating I’ve seen on these forums, I’m wondering if anyone else will admit to some form of academic cheating.
Have never done it, and I am disgusted that it has become so prevalent. Our school system has created an any-means-to-an-end rationale. I’ve read a couple of news stories about high school kids cheating so they get into a good college, but it seems to me it’s got to catch up with you sooner or later.
Your case seems a little out of the ordinary, and I won’t condone the cheating but I can sympathize.
I’ve cheated several times on tests as a younger child, mostly by writing key answers on my hands in pen. Never felt guilty about it. I was a lazy student, so it wasn’t a matter of not knowing the stuff, I just didn’t try hard enough to learn it. It wasn’t something I did a lot, just when I realized how important the test was and how much I’d slacked off.
But in college, I was required to take a high-level math class. I hate math, and I’m absolutely horrible at it. I’ve tried tutors, guides, studying my brain off, and I would still barely pass. So, I had absolutely no idea how i was going to get through this class. I told my professor the trouble I had and he tutored me many times. I still had difficulty and wasn’t doing to well, until one day I found a loophole on our online testing system (most of our work was done and graded online) that allowed me to find the answers, albeit with some work involved. I took FULL advantage, and passed the class. I never would have otherwise. It wasn’t the best thing to do, but my justification was not that I wasn’t willing to work hard at the class, but that I just don’t get it. And it was required, which I thought was bullshit.
Yes, in AP algebra in high school, in my best “hare and the tortoise” style.
I read several chapters ahead in the book. Feeling supremely confident, I started napping in class. A few weeks later, I realized that I had no idea what the class was studying.
I was too embarrassed to admit to the teacher that I was lost, and temptation got the best of me. I cheated on a couple of tests, got caught and started turning in failing work. I finished the school year with a D. My average was several points below the cutoff for passing. I think that my teacher let me slide since there was no chance of my taking AP math again.
Yes, I cheated in highschool, pretty much every day. I went to a Christian highschool and honestly, there wasn’t much in their cirriculum that was *worth *learning.
The daily schoolwork was self-grading with each section ended by a test that was graded by the room supervisor. I would memorize the answers on the section self-test in five minutes or so and then regurgitate them onto the supervisor-graded test. About a week later, I’d do the same thing with the next section. I graduated with a 95% average with this method.
So, yes, I cheated but this truly is an instance in which the cheater did not cheat themselves. I plea that I would actually be dumber if I had learned the cirriculum.
I had to take Chemistry 30 (grade 12) to get an advanced diploma, which I needed.
I had NO idea what was going on in class. There was a guy in class that had a crush on me. He used to help me with my labs. Then he would let me copy his labs. Then he would just write out two copies, I would put my name on one and hand it in.
I suppose it’s cheating, but the course instructor knew that Rob was doing it and he didn’t care. I think he was worried if he failed me I’d be back in his class the next semester which he just wasn’t up for so he totally let it slide.
I finished the course with a 49.5%, which was rounded up to a 50 so I passed.
FWIW, at no time was “Chemist” in my list of potential careers.
No, but I was cheated on. In 8th grade history, two boys who sat on either side of me were copying off my test papers (unbeknownst to me). Neither one was a very good student, and when they were called into the hallway to talk with the teacher about it, the entire class heard one of them proclaim, “But Gypsysaid we could copy off her!”
I was horrified. Even more so when the second idiot who was being accused called me and threatened me unless I told the teacher that I allowed him to copy my answers. I called his bluff.
A bit of history: every bad grade I’ve ever received has been because I didn’t want to bother. I learned the material. When a student refuses to do homework, though, most teachers (in my experience) feel no remorse in failing said student.
Welcome to summer school, June of 1997. This would be my second time taking both Algebra 1 A & B. I knew the material. I had a major crush on a student who was in his last classes to receive his diploma. (Hi, Ryan!) Anywho… he needed to pass these classes. Nobody wanted to see him hanging around for yet another year. OK, I did, but I’m wandering…
Our teacher for those summer classes was kind of oblivious. Or he didn’t care. To help Ryan and the others get through the agony of Algebra, we employed strategies that would benefit everyone.
We were each permitted to use one sheet of blank paper, front and back, to work out test problems. I would breeze through my exam, then carefully copy the work and answers onto the blank paper. I’d fold my notes just so, then launch them onto Ryan’s desk. He would take what he needed, then pass them on to the next person.
I’m pretty sure at some point I told the others in my class to miss at least a couple problems so our cheating system wouldn’t be too obvious. Again, I think the teacher didn’t care. We all passed both classes.
JFTR, I no longer value anyone else enough to risk being expelled.
I came close once. I drank diet soda every day in class. In a particularly hard Statistics test I taped all of the forumlas (well the ones I couldn’t remember) to the bottom of the can. The professor got up and went to the ladie’s room.
I just couldn’t do it. I was brought up to do your best and then take the consequences. In then end I barely passed Stats, but I don’t mind.
I took an education class in college that was the worst class I have ever taken. The entire course, History and Philosophy of Education, consisted of a never ending rota of students presenting a three mionute encyclopedia-level account of important educators–we had to do like 6 each, and there was no sign-up system, so we all pulled from the same pool of about 10. The midterm and final consisted of questions people emailed him that he cut and pasted together without looking at them. We went over the “graded” midterm and it was FILLED with errors–things like “Plato had a Christian philosopy of education”. The final was the same way, except that after the test he had us swap papers and grade each others scantron. I KNEW the key was again filled with errors, and in any case, the questions had been random, chaotic, and did not reflect anything we’d really been taught.
At that point the only “moral” choice I had was to get up and walk out. I wasn’t about to put a failing grade on someone else’s paper under those circumstances, but making up a passing grade was wrong, too. We were all looking at each other, all facing the same dilemma. It was aweful, but I really, really wanted to be a teacher and this was the last class before my student teaching so I just put an 85 on the damn thing and handed it back.
It was all good, though, because next he gave us an “average” sheet for us to fill in our grades on each of the “reports” we’d done (assume 100 if you did it, he told us), our midterm grade, and our final. Then average and put your grade at the botton.
I gave myself a B. I got an A. I rather suspect everyone did.
I took AP US History, and a good friend had taken the course the previous year. She gave me her binder from the class when she graduated. She was very organized, and had all of her exams and all of her papers collected in the binder.
I didn’t even open the thing for the first few months, but after a while I got lazy about reading the text book. I’d participate actively in discussions after having skimmed a few pages of the chapter, and after listening to a few others talk about things for a minute or so. However, this often left me with some holes in my knowledge come test time. So, I’d read over the previous year’s exams (multiple choice) at lunch the day of each test. The answers and questions would be changed around, but most of them were basically on the same facts. So, I’d usually get between, oh, 78-92, depending on how well I knew the material to begin with.
Likewise with essays. After a few months I started, er, borrowing from them. I’d take them out, read them a few times, then go to the text book and read the parts of the book relevant to the essay, and then write my own, basically following the same formula as the original, often using about half of the same citations. It sort of ended up like a paper taken from the same outline as the original.
I ended up with a low to mid B in the class (I don’t really remember… I think I had one quarter with a C), but got a 4 on my AP exam when I went to take it. So, clearly something about that whole process worked for me, but I definitely used the old tests/essays as a way to not have to study and stress out during the year.
I feel a little bad about it, not so much because I was breaking the rules, but because I probably could have gotten a bit more out of the class if I had spent more time with the textbook.
It was junior year in HS and I was in Physics. It was easy for me, but the teacher told me (in front of the class) that he’d refused to sign off on my taking second level Physics because I’d been busting his chops all year. I still remember him saying in front of the whole class, “Mr Blucher, you’d need 106 points out of 100 available on the final to get an ‘A’ from me. But on the other hand, you’d have to really f-ck up to get a ‘C’.” I’m suprised he didn’t say, “Don’t mess with the Bull, Son, or you’ll get the Horns…!”
The guy who sat next to me was in trouble though. His grades were in the tank, he had no colleges he could get into, and the Marines had told him he needed to pass this class or they’d rescind their offer to him. He BEGGED me to help him out with 2-3 answers on the final. And I, with nothing to gain or lose from the class, helped him. And he passed. And the Marines took him; it turned his life around. Later, when I heard he had gotten a job as a broker with Cantor Fitzgerald, and I was actually very proud of my helping him. Sadly, he died on his birthday while at the office, when the towers fell.
Once. My freshman year of college I took a Russian history class but ended up missing some class, plus the final, because I was sick. So for the make-up final – which I hadn’t studied for – I was handed a test and put in a room by myself. Yep, just me, my blue books – and my textbook. This was NOT an open-book exam. The exam was in two parts: Some short (1 paragraph each) identifiers of various people and terms, followed by two longer essay questions. I bullshitted up essay answers and then sat there for a while, ruminating on how little I knew about the short-ID terms and gazing at my textbook. Then I cracked and picked the book up, looked the terms up in the index, read the brief material and wrote down the answers, changing the wording so I wasn’t copying directly from the book.
The result? I got a half-ass grade for half-ass work – a “C,” I think – but the incomprehensible part was that I did better on the essays – “blah blah blah bullshit blah blah” – than I did on the short answers, which I had looked up.
But I never did anything like that again. It didn’t matter if no one but me knew what I did; I just didn’t want to be a person who cheats. The next year, I was in a very similar position in a Linguistics class and took a failing test grade. I was a lot prouder to have done that than I was of my actions on the Russian History test.
I only did it once, in 7th grade history. Damn US amendments. (text of amendments was on the test, we were to fill in what amendment number it was. For some reason that’s a memory-task that my brain doesn’t do well at all).
As others have said, I quickly decided I would rather do as well as I could do on my own merits (which had always been sufficient before) than do better by cheating.
I once wrote a 20-page term paper for my boyfriend, whom I’ll call Joe Blow. The ironic thing: it was a term paper for an ethics class (my boyfriend was minoring in philosophy). A few years later, I took the same class under the same professor, and after I’d handed in a couple of assignments, the professor asked me whether I happened to know Joe Blow. Apparently my writing style was distinctive enough that the prof recognized it. What an embarrassment.
I should probably have been given an F, but the professor gave me a stern lecture instead.
In high school a friend and I got in trouble for copying a notebook for home economics. Didn’t think the class was important enough to actually do the work. The principal just looked at us and explained how we were not only cheating ourselves, we were showing the teacher that she wasn’t worth our respect or our time. We felt like we had just beat up our grandmother.
