So I go to a Private Christian School Somewhere in the United States and we have a program called Acellerated Reader. AR. We read regular everyday books, like Harry Potter and all that. Then we take a test on them.
So like, half my class was caught cheating on the tests. 15 out of 22 students, I think. They're all going to be suspended Friday and Monday, and we have a ton of last minute work to turn in, and so much is worth a ton of points. They won't be able to turn in those assignments and they won't be able to go on our lass Feild Trip on Monday.

What's your opinion on this? Do you think they deserved to get punished? Have you ever cheated on Tests before? Do you know some has cheated??

I really want to know what you lovely people think!!

Once you get to college, cheating is no longer a slap-on-the-wrist offense. If a student is caught cheating, their professor often has the power to not only flunk the student for the entire course, but to flunk them with a special grade that indicates that they failed due to academic dishonesty. It's basically a permanent or semi-permanent scarlet letter on your record. It can pretty much destroy someone's academic career.

I think cheating needs to be taken seriously before kids get to college. They need to either grow some integrity, or learn how to be really, really good cheaters. Either will serve them well in adulthood, truth be told.

I guess I just don't get it, is reading a book like Harry Potter really all that hard to begin with? Much less worth cheating over? It just sounds really like they were being lazy asses. I think it's really stupid to cheat, especially when it's in a course that sounds pretty straight forward, read the book and you'll pass the test. It's not like physics where you can read something 10 times and still not understand it. I think cheating is a stupid risk, if you need help, ask for help but don't cheat.

I had AR in grade school.
We used to cheat all the time, the whole class would read different books, and take the tests on other people's accounts.
Yes, we did get busted, but it was an epidemic in every class.

Thank for all the comments so far! I enjoy reading them. Yeah, I'm so glad I'm going to a different school next year and I won't have to do AR. I don't know how the cheating was done, but boy, I hate this all so much! It's so Un-Christian and unmoral. Thank gosh I didn't cheat. I had the chance, but I refused. I like to think it shows a bit of character!

Well, I cheated on a few subjects tests when I was in high school, not because I didn't pay attention, because I was getting picked on quite excessively and would just go to the guidance counselor's office instead of class. I know what I did was wrong and I should have not paid attention to those peons but, when your a teenager, it is very hard to ignore. Well, that was only 7-9th grade that I cheated occasionally. I ended up changing schools and then concentrated better on my studies, never cheated and got great grades! I don't think people should cheat though, it's important to educate yourself, and it's quite unethical. People should just study.

We had AR at my school in middle school and I don't know why those kids thought it was so hard they had to cheat on it. if they just read the book they would have been fine. anyway - they got what they deserved. one takes a risk when you cheat on school tests and if you're caught you better be able to own up to it and take the consequences.

Fundamentally, I don't think cheating is a moral issue. Whether I look at the answer when I'm being asked a question doesn't decide whether I'm a good person or not.
What I think does decide that (to an extent) is how I treat it. If I were to cheat on a test for a teacher I respected, I would feel bad about it, because I lied to that teacher, essentially. And if I cheated my way to an A, I certainly wouldn't brag about it, because that's pretty false, and I don't enjoy dishonesty. I guess cheating is dishonest in itself, but I feel that if I lie to some random person, it doesn't matter, but if I'm connected to them, it does. So like, if someone on the street asked my my name, I wouldn't feel bad giving them a false one, but if we got into a conversation, and they told me theirs and I developed any respect for them, I would feel more obliged to at least tell them I didn't want to give out my name.
Yeah, okay, so now that I've explained why I think I can feel bad about cheating sometimes but not others....

I think the worst thing about cheating on a test is that it doesn't help. If you want to be a physicist, but you don't understand physics, it's pointless to steal the answer key or whatever, because it won't help you. And then when people expect you to know what you never learned, you'll have to learn that and new material. You just build up a deficit of knowledge, and you can't really be a physicist like that.
But, if you just have to take a class that you don't care about, and you don't care about it, like if you had to take a literature class, and you really didn't care at all about literature, then I don't see anything so terrible about cheating. You don't care, you'll probably never use it again, why spend time learning that instead of the physics you're struggling with? You may as well just cheat on the test. Assuming of course your method is a good one. Otherwise, yeah, you'd be better off just taking the F and hoping you can do something about it later.

If that many people were cheating, it seems like there are a lot of people in that class who shouldn't be in that class, or that the class is far too hard.

I can understand and agree with suspension/detention for cheating, but surely the school must realise that if so many have to resort to cheating that there must be something wrong with the class itself or the teacher.

I'm thinking the same thing as Ebil. I could see maybe a couple of kids cheating, but nearly the entire class? Wow.

I think cheating is wrong, and I've had several people try to leech off me in the past. To be honest, though, I can't remember half the stuff they taught me in school anyways.

I understand suspensions for cheating in classes, but if I remember the AR
program correctly, isn't it voluntary, and for extra credit/ rewards and such?
Maybe I'm just too old to remember or maybe its changed, but if it hasn't then I think
suspension would be far too harsh, especially with no opportunity to turn in real work.

Boo hoo if they can't go on the field trip. They should not have been cheating. Plain and simple. I think everyone who cheats, and gets caught, should be punished. If they are willing to take the risk of overpassing the system the right way. They should be punished as so if they are caught. It is like selling drugs. If you get caught. You go to jail. There is no other way around it.

Originally Posted by RiotPolice

I understand suspensions for cheating in classes, but if I remember the AR
program correctly, isn't it voluntary, and for extra credit/ rewards and such?
Maybe I'm just too old to remember or maybe its changed, but if it hasn't then I think
suspension would be far too harsh, especially with no opportunity to turn in real work.

Thank goodness now that the year is over I can call it my old school. :D But you have to earn 18 points a trimester, so its sortof required. We can get giftcard for our rewards.

I'm one of those people who doesn't cheat, but gets more in trouble for reading her book in class. I know, I'm a geek.

Okay, lets face it. Everyone has cheated at one point or another. It's not right, but everyone does it so no one really has the right to say how "horrible" it is.

We used to do that program when I was in school. There was this one girl who was always #1, and many of her friends were usually close. It frustrated me very much at the time because I was a very avid reader and I couldn't understand how she had read so much more than me because she certainly wasn't the type. It was only much later that I realized that she had been cheating the entire time. She never got caught, though. I imagine, however, that that had something to do with the fact that her family was so influential in the community.

Originally Posted by Bow

Okay, lets face it. Everyone has cheated at one point or another. It's not right, but everyone does it so no one really has the right to say how "horrible" it is.

No, I don't think that's a fair statement.
I can honestly say that I've never cheated. Not on a test, not even in copying homework. And since I spend a lot of time studying with students like myself, I don't believe that I'm an anomaly.

Simply because a practice is common does not mean that it should be pushed aside and ignored. It doesn't make cheating any less of a problem. Saying that the practice is widespread is just an excuse. It's actually a way of making yourself feel better about doing it and get rid of the guilt. Yet if "everyone is doing it," that should be all the more reason for students to take responsibility for their actions and stop the cycle.

I've never cheated either.

You know there's a saying that goes something like "if someone says that 'everyone's doing it', the only thing you can know with some measure of certainty is that that person does it". Or something like that.

Then again, I never felt the need or the desire to cheat. Cheating, even if I didn't get caught, could only lower my grade.

They cheate don the test and even though tahts stuped they need to be punished for it. They will learn not to do it next time and if there they stuck on things then they just need to read the book again.