"Zoom in on the Problem" Summary

            Cheating is a very large problem in schools today.  Cheating is when one student uses the work of another, with or without the other’s permission. Cheating can include taking answers from another student on a test, copying another’s homework answers if the instructor prohibits such activity, and various forms of plagiarism. The issue which is focused on here is cheating on tests, which avoids the subject of plagiarism altogether and falls more under the category of “academic dishonesty.” Cheating is morally wrong, and is considered a serious problem by people. Cheating, in general, affects the cheaters the most, because the one who does the cheating is missing out on the knowledge obtained when not cheating. Teachers are also affected by cheating, because they have to deal with cheating and its effects, and also attempt to prevent cheating. Also, cheating affects the administration of schools, which have to take punitive action against cheaters, which increases the amount of work they have to do. Finally, cheating also affects those who do not cheat, because it creates an unfair advantage for those who do cheat when the one who cheats is not caught; this, in turn, can lead to the one who was following the rules to attempt cheating, to “level the playing field.” Many people have different theories as to what causes cheating; however, all of the causes are not yet known, but laziness and simply not caring about the respective class are definite causes. People have tried for many years to stop this cheating; however, so far, none have been successful in preventing cheating, and some may argue cheating has actually increased recently. The people who have tried to remedy this problem have not succeeded because the issue is being looked at the wrong way; it needs to be examined from a different point of view, and new solutions need to be presented, which may need to focus on other people rather than simply the students to obtain results. If the problem is not solved, cheating will continue, and eventually people will give up attempting to find a solution, which will lead to a generation of students who either cheat or were negatively affected by cheating. To summarize: People should attempt to find new and different solutions to the problem of cheating because the current methods to remedy the problem do not work to maximum efficiency.