cheat, cheat, cheat it up...

In the article "students find more students cheating, with high achievers no exceptions" Recent studies have shown that cheating has been more of a problem lately at some of the most competitive schools, such as Harvard, Stuyvesant high school in Manhattan, and even the air force academy. Cheating has become simple and easier to do because of internet access, causing plagiarism rates to skyrocket and making it easier to plagiarize other people’s work. They also blame teachers for not teaching the students well enough to know whether or not they should cheat. Studies also begin to blame parents for cheating rates going up like that because of the pressure being applied to students daily. In the article, Donald L. McCabe, a professor at the Rutgers university business school says “there have always been struggling students who cheat to survive”, but he also states that “there are students at the top who cheat to succeed”. I believe that both statements are true, but I have never looked at the situation from this perspective. I think that this cheating issue is not one that can be easily resolved, but there may be ways to work on eliminating plagiarism a little bit faster. Not only do I believe that eliminating internet access would not help, but would in fact make this cheating issue a whole lot worse. This article honestly makes me wonder how often teachers encourage cheating and if that is the only reason that I succeed in school. Would it demoralize you if cheating were the only reason you’ve gotten where you are? Do you depend on your teachers to get high scores? These are some of the things that students should often wonder.