By Monica Brewer

Whether it’s for an ACT or it’s for an ordinary test, cheating can go on anywhere.  It can happen at any point in your life.  Sure, most don’t get caught, but cheating can ruin your life if you do.  I would recommend not doing it for many reason, but first, you have to define it.

What is cheating (http://www.stanford.edu/class/engr110/cheating.html)?  According to a Stanford webpage, it’s defined as “representing someone else’s work as your own”.  This means that cheating can be some of the following: copying someone else’s work, paying for answers in advance, or even paying someone else to do the work for you.  Why would you pay someone to do your work for you? You could save money if you do it yourself.  Also, it’s not guaranteed that they’ll do your work.  They can just scribble some equation or sentence down on paper and they’ll pocket $20 or more (depends on how much a person charges).

Who chooses cheating as a tool to pass classes?  Most people would just assume that people who fail would be the people that eventually fail a class, but it’s also the “above-average college bound students” that are cheating too.  I’m not as shocked because it seems like most people that want to get the best grades result in sinking lower than the Titanic did in 1912.  It seems like the policy for most students are, “Why try your best when your best ends up with you failing?”

What are the consequences of cheating?  Well, for example, on Jan. 29, 2013, several students were expelled from Corona del Mar High School in Los Angeles, California for concocting a cheating ring with a tutor by obtaining “the passwords and log-on information of teachers and hacked into the district computer system to change grades and access exams”.  As a result of the scandal, 11 students (names not given) have been expelled.  The private tutor, 28-year-old Timothy Lance Lai has not been questioned by authorities yet because he fled his property and hasn’t been found since.

The lesson in the story here is unless you don’t want to go to college and get your degrees, don’t cheat.

Check out other news stories on cheating: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132376

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-cheating-scandal-20140130,0,3420442.story#axzz2ruwpGxXE