<p>I am a senior in hs and the act of cheating in school has finally dawned on me. Before, I never thought people actually did it....like cheating was some sort of myth. Now, here's where I start venting: I OFICIALLY HATE CHEATERS. One of my FRIENDS has all of the APUSH quizzes from last year that she bummed off a friend, so she knows all of the questions before we take the quizzes. She also has all of the AP Spanish tests. I AM LOSING TRUST. Another dude who I used to sit with at lunch has all of the APUSH tests too. We got new seats in history and the boy I sit next to was STUDYING FROM THE QUIZ right before we actually took it. I AM SO ANGRY. You can call me a hypocrite all you want but the reality is that I have never cheated in my life AND NEVER WILL. In fact, I even emailed my history teacher, telling him about what goes on; I didn't give any names. HE'S AWARE OF IT; he just thinks that points don't matter: kids can cheat all they want, but it's not going to prepare them for the exam. WHATEVER. POINTS DO MATTER. I have a crappy grade in APUSH and if I had the quizzes like everyone else I bet I could have a 100%. Does this kind of crap happen in college? Anyone have any advice?</p>
<p>People are going to cheat wherever you go. There are these things called “test banks”, which are collections of professors’ previous tests, and people use them. They get upperclassmen to dig up their old tests. And it’s not going to go away. You just need to get used to it. People will go around and take the easiest way out, and there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s human nature.
Personally, though, I think you’re overreacting a bit.</p>
<p>My friends who don’t cheat don’t even care that others do it. It doesn’t even phase them. I should have mentioned that I overreact on just about every topic under the sun.</p>
<p>It always annoyed me when my teachers said the points didn’t matter Haha.</p>
<p>I realize the point is to learn, but a lot if things also depend on my GPA.</p>
<p>Lots of people cheat in college. There are lots of old tests floating around - frats and sororities have huge libraries of all the tests the members can keep hold of for every class anyone takes. There’s not much direct copying on tests though, since they monitor you so closely. Lots of people also take Adderall, etc. to study, although whether that is cheating or not is kind of a gray area.</p>
<p>I don’t really think it’s a big deal at all, stuff like that doesn’t bother me when other people do it, I even do it myself on occasion. I don’t really feel very bad about it. I don’t even really feel that looking at old tests is cheating because they do change the questions a bit from year to year.</p>
<p>Cheating happens everywhere, definitely even beyond college. I don’t think looking at previous years’ tests actually counts as cheating, but it might seem unfair to you if the teachers are too lazy to change their questions.</p>
<p>You had never seen someone cheat before your senior year of high school? That’s astonishing.</p>
<p>Whether it’s high school or college, or even at the Ivy Leagues, you’ll always encounter a fair share of freeloaders and cheaters. Nothing you can really do about it. Just do your best, report it if you see it (but report it anonymously).</p>
<p>It sucks. It’s annoying. But remember as long as you don’t cheat, you won’t see the repercussions from it. Everyone else who’s cheating is risking a lot more than you are.</p>
<p>Why are you so concerned about what other people are doing and things you can’t control? It’s not a competition (even if it’s graded on a curve, if you do well, you shouldn’t have to worry about others). Just worry about your own grade.</p>
<p>if these tests are so easy to come by, then why don’t you just get a copy of them, and also, the prof probably doesn’t care about this or he wouldn’t hand the tests back.</p>
<p>Your professor knows and doesn’t care? Wow, at my high school there would have been a huge inquest into it. The cheaters would have been suspended, if not expelled.</p>
<p>Anyway, how does it affect you when others are cheating? Don’t worry about other people. As long as you stay above board and focus on your own life, then I don’t see how it’s any of your business what they do. At some point they’re cheating is going to catch up with them. Karma is a witch and all that.</p>
<p>That your teacher knows and blatantly doesn’t care bothers me; I’ve been in the same sort of situation and know how frustrating it is to work for a grade less than what other students are having practically handed to them on a silver platter.</p>
<p>Rest assured, at least, that the cheaters will eventually get what they have coming: your teachers are correct in that simply looking over past quizzes and answers will not prepare students for the AP exams, and when those kids get to college and try that same thing, they’ll have a shock of how quickly they fail or are seriously penalized.</p>
<p>The APUSH teacher using the same tests from year to year is at fault for this. If you don’t believe students can’t get a hold of old tests THAT YOU GIVE BACK then you must be living under a rock. At my school the tests weren’t given back but the homework was, which never changes, so A students often sold their homework to incoming juniors. Regardless, these kids aren’t cheating, they are studying smart: they have acquired easily available (and not explicity off limits) information to do better. You should do the same.</p>
<p>You need to get over yourself. You are not better than anyone else because you choose not to use the available resources presented to you. Looking at someone else’s test is cheating. Looking at an old test that the teacher passes back is not. If people studying old tests where the topic is just memorization bugs you then you are going to have a tough time dealing with the real world.</p>
<p>Who cares, I’d let people cheat off me all the time, grades are arbitrary IMO</p>
<ol>
<li>Get over it. It isn’t the end of the world.</li>
<li>Live your own life.</li>
<li>Don’t be a snitch. Seriously, don’t. Its the easiest way to make everyone hate you. I don’t care if what those people are doing is wrong. Don’t tell on them. This isn’t first grade.</li>
</ol>
<p>^ what he said…you dont want to be “that kid”</p>
<p>^^yes. Remember above all else, it is important to care what over people think about you. Forget your own self-image, all that matters is what over people think about you and what they say about you</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>^^^ and if you really do want to snitch someone out for cheating, do it PRIVATELY and anonymously (don’t go up to your teacher after class because if you’re the only one talking to her, it’d be obvious to everyone who the snitch is). Don’t stand up in class in the middle of a (hypothetical) test and yell that your fellow classmates are cheating, if they even are.</p>
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<p>I’ve always really disagreed with this logic. I know plenty of people who cheated like there was no tomorrow and still wound up doing just fine for themselves (getting into Ivy Leagues, doing well at said Ivy Leagues, landing decent interviews and jobs, etc). Yes, in some cases, cheating will come back to haunt you if you ever get caught or if your lack of true skill gets you canned, but it’s hard to deny that grades matter. I don’t think the right answer is to assume that some sort of karma will kick in down the road.</p>
<p>There’s really no side-risk to cheating your way to a History A+ if you aren’t ever going to use it again. Even in college, there was a LOT of cheating going on (especially in my acct/fnce courses) where the TA would either slip answers/verifications to friends, or people would text answers to incoming test-takers immediately after taking an earlier-scheduled exam, or share solutions from past students who took the class, or work in groups even when group-work wasn’t allowed, etc. It didn’t really matter if you managed to cheat your way up to an A in some tough accounting course if you weren’t planning to apply for accounting jobs later anyway. Even if you were, cheating still saves time and grade damage, and unfairly hurts the chances of honest students.</p>
<p>If the teacher knows about the cheating and isn’t doing anything about it, take it to a higher authority like the principal.</p>