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  3. Cheating The Kansan State University Junior was desperate. Already on academic probation after stumbling through a shaky sop

Cheating The Kansan State University Junior was desperate. Already on academic probation after stumbling through a shaky sop

admin2010-05-09  33
问题                                          Cheating
    The Kansan State University Junior was desperate. Already on academic probation after stumbling through a shaky sophomore year while battling a severe case of asthma, he was about to flunk political science for missing two exams. Another F could mean suspension, which would put at risk the college degree he’d always counted on. He couldn’t take that chance. Instead, he took a different one.
    Thanks to a part-time job in the university’s information-technology department, the young man -- a born-and-bred Midwesterner who loved reading and played trumpet in his high school band had access to his professor’s online grade book. with a few quick keystrokes, he was able to give himself passing scores for the tests he hadn’t taken. He wasn’t clever enough, though, to cover his tracks. He was soon caught and suspended--and has been racked with guilt ever since.
    While this student and his professors say the incident resulted from a momentary lapse in judgment, the sad fact is that, in a broader sense, it’s hardly an isolated act. There’s plenty to suggest that academic cheating is epidemic in the country’s high schools and colleges. Consider a few examples: nine business students at the University of Maryland caught receiving text messaged answers on their cell phones during an accounting exam; a Texas teen criminally charged for selling stolen test answers--allegedly swiped via a keystroke-decoding device affixed to a teacher’s computer--to fellow students.
    Beyond the anecdotes, experts point to a stream of data--much of it from students themselves-- that indicates cheating is rampant. A report last June by Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe for The Center for Academic Integrity showed 70 percent of students at 60 colleges admitting to some cheating within the previous year; one in four admitted to engaging in serious cheating (copying from another student, using concealed notes, or helping someone else cheat). McCabe’s high school findings were similarly grim: Of 18,000 high school students surveyed across the country over the past four years, 70 percent of those in public schools admitted to at least one case of serious test cheating; about six in ten admitted to some form of plagiarism. Just under half of all private school students acknowledged similar lapses.
    Cheating isn’t new. As long as there have been roles, there have been people intent on breaking them. What’s alarming now, says Institute founder Michael Josephson, is how widespread and blatant the practice has become.
    "People who cheated were in the minority and they kept it secret, even from their friends," he says. "Now they are the majority, and they are bold about it. Today, if you ask kids about cheating, you will get such cavalier attitudes that the statistics are almost secondary."
Success at Any Cost
    Josephson and others grappling with the issue say two forces are behind the erosion in ethics. First, advances in technology--chiefly the Internet and portable digital devices--have made cheating easier. A bigger factor, though, is the way bad behavior across society--ball players popping steroids, business executives cooking corporate books, journalists fabricating quotes, even teachers faking test scores to make schools look good--signals that nothing is out of bounds when success is at stake.
    The pressure to succeed that drives some to cheat starts early, says Tomas Rua, a senior at Friends Seminary, a New York City private school. "Everything that you do and work for is to maximize your potential," he says. "And many people feel driven to use any recourse so that they can get that grade. There is a lot of hysteria about college, and you start hearing about it in the middle school."
    Daniel, a student at Turlock High School in California’s Central Valley, certainly takes that attitude: "If I want to get the better grade, I’m going to cheat to get it. No question. Any way, in the real world you do whatever you have to do to get the better job."
    "I have cheated since the seventh grade, "he claims. "I am competitive, so I’m always trying to find a better way of cheating."
Digital Deception
    It would be hard to understand technology’s role in the current wave of cheating. Students flock to online term-paper mills that sell reports on virtually any topic--often with bibliographies and appropriate formatting. They use camera phones to send and transmit pictures of tests. Their MP3 players can hold digitized notes. Their graphing calculators can store formulas necessary to solve math problems.
    For some, the line between right and wrong gets blurred. "I think technology in a way masks the factor of guilt," agrees Jonathan Cross, a senior at Robinson Secondary School in Fairfax County, Virginia. "It used to be that if someone were to cheat, there’d be two of us sitting next to each other passing a note, or me looking at someone else’s sheet, very blatant and obvious very clear and well defined cheating. Now people try to hide that guilt by using different forms of technology."
Where are the parents?
    Technological advances may explain the "how" behind today’s cheating epidemic. As for the "why".
   "Education has become a commodity to help us gain the material wealth and status that is so prized and paraded in our culture," says Stevens, an assistant professor of education psychology at the University of Connecticut. "The larger message for adolescents is that it’s much more important and valuable to be well-off financially than it is to be a moral person."
   "When that message takes hold, the implications are dire," Michael Josephson says. "What we’re doing is training the next generation of corporate pirates. And what’s missing is some of this righteous indignation and moral outrage, plus a little genuine fear."
    What’s also missing, say educators, are the voices of parents who can go overboard in providing homework help to their children, but fall short when it comes to clearly articulating the importance of following the rules.
    "One of the really big changes that we’ve seen in the last 20 years is that in the past if students got caught cheating, they would be ashamed. And their parents would be really ticked off at them," says University of San Diego professor Larry Hinman. "Now the parents are, if anything, angry at the institution for doing something that might blot their kids’ records."
    Author David Callahan says, "Parents must be explicit in talking with kids about cheating. A lot of parents don’t do it because they are caught up in it themselves or just working too hard. We hear so often that we should talk to kids about sex, smoking, drunk driving, but do we ever hear about talking to kids about integrity?"
An Honest Effort
    It’s not all grim. Some schools have banned cell phones, cameras and other gadgets during school hours. Honor codes have been reinvigorated. And teachers are using technology to turn the tables on cheaters.
    A number of institutions now rely on turuitin.com, a website that lets teachers check students’ written work for signs of plagiarism. John Barrie, the site’s founder, says the company gets more than 50,000 papers per day. About one-third aren’t original.
    Perhaps most encouraging is the way some kids are taking a stand against cheaters. Megan Schisser, a senior at Robinson Secondary School, is one of them.
    Last spring, after studying intensely for an advanced history final, she was pleased when she got an A. Unfortunately, some students in her class had copied down the questions and sent them to friends who were to take the test later. So everyone had to retake the exam. This time, Megan got a B. She and some friends were so upset, they decided to do something," our purpose was to say that there are those of us who are doing the best we can, and we’re not cheating," she says. "And it is okay not to cheat."
    The group formed Robinson Honor Council, and in November introduced a series of video clips on the school’s closed-circuit TV show. Using the Twisted Sister hit "We’re Not Gonna Take It" as their theme, the spots discuss the importance of honor and end with a simple tagline, "Robinson Honor Council: Saving Robinson One Cheater At a Time."
    It’s a message that could play in classrooms across the country.
Someone used to cheat in the test by ______.
选项
答案passing a note or looking at someone else’s sheet
解析 参见第2个小标题Digital Deception下的第2段的第3、4行：It used to be that if someone were to cheat，there’d be two of us sitting next to each other passing a note, or me looking at someone else’s sheet．由此可知，学生过去在考试中通过传纸条或偷看他人试卷作弊。
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