Cheating to Receive Good Grades

Statistics show that in today’s educational system, 75%-98% of students admit to cheating. In society, there is a lot of pressure on students to receive good grades on tests, quizzes, essays etc. Students receive pressure from teachers and parents that lead them to cheat to get the grades they are expected. Because of the way today’s world is for teens, it's allowing kids to find easier and better techniques to cheat which is leading to cheating getting worse in education.

Pressure is a big factor to why students are cheating more and more. Parents, teachers and peers put pressure on students to receive good grades in all their classes. Some parents will give consequences to their child if they don’t receive the grade they are expected. For example, they will say that they aren’t allowed out that weekend coming up if they don’t get a 95 or higher. Teachers will say to students, “if you don’t receive a 95 or above on this exam you shouldn’t be in this class”. Even peers will say to one another, “this test is going to be so easy, if you don’t get a 100 on this you’re dumb”, which makes some students feel unintelligent because maybe they truly don’t understand the material.

First off, what is considered a good grade? Studies show that a “good grade” is considered an 85 or above. Most parents and teachers expect their student(s) to receive a 90 or higher on any paper that is graded. So that leads to kids staying up until late hours studying. Even though these kids study all night and prepare for the exams the need to take, they still feel the stress of needing to receive that good grade. The effect of the stress leads the students to deciding to cheat even though they studied. They feel that even though they studied, their stress gets to them so they think that cheating will better them into receiving the “good grade” that will make their parents, teachers and peers proud of. The older students get the more stress they feel with getting the grades they need which is lead them to create different techniques of cheating.

It is sad to say that middle school students definitely know ways to cheat. They do the basic methods of cheating. They will sit next to a friend and have them keep their exam on the corner of their desks so that they can compare their answers. Some students will sit behind or next to the smartest kid in class so that they can peak over and copy their answers.

For high school students there are many other techniques for cheating on exams. Just like in middle school they use the basic methods of cheating, but now high school students created more ways to cheat. For example, they will have a friend that is in the same class take a picture or copy the answers for them and give it to them before the exam. Also, they will purposely sit in front of the teacher’s desk so they can see tests that he/she is currently grading. Lastly, students will secretly write notes on their hands or arms, inside water bottle wrappers, even on separate