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Setting yourself up for honesty
Have you cheated before? Do you think that you might cheat if it comes down to it someday? Think ahead and set yourself up for honesty. Check out these ideas:
Study early. It’s way too easy to put studying off ‘til the night before a test. By that time you’ll be so pressured and stressed out that you might resort to cheating. Set realistic goals for your time. Even if you study for only half an hour every night for a week before a big test, that’s 3 ½ hours of study time!!
Study in groups. Do you hate cracking open the books before a test? Make it a little more interesting by getting a study group together. Sure you’ll waste some time socializing, but if it gets you to study, why not give it a try?
Don’t stress. So maybe you won’t get an A+ on the next English paper if you write the paper yourself and don’t cheat. That grade is not the important thing in the long run. School is all about gaining the skills you’ll need later in life, not about having the best GPA.
Find the method for you. Do you feel like your eyes are just moving across the page when you’re reading, and you don’t really learn anything? Maybe you aren’t studying in the way that you best learn. Try different styles until you find one that really helps you study. You might make flashcards, compile notes, make charts, etc.
Don’t tempt yourself. Don’t sit next to the smartest kid in your class during a math test if you know that you’ll be tempted to cheat. Think ahead to help yourself make the right decisions.
Leave the notes at home. Don’t program your graphing calculator, cell phone, palm pilot, etc. with notes for the test. Even if you’re doing it “just in case” you get stuck on the test, you’re setting yourself up to cheat.
Get help. If you’re having a lot of trouble catching up with schoolwork (either because you don’t understand it or because you’ve been cheating instead of learning the material), get help. Ask your teacher about options – you might be able to get some help after school from a tutor, fellow student, or even the teacher.
If you catch someone cheating…
Imagine you’ve studied really hard for the SATs. Then you see someone at the other table really obviously cheating – they’re using a cell phone to text message someone!! You’re mad – you’re working hard for your scores and this other test-taker might get into a good college instead of you, because of cheating! So what do you do? And are you being a “tattletale”?
You might not like being the one to “tell on” someone. After all, back in the kindergarten years it was definitely not cool to be the one running to the teacher all the time. But cheating is a serious problem, especially when it means that kids who work hard don’t get recognized for it. So how can you bring attention to cheating without getting hate mail? Here are a few ideas:
Do it quietly. Approach the test proctor or teacher after class to alert them to the fishy behavior.
Do it for the right reasons. Don’t report someone if you are not fairly certain that they were cheating. For example, say you tell your teacher that Thomas, a guy in your class that you completely detest, was cheating. You report him even though you didn’t actually see anything. But you don’t tell the teacher about your crush who definitely was cheating, because you don’t want him to get into trouble. In a case like this, you aren’t reporting cheating for the right reasons!
Request to remain anonymous. Ask that your teacher or test proctor leave your name out of any discussions. Let the people in authority do the investigating.
Don’t tell people. Even if your friend swears to keep silent, you might still end up with rumors around school about who “ratted out” so-and-so on the exam.
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