Text 2. Consequences of cheating

Olga Lucia Botero

http://www.topics-mag.com/edition13/cheating-olga.htm

indianexpress.com

PRE-READING

Activity 1. Is academic cheating a problem? Why do students cheat?

Academic dishonesty has become a big issue. Teachers always say, "Keep your eyes on your own paper. Anyone caught cheating will fail this exam!". They watch students like a hawk during examinations. Some people complain that cheating is on the rise, that more and more students are cheating. They think it is easier and easier for students to get away with it. Some say teachers are even letting cheaters off easy. Why are some students cheating more? Some students who cheat say, "We have to cheat in order to get ahead in life. Besides, everyone is doing it. It's no big deal!"

 

"Big problems at home", "I was sick", "I lost my notes", "I forgot the test", "My book was stolen"...all of these are excuses in order not to study for a test, and you can always find a good one. The next day without excuses, you must take the test. You need a good grade in order to pass the course, and you are hoping for a miracle, but the point is that they don't exist, so the easiest solution is to cheat! Does it sound familiar? Well, perhaps once in a life time each one of us has lived this kind of situation and has cheated without looking at the consequences of this act.

 

Everybody should be taught not to cheat from the school days because the problem is that most of the time it is not a matter of once in a life time. If you are successful the first time, the most probable thing is that you will repeat the act; and if you are doing this very often, it could bring serious consequences in both the short and the long term.

 

In the short term, maybe you won't be caught, and you will get good grades without studying, which sounds fantastic, but you are wasting your time and your money trying to "learn" by cheating. It is not such a good method. In the end, who will be deceived? The teacher or you? Well, I am pretty sure that you will be the only loser. If you get caught, you will be in trouble because you can be expelled from school or the university, or at least you will get a zero (0) on your test and a bad reputation, not only with the teachers, but with the other students as well.

 

In the long term, there are also big consequences for the cheaters. You may graduate from school or university by cheating, but when you will be asked to use your knowledge in other situations, as for example at work, if you didn't learn much in the university because you are a cheater, how would you solve problems, give ideas, behave in a meeting or perform in general on your job?

 

My father used to tell me that cheating at school was like forging a check. Well, at that moment, I thought he was exaggerating, but now I understand his words because when you cheat, what you are doing is taking knowledge that is not yours and using it as if it were. It's the same as forging a check. Besides, I think whoever is accustomed to cheating won't see any problem in doing bad things in the future, such as stealing ideas from others and plagiarizing works.

 

If everybody just knew the importance of knowledge in their lives, I think that people wouldn't cheat either in universities or in schools. The problem is that when you are a kid, you don't see the long term, and most of the time the only important this is the grades. In other words, what happens is that there is a lack of conscientiousness about the subject when you are at school and sometimes at the university.

VOCABULARY FOCUS

Activity 2. Look through the expressions below and try to guess their meaning based on the context:

1) become a big issue;

2) catch someone cheating;

3) get away with sth;

4) let someone off easy;

5) is no big deal;

6) conscientious;

7) forge a check;

8) take the consequences;

9) get expelled from school;

10) be suspended from studies.

Activity 3. Which of them means:

A. give someone a light punishment

B. do something and not get punished for it

C. thorough and hard working, careful to do things well

D. be ready to accept the consequences

E. a topic arousing heated debate

F. force to leave; deprive of membership

G. the illegal production of something

H. discover sb doing sth wrong or illegal

I. suspend, deprive sb for a period from a privilege, office, or position, usually as a punishment

J. something which is not important

Activity 4. Tell the difference between:

1) expel sb – suspend sb

2) get away with sth – be let off easy

3) conscious – conscientious

4) forge – make, produce

5) a big issue – a big problem

GRAMMAR FOCUS

Activity 5. Choose the correct verb form:

1) If everybody just knew/knows the importance of knowledge in their lives, people wouldn't/will not cheat either in universities or in schools.

2) If you have not learnt/didn't learn much in the university because you are a cheater, how will/would you perform well on your job?

3) If you cheat/will cheat, you will use/use knowledge that is not yours.

4) If you are/ were caught cheating you would/will fail your exam.

5) If students don’t/didn’t get away with cheating they would/will hardly do it.

6) If teachers didn’t/don’t let cheaters off easy students will/would cheat less.

7) If you were/are successful at first, most probably you will/would repeat the act.

8) If you will cheat/cheat, you will/would face serious consequences in the future.

 

Activity 6. Mark the type of clause introduced by “if” (RC – real condition, UC – unreal condition, OC – object clause):

___ 1) If you do this very often, you will regret it in the future.

___ 2) If you are caught cheating, you may be punished.

___ 3) I don’t know if he cheated or not.

___ 4) He asked me if I cheated in the exam.

___ 5) If I were you I would not cheat.

___ 6) They will confess if they cheat.

___ 7) I'm not sure if they will let him off easy.

___ 8) He would not have been expelled from school if he had not been caught cheating.

 

WHILE-READING

Activity 7. Skim the text and summarize it.

Activity 8. Read the text and find information supporting the following statements:

1) Academic dishonesty has become a big issue.

2) There are short and long term negative consequences of cheating.

3) Cheating has a positive side.

4) Cheating has negative sides.

 

POST-READING

Activity 9. Differentiate between the cheating behaviors:

In your group, read through the list of cheating behaviours below, and put each one into one of the following categories:

A. An activity which is "just" cheating

B. An activity which is a particular kind of cheating called plagiarism

C. An activity which is a particular kind of plagiarism called collusion (тайный сговор):

1. ___ Allowing your coursework to be copied by another student

2. ___ Taking unauthorized material into an exam

3. ___ Copying another student’s coursework with their knowledge

4. ___ Buying coursework online from an essay bank or ghostwriter

5. ___ Taking an exam for someone else or vice versa

6. ___ Illicitly gaining information about the contents of an exam

7. ___ Not contributing a fair share to group work.

8. ___ Paraphrasing material from a source without acknowledging the author

9. ___ Copying from a neighbour during an exam

10. ___ Submitting jointly written coursework as your own

Activity 10. Explain your position on cheating, substantiate your view.

Activity 11. Write an essay on consequences of academic cheating.

Activity 12. Video session “ Cheating and peer reporting of cheating in college” (5 minutes) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBEw4zY8og4

 

1) Study the phrases and guess how they can be used in the context of cheating

take a shortcut; be apathetic to ethical standards; gain an unfair advantage; turn a blind eye on sb cheating; underlying reasons for sth; bear the cost of sth; get away with sth; make a difference; one’s moral compass; count more than sth else; wind up doing sth; undermine sb’s relations, trust, reputation

 

2) Watch the video and reproduce what it says about:

1) honesty of American students (stealing from shops, cheating)

2) the ways of getting a high GPA

3) the cost of cheating and the reasons why people should (not) report on cheating

4) pros and cons of reporting on cheaters

 

3) Hold a mini-debate on the acceptability of academic cheating.

TEXT 3. LEARNING ENGLISH IS LIKE …

Source unknown

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PRE-READING

Activity 1. Guess what learning English is like: learning history or geography, playing tennis …?

Paragraph 1. A lot of people think that learning a language involves simply acquiring knowledge like learning history or geography. But learning a language is a lot more like learning tennis – it involves learning a skill, whereas learning history or geography simply involves learning a set of facts or a body of knowledge. Facts and knowledge are static, but skills like tennis or English are living and changing and need constant practice. They are spontaneous activities between two or more people. And just as in a tennis game you never know where the ball will land next, in English you can never predict what another person will say.