The Cheating Game
'Everyone's doing it,' from grade school to graduate school
Most distressing to teachers is the way plagiarism, copying, and similar deceits devalue learning. "We're somehow not able to convince them of the importance of the process," laments Connie Eberly, an English teacher at J. I. Case High School in Racine, Wis. "It's the product that counts." For too many students and their parents, getting that diploma--that scholarship, that grant--is more important than acquiring knowledge. "I'm just trying to do everything I can do to get through this school," acknowledges Brad, a junior at an exclusive Northeastern boarding school and a veritable encyclopedia of cheating tips. (Feign illness on test days and get the questions from classmates before taking a makeup exam. Answer multiple-choice questions with 'c'--a letter that can easily be altered and submitted for a regrade.) "If this is the only way to do it, so be it," he says.
The pressure to succeed, particularly on high-stakes tests, can drive students to consider extreme measures. Two months ago, nothing mattered more to Manuel than doing well on the SAT. "If your score is high, then you get into [a good school] and scholarships come to you," explains the high school senior from Houston, who is going to have to cover half of his college expenses himself. "If not, then you go to some community college, make little money, and end up doing nothing important the rest of your life." Desperate for a competitive edge, he started poking around the Net and soon stumbled upon an out-of-the-way message board where students bragged about snagging copies of the test. Manuel posted his own note, begging for help; he says he got a reply offering a faxed copy of the exam for $150 but ultimately chickened out.
While crib notes and other time-honored techniques have yet to go out of style, advanced technology is giving slackers a new edge. The Internet provides seemingly endless opportunities for cheating, from online term-paper mills (story, Page 63) to chat rooms where students can swap science projects and math solutions. They also share test questions via E-mail between classes and hack into school mainframes to alter transcripts; they use cell phones to dial multiple-choice answers into alphanumeric pagers (1C2A3D) and store everything from algebra formulas to notes on Jane Eyre in cutting-edge calculators. Some devices even have infrared capabilities, allowing students to zap information across a classroom. "I get the sense there's a thrill to it, that 'my teachers are too dumb to catch me,' " says English teacher Eberly.
Cram artists. As the stakes rise--from acing spelling tests, say, to slam-dunking the SAT--so does the complexity of the scam. "It's a constant race to keep up with what people are doing," says Gregg Colton, a Florida private investigator who serves as a security consultant for a dozen licensure and testing organizations. His biggest concern is "cram schools" that charge test takers hundreds to thousands of dollars for the chance to study a dubiously obtained copy of an exam in advance. In one notorious case, a California man sold answer-encoded pencils to hundreds of students taking graduate school entrance exams for up to $9,000 a pop; ringers had sat for the test in New York, then phoned the results across the country, aided by a three-hour time difference.
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