Response

Response

Shawn O’Neil

English 1100

10/11/13

Cheating

“You were looking at my test!”

“No I wasn’t!”

“Yes, you were!” Ben’s face turned into a bright red color and it looked like his face was about to explode from his rage. His short brown hair looked like it was about to light on fire from all of his rage against Danny.

These two were best friends and they were taking a test in a math class at their high school and this was a big test. This test was being counted for 30% of the final grade. Ben has an A in the class and he doesn’t want to fail the test so that he can keep the A. If he gets the A in the math test, he would have straight A’s on his report card. While Danny, who has a D in the class, wants to pass the class with a C, but he needed an A on the test. If he doesn’t get an A on the test, he would have to take the class again, and Ben would move on to the next math class. So, the only way for Danny to get the A on the test is to cheat off his friend, Ben’s test. Ben saw Danny look over at his paper and started to argue. I told myself that Danny was cheating and Ben has the right to not be friends with Danny anymore.

After I was done with my test and started to walk to my car, I was thinking if Danny was really cheating, or was Ben overreacting that he needed an A on the test and he lied about Danny cheating to keep an A in the class. With cheating, you will need to have proof that someone did cheat. If you don’t have proof then, you have no case if the person cheated or not.

An example is if I was playing in a soccer game and if I was using performance enhancing drugs to improve my game, and I scored all of the goals on my team and we win 12 to 0, what proof will you have to show me that I am guilty for using performance enhancing drugs? To start, the parents on the team that loss, will probably think that why would that one player score all of those goals for their team. They would probably dig around for details on why this player had 12 goals all by himself. If there are players on both teams that are friends and if they talk a lot outside of the soccer field, the player on my team could spill that I took performance enhancing drugs. Worst case scenario is that if I got accepted by a big name college, become successful in my four years, go to the pros, and then my team found out that I used performance enhancing drugs back in high school, I will lose everything. My spot on the team, my records at my college will be removed, and I will be banned from playing soccer. But, if that person comes out and says that I used those drugs to improve my game, they will need proof. If they have no proof, I won’t lose anything and my career will be a huge success.

People look at cheating that if someone using a substance to improve their game to new heights. Lots of sports these days have programs that uses drug testing to see if the player is using the wrong type of drugs, if they are caught with the illegal drug in their system, the player could be either be suspended from a certain amount of games, or be suspended for the entire season. Another way people look at cheating is if the player is receiving benefits for doing well in their game. The player would either accept money or other benefits and they would have to do well in their game, if not, no money or benefits. The player would be cheating on their school and on their family. The player would cheat the money out of the college, just to help his or her family, and the player would be cheating on their family. Their family would be with them, but cheating the college out of money is cheating the family. It is like the player would betray and cheat the family for just money to either help him or herself or the family. The player’s family would not trust him or her anymore, but an outcast in the family.

Also, if the player is doing poorly in his or her classes in college and they can’t make the grade, the coach can either change the grades so that the player can be academically eligible to play or the player and coach can keep it in a hush tone or not tell anyone about what they did. There has been incidents in the past in college sports that coaches will change the grades for their star player, so that the star player would not miss an important game. They should just come clean and say that they did change the star player grade in order to play in the game. If you come clean, the punishment could become less harsh and some people would forgive you for coming out saying that you changed your grades, just in order to play a game.

But, you will need proof to convict the player for cheating, and if not, the player and person that was involved in the incident, will go free. Most people will jump to conclusions that someone cheated, but they need proof to show that the person was accused of cheating on a test, get benefits out of playing a game, money, and grades.

I know that Ben wanted to get an A on the test so that he can keep the A in his class, but he can’t jump to conclusions, he needs proof that Danny looked over and copied the answers off of Ben’s paper. Maybe Danny did cheat, but he won’t admit that he cheated on the test, he wants to pass the class to move on to the next math class. Cheating is wrong and disrespectful. Cheating is just the quick and easy way to do better in something that you are not good at. Besides, I don’t cheat on anything, I study and work hard to do well in class.