Many students stay up late studying and working hard in order to memorize that one equation or vocabulary words. But those efforts go unnoticed when students cheat and end up with the perfect score they don’t deserve.

Students cheating didn’t bother me so much until a couple days ago, when I received a reminder text from Mrs. Lona Armstrong telling everyone that they are re-administering the AP Stats test. I knew students cheated on tests, but I never had a teacher re-administer a test before. The news was disappointing and shocking. I dedicated a night to studying for the test already and now I had to do it again for the same test. I feel like if the test was re-administered then there should have been major changes. But in the new test there wasn’t a significant change, what if students who cheated already memorized the test and who says that they can’t cheat again? What I would really like to know is, is it really that difficult to memorize equations?

Teachers try to provide the most information as possible in order to help students. The AP Stats test, for example, is just like the review. All I did was memorize the types of questions and equations on the review and I felt like I was ready. I could do the test. Of course, I had many tests where I didn’t get a good score, but in all honesty, that is my fault. I didn’t study enough and didn’t clearly understand the material, and if that was the case I should have asked for help. I mean to this day I haven’t seen a single student fail a test by studying using study guides and reviews.

What I want an answer to is who benefits when you cheat? Sure, you cheated on this test and the next but those problems are going to appear again on the final. Isn’t it better to memorize the facts now and understand them? I’m pretty sure that cheating does not benefit the teacher, what good does it do to them? It’s not like they get a higher salary or have a party because their students all got A’s on the test.

Students cheating on tests isn’t a new trend, 59 percent of high school students admit to cheating on a test, it’s been part of society since the Prehistoric era. But isn’t it time to cut back and actually try and learn the material? Who knows, maybe actually knowing the Pythagorean Theorem or what osmosis is may help you in the near future.

by THERESA KIM