Everyone has heard “Class, keep your eyes on your own paper.” It is a favorite line by teachers when suspecting cheating during a test. Now cheating is no longer just during tests and has progressively become as big a part of students school routine as lunch.

The Educational Testing Service defines academic cheating as “representing someone else’s work as your own. It can take many forms, including sharing another’s work, purchasing a term paper or test questions in advance, paying another to do the work for you.”

They also claim that 73% of all test takers, including prospective graduate students and teachers, most students do cheat at some point. 86% of high school students agreed.

Struggling students are not the only ones who are cheating on a test, but it is also students of all shapes, sizes, and type. The scary thing is it may be the 4.0 honors student who is doing the most amount of cheating.

The main reason for all of this academic dishonesty is the never ending desire for students to get the best grade possible. If students did not feel so pressured to get the highest grade they can, there would be no reason to cheat.

If they came into school every single day excited to learn instead of shuddering at the thought of the next unit test, there would be no cheating. Sadly, this is just fantasy.

High school is no longer about learning, gaining knowledge or expanding your mind. All that seems to matters now is getting a higher grade.

Students no longer learn, they memorize. They study over their assignments to cram the information into their brain, but after the test it is all forgotten.

The grading system needs to change. If students began to go to school for knowledge instead of just a passing grade, the amount of cheating would drop.