So, you have this bio test you spent all night studying for, yet you feel this overwhelming test anxiety and you just know that you’re gonna draw too many blanks with that intimidating piece of paper in front of you. Or maybe you didn’t even bother looking at your notes for your upcoming geometry quiz because you know that math simply is not your subject, nor is it worth your time. There’s plenty of reasons for why a student would feel the need to cheat on a test, but are these reasons ever considered when deciding the punishment for the student? Very rarely to never. Schools usually go by the rule that there’s no excuse for cheating on a test, and all I have to say about that is that it’s unfair and wrong.
It’s no lie that the standardized testing system is flawed. When students are bombarded with multiple tests per week, they need to find a way to make time for studying, homework, and out-of-school activities. Though people say that those who work hard for their grades are the ones who earn a great score, there are many factors that interfere with studying to negatively affect the test-taker’s score. It’s obviously not easy to work hard and study, but what if it’s impossible to? When you don’t want to miss any homework, you can’t skip a meeting of a club you’re in, you have errands to run with your mom, and you have to be in bed by nine so you can receive a healthy amount of sleep?
It’s easy for mentally healthy people to say that if you don’t study then it’s your fault, but what about those who aren’t mentally healthy? What about those who don’t handle stress as well as mentally healthy people? What about those who don’t experience as much motivation as mentally healthy people? The way tests are graded basically puts everyone–mentally healthy and mentally ill people–at the same level. When you have no motivation to study and a lot of stress over a simple test, the best and only way out of feeling hopeless is to cheat. And no, mentally ill people can’t just jump up and force themselves to feel motivated, because mental illness does not work this way. Therefore, cheating is the only way for them to avoid failure.
Lastly, not only is the standardized testing system flawed–but the educational system itself is flawed. Learn a topic, take a test on it, forget it. Memorize this, take a test on it, forget it. Then, suddenly, at the end of the year, it’s all back! We all remember it, don’t we? After all, months ago we spent a few days on it and took a test on it and then it was done. Shouldn’t we remember that? The answer to this blatantly sarcastic question is no! The only time we focus on a certain subject is when we have an upcoming test. By now, most students know that the point of school isn’t what it should be. Teachers don’t teach, they tell us test answers. Students don’t learn, we remember test answers and then forget them after we take the test. Everything is about the score. If scores are all the schools care about, why is it such an abominable act to cheat when it gives us the perfect score that the school wants us to receive?
Don’t be so quick to say all cheaters deserve a strict penalty. The standardized testing system is flawed, the grading system is flawed, and the educational system is flawed. Don’t blame one student for the mistakes of an entire system. When the tests are multiple times a week, the grading is unfair to those who aren’t mentally healthy, and school is about how impressive our grades are instead of how much we’ve learned, the student is not wrong for going against the unjust system.
