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Tell on a cheater or let it slide?


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huh, i was never good at debating, hence I never really participated in any of the debates here but since you people are directing questions to me.....

You'd beat your sister to death? :o

Harsh.

she's doing what she's not supposed to do. she deserves a punishment. this statement applies in the case of cheating, hence one of the reasons why we should tell on a cheater.

im really glad im not your sister........family stick up for each other no matter what

i would rather confront the person, not tell on them and just say its bad, so they can be guilty without the real punishment, or talk to them to help them study so it doesnt happen again

I completely agree. The guilt a cheater feels is the worst punishment they will suffer because it will always be with them. And if you do see someone cheating try to help them study, by helping them you can show them that with a little more effort they can achieve a grade they can be proud of because they earned it!

"EDIT" To remain on track with the topic question No I most likely would not tell, what others choose to do is not my business.

Edited by IB Canadian
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

i have never cheated and i was talking with my little brother who is not doing the IB but another type of exam in AUS. and he was telling me hw in his half-yearlys he saw his best friend with notes under the table.

He chose not to tell on him, but was annoyed when his friend got close to full marks and he didnt despite his efforts.

Question: If this happened in your IB exam

Would you tell?

keep in mind: they would lose their diploma

I would definitely not tell, i'm not a cheater but if someone can pull it off, let em have it. Especially if it was my best friend, i mean you should be happy for him, by cheating you don't learn so eventually if he keeps it up either it'll catch up to him and he won't be able to keep up in the future or he'll somehow learn to adapt. My brother cheated a lot, he was a pro cheater but he wasn't able to keep up with everything else cause he always cheated, i mean eventually its gonna hit you and it'll hit you hard, but just don't tell, then you're going too low, focus on urself and just study to get the full marks, don't know why people get jealous when seeing others with higher marks...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I must admit that in Poland cheating is widely accepted among students, and it is indeed very common in non-IB schools. Every single student that I know had cheated at least once in their life. It is probably caused by high school curriculums - it requires much more useless memorisation than logical analysis, and many people are put off by the amount of stupid facts they have to remeber. There is even more important factor: high schoolers can choose the subjects they want to take on their matura (secondary school certificate), but they still have in school ALL the subject the school has to offer - so, if somebody wants to take Polish, mathematics (both are compulsory), chemistry and physics, he still has to attend history and geography lessons. It is considered to be such a waste of time that many people feel justified for cheating.

Because of these facts, I am really tolerant for cheating, but I haven't cheated yet since I started IB, and I most probably won't do it. In IB essays and presentations and stuff are much more troublesome than tests. And I would never ever dare to cheat on my final exams. But if somebody does, then good luck, but remember that you will someday curse yourself for doing so!

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  • 5 months later...

Tell on them for sure. School ground honour is ridiculous. By the time you get to IB age, the idea of not dobbing in on your mates is completely redundant. Yes there are things you wouldn't report them for, but I'd feel like the world's biggest idiot if I did badly in my IB exams on the back of everybody else doing very well (consequent to cheating) and didn't get my place at Uni. "Well at least I let my classmates cheat, even if I got screwed over" would hardly be a consoling statement.

Cheating and covering other people's backs is okay for school work - as you said, it's the pupils versus the teachers and that's fine. Copy each other's homework, look at each other's papers in in-class tests, whatever. People who don't do that are missing a trick. However it is categorically NOT okay for serious formal external examinations, such as IB exams. Anything which seriously, genuinely matters, it is absolutely not right or even forgivable to cheat.

If they lose their Diploma it's their own bloody fault for trying to cheat. It's not an individual decision - if they cheat, they make you look bad for having less knowledge than them. I'm not going to be the lowly stone on which they step to get their leg-up in life, that's not a role I ever intend to fill, and I think it's disgusting that people in this thread claim to have done so for formal IB exams. It's a shame nobody spotted you cheating, to be perfectly honest. Being bad at Maths means you should work your socks off to get better at Maths, it in no way WHATSOEVER justifies cheating. I worked my brain into sludge turning a 4 in Maths to a 6, it pisses me off no end to think that somebody else thought it was fine (and got away with) to cheat their way through what I had to work very, very hard to earn.

Despicable, and moreover immature. It's people's future lives in terms of getting University places that we're talking about, and if you think that schoolground politics and not telling because it's "us versus the teachers" trumps that, your mentality is still stuck in schoolkid land. The moment those exams finish you're not a schoolkid any more, and helping people cheat for classmate kudos is plain old dim. They're not going to come back in 20 years times and give you a pat on the head for it. For formal exams, I couldn't respect anybody who chose to cheat enough to want to help them out. They're doing you a disservice to get themselves ahead, it's not people clubbing together 'us' against 'them' because the 'us' in that equation consists of somebody claiming to be your friend by metaphorically ****ting on your head.

Hmph, this kind of thing really winds me up. The IBO are idiots for not introducing more timezones or making people sit in at the end of exams until everybody taking them has finished, and I think it's a shame they can't retrospectively take diplomas away from people saying that they cheated to get them. We used to have to sit in late in exams for GCSEs, don't see why the IB gives people a free-for-all on information if you're in the right timezone and have a complete mug somewhere else using their half a brain cell to give you information so you can cheerily screw them over under the false sign of solidarity.

This is some bulls**t you didn't really thought true and tried to look from another side. You just became mad and furious about the idea of cheating, so you just let it out. That's o'kay, sometimes you need do that, to blow some steam off. Now, I'll show why you are wrong step-by-step.

1 paragraph: You didn't get screwd over because you let that one person go unpunished, you got screwd over because you didn't work hard enough or wasn't smart enough to cheat. Letting that particular person go does not affect your grades in any way and it definitely won't matter that you apply to uni. You should take care of your grades and CV, try to make your grades and CV to look good enough for uni of your dreams, not to try to make other's look worse. Let's just say that you still failed, but you exposed the cheater. Would this be a consoling statement "Well at least I told on my classmate and he won't get his diploma, even if I still failed". You have this mindset that telling on someone will make you better off. It won't.

2 paragraph: 'People who don't do that are missing a trick'. This is so hypocrite. Predicted grades are also important and often, especially to US unis, they do matter. How can you be so eased and justifying on one side, but so condeming at the other. If you cheat to get your predicted 7 instead of 3, you're just playing smartt, but if you cheat to get your exam grade 7 instead of 3, you should lose your diploma? That's incredibly hypocrite and I just think because you did one thing and not another, you justify one thing and condem another.

3 paragraph: Actually, if they lose their diploma, it's partly your fault. You chose to tell on them, if you didn't, they might have a diploma. Nobody is stepping on you to make their life easier, they 're using loopholes provided by the IBO to make their life easier. Being bad at something doesn't justify it, but getting bad mark when you have an easy opportunity to get a good one - that's not very smart, is that? You just chose to work extremely hard, somebody else chose to work smart. In real life, people who work smart more than hard win. Adapt or die.

4 paragraph: Exactly my point. You're playing god and playing with people's lifes here. If you choose to tell, you might ruin someone's life. Yes, it is the risk their took and that''d be one of the consequences they'd have to deal with. However, it's not your responsibility to tell, let people who check the exams, you know, people who are PAYED to deal with it, deal with it. Nobody's going to give you a pat on the head because you didn't tell, also, it won't do you any harm. If you decide to tell, nobody will give you a pat on the head because you did, but they might come back with a baseball bat :D Really, it'll damage your reputation and getting somebody miserable will do NO good for you. That 1 person is only a drop in the sea of people taking exams, his results won't affect yours. Nor it will when you apply to unis. If you can't deal with somebody getting the same result with less work, that's your problem.

5 paragraph: That's one of the few places I agree with you. IBO should make it harder to cheat by various measures. They should do it, not you.

If you want to reply, please, I'm open for a discussion.

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1 paragraph: You didn't get screwd over because you let that one person go unpunished, you got screwd over because you didn't work hard enough or wasn't smart enough to cheat. Letting that particular person go does not affect your grades in any way and it definitely won't matter that you apply to uni. You should take care of your grades and CV, try to make your grades and CV to look good enough for uni of your dreams, not to try to make other's look worse. Let's just say that you still failed, but you exposed the cheater. Would this be a consoling statement "Well at least I told on my classmate and he won't get his diploma, even if I still failed". You have this mindset that telling on someone will make you better off. It won't.

Well yeah, actually. If I failed despite hard work and my classmate passed despite knowing nothing and having cheated, it would make me a lot angrier because not only have they done something dishonest but they've benefited from it. However I would also feel angry if I did fine and they cheated. It undermines the work I put in, and it makes me angry that anybody would do something dishonest and gain from it, be it financial/insurance fraud or cheating in exams. It's (to me) a matter of integrity and principle within the system and on a personal level. It's not a case of not being smart enough to cheat, but of regarding cheating as wrong. I know it won't make me better off in a material way but I find injustice unpalatable and creating fairness is a decent goal, in my opinion.

2 paragraph: 'People who don't do that are missing a trick'. This is so hypocrite. Predicted grades are also important and often, especially to US unis, they do matter. How can you be so eased and justifying on one side, but so condeming at the other. If you cheat to get your predicted 7 instead of 3, you're just playing smartt, but if you cheat to get your exam grade 7 instead of 3, you should lose your diploma? That's incredibly hypocrite and I just think because you did one thing and not another, you justify one thing and condem another.

I didn't say for predicted grades, I said classwork, in-class tests etc. At least where I'm from they count for absolutely nothing. If there's no value attached to the outcome, then you neither gain nor lose from cheating in this scenario so really you can do whatever you want and it won't change anything. It's like cheating in monopoly versus genuinely scamming somebody out of money.

3 paragraph: Actually, if they lose their diploma, it's partly your fault. You chose to tell on them, if you didn't, they might have a diploma. Nobody is stepping on you to make their life easier, they 're using loopholes provided by the IBO to make their life easier. Being bad at something doesn't justify it, but getting bad mark when you have an easy opportunity to get a good one - that's not very smart, is that? You just chose to work extremely hard, somebody else chose to work smart. In real life, people who work smart more than hard win. Adapt or die.

I think 'fault' is the wrong word here. If they lost their diploma, one of the factors in that would have been me. However, no responsibility is on me because the major responsibility is in having taken the action in the first place i.e. cheated. I didn't make them cheat, and rather like if I witnessed a crime in the street, it would not be considered my fault if I identified the mugger who stole the handbag. The fault is with the mugger who stole the handbag. So I don't think there's any blame-responsibility attached to the action of identifying somebody else's action.

In business you can work smart rather than hard and that's fine, however an academic qualification indicates you have acquired knowledge and you can be employed/accepted into Uni etc. on the basis of what is meant to be a factual rating of your abilities. So it's not two different routes to the same outcome (working 'smart' i.e. cheating vs working hard) because actually the outcome of cheating is to NOT have abilities versus working hard is that you DO have abilities.

4 paragraph: Exactly my point. You're playing god and playing with people's lifes here. If you choose to tell, you might ruin someone's life. Yes, it is the risk their took and that''d be one of the consequences they'd have to deal with. However, it's not your responsibility to tell, let people who check the exams, you know, people who are PAYED to deal with it, deal with it. Nobody's going to give you a pat on the head because you didn't tell, also, it won't do you any harm. If you decide to tell, nobody will give you a pat on the head because you did, but they might come back with a baseball bat :D Really, it'll damage your reputation and getting somebody miserable will do NO good for you. That 1 person is only a drop in the sea of people taking exams, his results won't affect yours. Nor it will when you apply to unis. If you can't deal with somebody getting the same result with less work, that's your problem.

People who are paid to deal with it clearly aren't going to be able to deal with it if they don't know about it. Fraud isn't okay just because the police don't know it's happening, for instance. As for people being upset that they did something wrong and were caught - well if you can't face consequences of an action, you shouldn't have taken it. It could easily have been a teacher spotting it. Equally why would it damage my reputation? It matters to all of the IB cohort if somebody's been dishonest and cheated when they've all worked hard, so if anything they are likely to be supportive and equally as upset that one of our number has sunk to dishonesty. Possibly you could also argue that my reputation matters less than my principles do. What my classmates think is not necessarily relevant to me, but what I think of myself is pretty important.

Personally I completely refuse to run with "If you can't deal with somebody getting the same result with less work, that's your problem". It's not my problem at all - somebody who's willing to cheat is my problem. I don't think they should get away with it because I think it is an intrinsically wrong action - not because I'm worried they've done less work for the same result. Anybody smarter than me could do less work for the same result. It's the fact they resorted to cheating the system instead of doing work and in doing so misrepresent themselves entirely that I find intolerable.

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I really don't think it's right to cheat. In my opinion, if you're not willing to do the work involved in IB on your own, then you shouldn't be in IB. It's really not fair to those who work hard and legitimately earn the marks they achieve. If you don't develop a work ethic in high school, how can you expect to be successful in life?

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I would definitely tell. Even if their actions don't hurt you, there is the definite possibility that in college and university will hurt the chances of other students who don't have to resort to dishonesty. The students who get into colleges and universities should deserve to be there on account of their hard work and intelligence, not by bluffing their way through the system. If you cheat on tests instead of studying for them the honest way, then you do not actually learn anything. Cheating starts a self-perpetuating cycle that is very hard to break out of. It's best that you call him on it as early as possible, before he gets into college where academic malpractice carries very serious consequences.

And I'm personally dismayed to see people essentially defending a liar. One would think that students in the IB program, which stresses study and hard work, would know better than to condone sheer laziness. Protip: If you can't stay in the IB program without resorting to cheating, you probably shouldn't in it.

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I would definitely tell. Even if their actions don't hurt you, there is the definite possibility that in college and university will hurt the chances of other students who don't have to resort to dishonesty. The students who get into colleges and universities should deserve to be there on account of their hard work and intelligence, not by bluffing their way through the system. If you cheat on tests instead of studying for them the honest way, then you do not actually learn anything. Cheating starts a self-perpetuating cycle that is very hard to break out of. It's best that you call him on it as early as possible, before he gets into college where academic malpractice carries very serious consequences.

And I'm personally dismayed to see people essentially defending a liar. One would think that students in the IB program, which stresses study and hard work, would know better than to condone sheer laziness. Protip: If you can't stay in the IB program without resorting to cheating, you probably shouldn't in it.

You may want to consider the arguments made by some of our previous members if you haven't so already; certainly they have made some good points that have at least shed some light on my personal perspective on this topic. I will try to reiterate them for you:

It is very unlikely that one person's unethical behaviour will cause the success of your chances, and the chances of others (as you say, multiple people) of being accepted into post-secondary institutions. Probably the most it could do is prevent one person's acceptance who truly deserves it, but most of us personally do not consider someone else cheating to be part of our own business. Students who are admitted to post-secondary institutions should be there because of their notable accomplishments, but considering the reality of the situation, it is impossible to prevent people from attempting to cheat, and it should be accepted that there will be people who cheat no matter what the circumstances are. It is unfair that the students cheat, but isn't it your fault if you were not admitted to university because you did not consider to work hard enough for it, or failing to consider the chance of a third-party conducting malpractise?

I argue that your viewpoint of a "self-perpetuating cycle" due to cheating is extremely subjective. Many of us do not cheat unless we convince ourselves we absolutely have no other option, and later we make up for it by working harder and doing as much as we can to make up for our actions. Of course, there are other cases where you are correct, but I do not think we can generalize that "cheaters will always be cheaters". I also do not see anything wrong with not informing him of his malpractise and helping him change his attitudes; we bear absolutely no responsibility for his actions and behaviours -the person who cheats should be fully aware of the consequences already. Should the cheater continue their malpractise, they will learn first-hand what it is like to face the repercussions of academic dishonesty.

In general, ratting people out is not a respectable social behaviour, especially in an IB cohort which you are likely to already have developed a sense of trust among your peers. I am assuming for most people, it is not about making sure punishments are enforced to those who deserve them; it is about being a socially acceptable person in your school community. Most of us are here to live by the rules, not to enforce them. Do you consider this behaviour to be such that we are defending the cheater? Are bystanders of a crime necessarily defending the criminal if they choose not to report their actions?

You would be surprised to see the number of IB students who are not the type that you think they are. Just because someone is an IB candidate, doesn't mean they possess the good qualities you mentioned. An ethical person is an ethical person because of their own conscious awareness to their social surroundings and personal convictions, not because they are in the IB program.

Finally, I think you should leave some room to say that you would most likely report the cheater. How certain are you when you claim that you would report a cheater, in all scenarios, personal relationships and circumstances to the questionable authority 100% of the time?

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  • 2 weeks later...

This begs the question: why would you be so curious as to what those around you are doing during your exams? Focus on your own work, it's that simple. As some have mentioned, their cheating does not adversely impact upon your score, nor is it likely to adversely impact upon your university apps (that is, unless it's so obvious you feel sure that the IBO would eventually pick up on it, in which case you need to cover yourself). See no evil, hear no evil.

If the structure of the exams were different, say as in Victoria where the end study score is almost an index in relation to other students in the state, in particular other students in your own school (why, I don't know), the scenario might be different, but I see no reason whatsoever to report someone on the basis that their cheating might get them a higher score with less work.

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This is rather silly actually. I can understand people like Captn Marth, but I cannot agree with them. Morals and ethics are important, but to take a hard stance with them is absolutely silly. If the world was truly black and white, then why do we have colours and shades? There are times when you report someone and times when you don't. An example of a need to report someone was if their acts could affect your potential success. i.e cheating in a formal exam. There are no if's or but's, it WILL affect you. Another person getting a higher mark will hurt your chances.

As well, this is a rather narrow view of the problem. "It is unfair that the students cheat, but isn't it your fault if you were not admitted to university because you did not consider to work hard enough for it, or failing to consider the chance of a third-party conducting malpractise?" I'm not saying you shouldn't prepare, but you can't possibly factor in cheating for every exam you study for, nor can you work against it. Reporting them for cheating IS a step you can take to prevent your work from being unfairly considered.

Morals are important yes, but you have to also understand that the real world is not moralistic. A reed will survive a storm better than a tree, like they always say. If you must adapt, you must. And reporting someone for your own good should not be compromised, unless you can benefit otherwise. Social benefits ie among friends is considered as a benefit.

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I would never tell, after all the person is lower than you already. I mean, if you have studied and you know more than they do already, so why bother telling, it will come back to that person in the end anyways, when he/she needs to use the knowledge he/she was supposed to have. So I would not ruin their future, I'd let them deal with it themselves later in life.:)

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I would never tell, after all the person is lower than you already. I mean, if you have studied and you know more than they do already, so why bother telling, it will come back to that person in the end anyways, when he/she needs to use the knowledge he/she was supposed to have. So I would not ruin their future, I'd let them deal with it themselves later in life. :)

Hahahahahaha. You're definitely still new to this whole IB thing..

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It totally depends on who the cheater is and what they're cheating on. I've never told on a cheater, but I have stopped people from cheating on me if I feel like they're cheating because they're lazy and didn't study or something. If it's not my friend and doesn't affect me, it's not my business and I wouldn't want to get caught up in their mess. I helped two of my friends on our first math portfolio and they both did way better than me. <This does not bother me, however that was just a portfolio. For the exams (the giant mega important ones) I would try to convince anyone who planned to cheat not to do it, but if they did I would not tell.

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This is rather silly actually. I can understand people like Captn Marth, but I cannot agree with them. Morals and ethics are important, but to take a hard stance with them is absolutely silly. If the world was truly black and white, then why do we have colours and shades? There are times when you report someone and times when you don't. An example of a need to report someone was if their acts could affect your potential success. i.e cheating in a formal exam. There are no if's or but's, it WILL affect you. Another person getting a higher mark will hurt your chances.

As well, this is a rather narrow view of the problem. "It is unfair that the students cheat, but isn't it your fault if you were not admitted to university because you did not consider to work hard enough for it, or failing to consider the chance of a third-party conducting malpractise?" I'm not saying you shouldn't prepare, but you can't possibly factor in cheating for every exam you study for, nor can you work against it. Reporting them for cheating IS a step you can take to prevent your work from being unfairly considered.

Morals are important yes, but you have to also understand that the real world is not moralistic. A reed will survive a storm better than a tree, like they always say. If you must adapt, you must. And reporting someone for your own good should not be compromised, unless you can benefit otherwise. Social benefits ie among friends is considered as a benefit.

I don't see where you're going with most of this and whether or not you are trying to oppose my arguments, because that post contains points that I have made. Where have I suggested previously that I take a "hard stance" on this topic? If you think I do, then reread the last paragraph in my last post.

Of course there are times when we report someone and times we don't. However, your example is invalid for us; merely by looking at the replies of this thread, there is clearly no need for some to report someone despite the fact that someone cheating could hinder the success of another, because people do not "feel" the need to do it. It's fine if that is your own example and you live by it, but now aren't you the one taking a hard stance by generalizing what you would do in such a situation?

I hope I didn't introduce anything narrow, but what you quoted is a principle I follow. I am responsible for my own actions; I believe that I will be able to do well enough to my own standards, despite cheaters (who might potentially affect my success). So, I make the conscious decision to not report a cheater in a certain situation, because I know I am going to meet my goals without getting into someone else's business. Why can't I factor in cheating for every exam I study for?

It's like you didn't even read what I typed earlier. Did I (or any other person?) imply that the world is moralistic?

Reporting someone shouldn't be compromised, but take a guess why people do it anyway. No one action is completely beneficial; no one action is completely detrimental. Some people see more benefit towards not reporting a cheater. I hope we have found some common ground there.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I read through the posts and I've got to disagree with the OP and Xydan. I'll stick to your argument on it affecting your chances of acceptance. In IB the only exam that counts is your final which is held under much surveillance where no cheating is possible; all other exams do not affect your acceptance.

Personally I could care less who cheats, heck at times I lend help to cheaters, giving them answers for I see no competition between myself and them.

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Well, as wrong as cheating is, i don't think i would be able to tell on somebody...it's a matter of morality (even though cheating is very immoral), i believe that i should mind my own business. Also, it is an incentive to try harder

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Well, I actually faced that dilemma last weekend, when I was sitting the SAT.

Two girls sitting next to me, right at the back of the class were practically coping everything of each other! The one was just sitting idly and then copied every answer from the other, I was really annoyed as you can imagine, because the rest of us were working on our own. I was ready either to b*tch slap them both or to tell, but I let it slide... Still not sure if it was the right call.

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