Cheating  is  nothing  new. But  today,  educators  and  administrators  are  finding  that  instances  of academic dishonesty on the part of students have become more frequent- and are less likely to be punished – than in the past.Cheating appears to have gained acceptance among good and poor students alike.

Why  is  student  cheating  on  the rise? No  one really knows. Some  blame the trend  on  a  general loosening of moral values among today’s youth .Others have attributed increased cheating to the fact that

today’s youth are far more pragmatic (实用主义的) than their more idealistic predecessors.Whereas in the late sixties and early seventies, students were filled with visions about changing the world, today’s students feel great pressure to conform and succeed.In interviews with students at high schools and colleges around the country, both young men and women said that cheating had become easy.Some suggested they did it out of spite for teachers they did not respect.Others looked at it as a game.Only if they were caught, some said, would they feel guilty.“People are competitive,” said a second-year college student named Anna, from Chicago.There’s an underlying fear.If you don’t dowell, your life is going to be ruined.The pressure is not only from parents and friends but from oneself.To achieve.To succeed.It’s almost as though we have to outdo other people to achieve our own goals.

Wdward Wynne, a magazine editor, blame the rise in academic dishonesty on the schools.He claims that administrators and teachers have been too hesitant to take action.Dwight Huber, chairman of the English department at Amarillo, sees the matter differently, blaming the rise in cheating on the way students are evaluated.“I would cheat if I felt I was being cheated,” Mr.Huber said .He fells that as long as teachers give short-answer tests rather than essay questions and rate students by the number of facts they can memorize rather than by how well they can put information together, students will try to beat the system.“The concept of cheating is based on the false assumption that the system is legitimate and there is something wrong with the individuals who are doing it,” he said.‘That’s too easy an answer.We’ve got to start looking at the system.”