Why do students cheat in exams. 4 reasons and side effects of cheating.

Dalia Nour
4 min readOct 3, 2021

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We all know cheating is bad, still we all do it either unintentionally or intentionally and we can’t help but perform it. We are not perfect and we all make mistakes but it doesn’t mean we should repeat them, its important to learn from your own mistakes in order to learn and never repeat them again. However, some people never learn from their mistakes and repeat cheating over and over again. Cheating is increasing day by day, a recent survey in India has show that 73% of students were caught cheating in their online exams.

Its okay if you do once or twice though it might cause some troubles if you got caught however, if you perform it often you might be seen as criminal by your classmates and teachers as it is considered as a crime. If you have done it in your previous exam or test then make sure you avoid it and never do it again after all it has more unpleasant outcomes than you think.

If you cheat in every exam it means you just can’t study by yourself however there are some reasons why other students cheat and in this article we are going to discuss them.

Why do students cheat?

There are numerous reasons for a student to cheat but there are some main reasons why they would do it instead of avoiding it. Some of the major causes are given below.

Pressure and fear of failure

Family pressure, expectations of teachers and relatives are one of the biggest reason since you wouldn’t want to let them down. Many parents look for higher marks in the exams by their children and some parents force their kids to study so that they get good grades whereas, some parents threaten their kids by saying they would abandon them. Pressures like these can make anyone take missteps.

Laziness

Procrastination a big problem. It makes you lazy and keep you undistracted. Hard working students aren’t bothers by it however, lazy students can’t save themselves. They might play games all day or scroll their social media instead of studying, just because they don’t like study and when exams start they realize that, they aren’t prepared for anything and this makes them cheat in exams.

Poor study habits

Study skills vary from person to student, Laziness and poor study habits are apart from each other. Even though some students are clever, they’re not able to study as a result of their laziness.

On the other side, students with poor study habits find it hard to study. Students aren’t able to study as a consequence of following reasons:

  • Being unable to understand concepts in the classroom.
  • Bring unable to memorize lessons.
  • Slow learning skills.
  • Lack of concentration.

These kind of students should try to concentrate on their studies more often than other activities, this can help them improve their concentration. Ask your peers to help you or asking a teacher for help can also be extremely useful and its always better than cheating in exams.

Savage competition between students

You can’t relate to competition between students if you were not one of the smart students in your class. Clever students do cheat but they are rarely caught since they’re already so smart. Group of top students compete each other to find out the best among them.

They need to win no matter what, even if it takes cheating and that’s what they do. Winning is something everyone wants, but winning with cheat codes is not right in games as well as study and real life since cheats always brings bugs. That’s why it should be avoided does not matter how hard the competition is.

Aftermath of cheating

As a student we don’t know how much cheating at school can affect our future life, we feel its an easy way to get good grades so why we should study hard however, some of the consequences of cheating are worse than you can think. Following are the aftermath of cheating:

  • It might destroy your reputation at school.
  • You will lack ideas and problem solving skills.
  • Your classmates won’t trust you.
  • You will have hard time finding a job.
  • Copying others will ruin your creativity.
  • You aren’t going to learn anything new if you cheat.

The bottom line

Cheating is not allowed, doesn’t matter who you are, punishments and results will be same. Reasons might be different but its always wrong. You need to improve yourself instead of finding easier since it has many bad results. Students with poor study habits should try harder in studies and focus on studies more than other activities. It might take time, but at least its not illegal. That’s why always avoid cheating and study hard.

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Dalia Nour

Writing is my passion. Articles, Blog posts and Product reviews, I'm experienced in all these things. Make sure to contact me if you want to work with me. 🌺