More Colleges Are Fighting Back

Read and discuss the following text.

Listening II

Listening I

1) Listen and learn about the reasons why students cheat at school and university:

2) Match the words and word combinations with their definitions:

1. inconsistent	a) to do smth to avoid looking stupid or feeling embarrassed
2. to save one’s face	b) to teach smb values
3. instigator	c) contradictory
4. to cut corners	d) the quality of being honest and strong about what you believe to be right
5. to run into smb	e) stimulus
6. to get away with it	f) to save time, money, energy by doing things quickly and not as carefully as you should
7. rigorous	g) to escape punishment
8. to give smb their moral compass	h) to get rid of smth
9. to eliminate	i) to stimulate
10. to be alert to smth	j) to meet smb by chance
11. to be swayed by smth	k) strict and demanding
12. integrity	l) to be influenced by smth
13. to encourage	m) to keep an eye open for smth

3) How would you translate the following:

1. to be inconsistent with one’s beliefs;

2. survival;

3. to be true to oneself and one’s own values;

4. college acceptance.

Listen and answer the questions:

1. What are the main reasons for cheating?

2. What can parents do to combat cheating?

3. How can we stop cheating at school/college?

More Students Are Cheating,

BOSTON – Many college students today struggle with cheating. The Internet offers many temptations – there are term papers for sale along with articles and news reports that can be copied for free with the click of a mouse. It is not surprising that cheating is sometimes difficult to resist. Furthermore, students often do not understand exactly what constitutes cheating. Polly Sanders, a student at a small liberal arts college, knows that handing in a paper from the Internet is plagiarism – stealing another's writing and calling it your own. If she gets caught, she'll receive a failing grade or maybe be thrown out of school. But what about using a paragraph? She admits that she has often taken a paragraph and changed a few words to make it "her" own work. That's not plagiarizing, is it? Polly may not know it but, according to her college, it is.

Polly is not the only student who isn't sure what's cheating and what isn't. This uncertainty is partly due to the fact that standards are changing. A 2001 survey by the Center for Academic Integrity shows cheating is becoming acceptable. The survey found that 41 percent of students believe that plagiarism is common. Thirty percent say cheating during tests or exams happens quite often. Sixty percent of the students admit asking their friends for help even when a professor has told them to work alone. Perhaps most worrying was the 27 percent who said that falsifying laboratory data happens "often or very often" on campus. It's hard to believe that all of these young scientists change their ways after graduation. Especially since 45 percent said that falsifying data did not count as serious cheating.

If students are becoming less concerned about the ramifications of cheating, colleges and universities are working harder to catch the cheaters. Some administrators use sophisticated computer search engines to find Internet plagiarists. However, many other colleges are using honor codes to combat cheating. An effective honor code clearly describes the boundaries of legitimate and illegitimate work. In addition, it sets the penalties for breaking it. While honor codes have existed on many campuses for a long time, they are now acquiring "teeth" as the institutions strive to enforce them. Educators say that the simple act of students signing the honor code makes a difference. "It's a psychological effect: if people expect you to be honorable, you are more likely to respond with honorable behavior," says Nannerl O. Keohane, the president of Duke University in North Carolina. "We have to build a culture where people are genuinely offended by cheating."

Honor codes are becoming more and more popular across the United States. The University of North Carolina and the University of Maryland give cheaters grades of XF to indicate failure because of cheating. Cornell University rewrote its honor code in 2000 and now requires teaching assistants and freshmen to take courses that teach them what cheating is and how to avoid it.

Honor codes can be both a carrot and a stick. They may offer students more freedom, but, if they do not obey, the punishment is severe. For example, the honor code at Wellesley College in Massachusetts allows students to take exams when and where they want. The students simply inform the teacher when they will be taking the exam. Then they can choose to go wherever they want. Some stay in the classroom while others prefer to do exams in their bedrooms, the library, or outside. The students are trusted, but if they are caught cheating, the punishment can be severe.

Some people say that simply putting in an honor code won't solve the problem, but several studies since the 1960s have shown that schools without honor codes tend to have about twice as much cheating as those with honor codes in place. University officials think that there are different reasons for this phenomenon. "The feeling of being treated as an adult and responding in kind," Professor McCabe says, "it's clearly there for many students. They don't want to violate that trust." "The magic of an honor code,'' agrees Elizabeth Kiss, director of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University, "is that when it's really working, there's a sense of we're all in this together."

2) Find the English equivalents for the following in the text:

соблазн, семестровая контрольная работа, устоять (перед чем-л.), сдавать реферат, плагиат, попасться, менять привычки, кодекс чести, очерчивать/определять границы, наказание, честный/благородный, оскорблять, разрушать доверие.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-29