Commentary On The Documentary 'Faking The Grade'

Listening report Christy Nov 20 The documentary ‘Faking the Grade’ (2013, SEP 5, DOC ZONE, CBC player) mainly discusses the external and internal factors that explain why students cheat during their tests, and explores how schools react to cheating and what we can do to change the current situation in order to cultivate a culture of honesty.

To begin with, the documentary briefly introduces current phenomena that a considerable percentage of high school and university students cheat to obtain good grades during their tests by using their creativities and technologies, such as Bluetooth earphone, hiring academic gunners and buying essays online, and that the technical know-how tutorials
And then the documentary discusses the external factors that account for students’ cheating, which virtually come from parents, news, events, society, and almost everywhere in the living world. After demonstrating an example, that a man made his career by selling his essays to students and their parents even offered to pay the ghostwriter for his works, the documentary reveals that parents have something to do with students’ cheating. First, students are under much stress from parents, marks, and expectations and become vulnerable to cheat; second, according to the professor, with parents modeling, students internalize and they approach success by cheating to feel loved by their parents; third, parents look at it another way as documentary shows some parents were willing to buy cheating tools for their children. With showing many interviews with different audience, the documentary contends that cheating is related to a bigger issue, a dishonesty culture that penetrates news, events, society, and the whole world. After demonstrating two adult examples about a doctor copying other’s work for his research paper and some polices cheating for promotion, the documentary says a message is being delivered to young generation that endless pursuit of fame and fortune lead to a wrong mean---cheating to get ahead in today’s dog-eat-dog environment according to the
In the documentary, an example of a used-to casino experienced cheater is illustrated where he pointed out that cheating is driven mostly by a risk-taking personality while prizes and marks seem less important. Moreover, according to the psychologist, people who like wearing fake brand clothes and jewels are more likely to cheat; watching peers cheating would evoke the need and desire to cheat as well; students would feel convinced or convince themselves to cheat under a worse style of studying, since a news is shown in the documentary that teachers changed score sheets for students to give the appearance of improved performance of the school instead of risking losing jobs.

However, this provoking behavior results in schools’ fight back as it’s illustrated in the documentary that teachers use high techs to catch cheaters, that schools set tests to examine students’ academic integrity, and that harsh punishment would be given to cheaters with it showing the detecting tools and demonstrating examples of a girl who got accused of plagiarism because of strict rules of citing failing the exam for an unintentional mistake and of a boy who cheated getting a spot in his record with him