Homework Is Wrong Persuasive Essay

English Persuasive Essay
Yuan. Yao
February 10, 2014

Being a high school student is never easy. Not only have you to study hard, finish the homework, and get good grades on classes, but also you need to do extra curriculum activities, community services, and sports in order to meet the graduation requirements and to fulfill the parents’ expectations. Often times you find yourself in a dilemma between schoolwork and outside duty. You only have time to do one thing well, yet you want both of them to be finished perfectly. What would you do to accomplish them both extraordinarily? To many students, cheating seems to be “low-hanging fruit solution” for their obnoxious problem. A research done by the Stanford University has shown that
more than 75 percent of highschoolers cheated on exams at some point while 92 percent of them reported copying another’s homework (“Academic Cheating Fact Sheet” 1). Cheating has become a pervasive problem that existed among students. However, disputations about whether cheating is morally acceptable are intense. Some people think cheating will not affect a person’s character while others think cheating is absolutely wrong. I believe that everyone should fulfill their honor pledge because cheating is unfair, harmful, and dangerous. First of all, cheating is unfair for the students who work hard for good grades.
Those people usually stay up late to finish their homework and to study for the tests. According to Sylviane Duval, a professor at the Health Behavior News Center, “only about 8 percent of high school students get enough sleep on an average school night.” One of the anonymous students leaves the comment under the article: “I sleep mostly at 2a.m. because I’m always up late doing a ton load of homework to get straight As. Some of my friends just copy other’s homework and cheat on the tests, ironically, they get As also.” Cheating makes you gain unfair advantages over the persevering students who sacrifice their sleeping time in exchange of the good grades. It is unjust for the entire school community if the grades cannot reflect one’s ability
accurately. Secondly, it is detrimental to the society. Students who succeed without learning will eventually penalize everyone who depends on them for the knowledge they lack. Imagine a financial analyst who cheats through all his tests is trying to do a quarterly statement for his boss. He should know how to analyze samples, how to draw charts, and how to estimate the potential growth on next quarter. However, because he cheats on the exams, he lacks the skill to do all these reports. His false report will bring huge damage to the company and cause a series of chain reactions to the stock market, banks, and investors. Or imagine a brain surgeon who cheats his way through college and med schools. How will you feel if you know this person is going to operate the surgery on you or your loved ones? Last but not least, cheating is harmful to you and to your future.
As a student, I know how easily it is to get addicted to cheating. After all, it is the fastest way to achieve good grades without trying hard. Also, it seams to have low costs as long as you stay smart and not getting caught. Nevertheless, we must realize that cheating is not learning. It will not help you to study in the long run. Instead, it will enslave you, deprive your ability of thinking, and alienate you from your friends. All of these consequences will drag you deeper into cheating, which now becomes a vicious circle that you can hardly get out of. Moreover, although cheating has low costs and great benefits in some students’ eyes, once you get caught, you will pay a heave price for the behavior. You will have an honor violation on your transcript which will be viewed by the college councilors during the admission. What are they going to think about you and your character when they see the honor violation? They will view you as a person who lacks integrity. Even though you get good SAT scores, great GPAs, and loads of amazing activities, I bet the college admission committee will still seriously re-consider your
application. Certainly, some people will argue that “cheating will increase a person’s ability to get into a selective college.” There are two misusing words in this sentence: “ability” and “selective.” Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “Ability” as “the power or skill to do something,” and cheating does not increase your skill on learning. You cannot increase your ability by cheating; it is only a bad way to boost your grade. “Selective,” according to Merriam-Webster, means “careful to choose only the best people or things.” So if you are a cheater, you have mars already, you are not one of the best people for selective colleges to choose from. In addition, someone who thinks cheating is not a big deal might argue that cheating is only a student thing; it will stop after the graduation. However, according to a report from the American Job Research Center, many companies suffer a lot due to resume fraud in which more than 70 percent of the frauds are committed by the cheaters. In conclusion, cheating is detrimental to the peers, to the society, and most importantly, to you. A person who cheats, even if not get caught, will not gain respect nor achievability from the inner self. Instead, he/she will suffer from the guilt of cheating, the pressure of getting exposed, and the degeneration of study ability. Cheating is the hard drug for students; we should all stay away from it as far as possible.

Work Cited:
“Ability.” Def. 1. Merriam Webster Online, Merriam Webster, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

“Academic Cheating Facts Sheet.” Stanford edu. Stanford University. 2013. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

Duval, Sylviane. “Most High School Students Are Sleep Deprived.” Health Behavior News Center. 2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

“Resume Fraud: Cheating Facts.” American Job Research Center. American Job Research. 2012. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.

“Selective.” Def.1. Merriam Webster Online, Merriam Webster, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.