Is Copying Homework Cheating?

2) Gives you a chance to practice. This will be reflected in tests - it'll show how much you practiced.

The only place it can be reflected is on tests. When your homework only consists of clerical copy-work, whether its in the textbook or your friend, you're still not going to get any "practice". In fact, your memory trace will be far from consolidation if all you're doing is writing. You might as well watch a TV program on the lesson, because each concept decays from your mind at around the same rate whether you're watching it from TV or you're writing it on paper.

The only instances where I can think of helpful practice are:

1. Calc practice problems. Can't really get to the answer without the process for this one. This isn't to be confused with PreCalc though. PreCalc was utter garbage that required you to learn how to plug numbers into formulaes. Same for all the lower leveled math courses, except some geometry.

2. English essay tests. And the only place I ever got these were in AP. Apparently, based on a test I took in second grade, I was determined to stupid to ever be able to 'be on par' with the honors level kids. Thus I ended up having to do multiple-choice for the majority of this.

3. I must say I found this rather amusing:

Also what gets interesting is when Biology majors take their mandatory neuroscience courses and discover that the brain is just a giant electrical grid for neurons to travel about at given velocities. Then all those Calculus and Physics courses they thought were not important (except for the MCAT) are shoved down their throats before they even have time to adapt their gag reflex to newer heights, or rather depths.

Unfortunately, in Physucks, my teacher banned the use of integration and derivatives. Physucks B is a joke.

In AP Physics my class would share answers. Certain people would simply just copy the answers because they had no idea what was going on. This resulted in many students passing with a C in a course where they didn't learn any "advanced" material. Sharing homework is not only cheating yourself out of a proper education, it's cheating a teacher from doing their job properly. Homework is used as feedback in order to determine whether they did a good job or need to review the material over again. If they see that their students are consistently getting high scores, then they will proceed with quizzing/testing. I earned my lousy B in AP Physics. I could have cheated and gotten an A because I had smart friends who knew what they were doing. But I chose to tough it out. Turns out when I took College Physics, all the hard work paid off.

This is certainly a very interesting viewpoint. From my point of view, however, teachers are only doing their job when students learn as a direct result of their teaching. In other words, forcing students to do practice problems isn't doing their job unless they are teaching along with the practice materials they assign. Also, because of the nature of the homework (as in my example in the first post), tests are much better for assessment of whether the teacher needs to review the material again. All of my teachers would just move on regardless of how many students fail.


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Also students tend to be too short-sighted when it comes to their education. It's supposed to be a gradual process where you learn material gradually via homework and other assignments. With all this farce competition over colleges, students screw up big time by failing to look at the big picture. Sure. It sucks that you won't get that extra % so you can get into your Ivy League schools, but you won't be the retarded kid who never learned electromagnetism because he copied from a friend. If you think that it's pointless, then it will be pointless. But there are many things that are pointless if you choose to only think about the "end-result". What's the point in life for example if we all just die? Might as well just cut to the chase and kill yourself. Life is a process just like learning. There are no short-cuts.

In General Chemistry in College I obtained twenty practice exams for the final exam. To be blunt, I really wanted to get into Medical School my freshman year of college and wanted all the practice I could possibly get. On top of studying the course material I also memorized all the questions and answers to the tests in case they got recycled. One practice exam out of the twenty was almost carbon-copy. I scored very high on my Chemistry exam and learned that a pre-med minority group skewed the average with high scores because they were provided with these "carbon-copy" exams. Specifically given to them by the professors of their classes. I became disillusioned with the way things work as that final determined around 40-60% of my grade. I later learned that fraternities keep their own test bank in addition to other academic groups. Everyone works hard, which is why unfair advantages make big differences when it comes to the game of academics. I personally felt guilty and quit accumulating tests, no longer really cared about my GPA, and actually died a bit on the inside. In retrospect I would have done a lot better in college if I didn't try to beat the system.

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Sorry if I look like nitpicking, but my eyes just popped upon seeing such blatant contradictions. Essentially, you were end-result oriented until it set you on a new path with a bizarrely different end-result from what you expected. Then you briefly discussed the important of the process by which you arrive at the end result. In the end, you're still end-result oriented.