Students cheat because they are allowed to. Teachers nowadays are too lazy to prepare a 2nd and 3rd version of the retake test. They don't have time to divide a group into smaller ones, to separate students from each other, they don't have time to discuss failed tests, they don't have time to think what they give for a test etc etc etc.
A short example, happened to me 3 years ago.
English philology, reading comprehension classes. I had straight As for vocab tests and but I failed the final reading comprehension test - like 80% of people who got A version of the text. Everyone who got the B version passed. In my case, my final grade wouldn't be A since I failed the reading. A friend of mine asked the teacher whether she saw a problem in the distribution of grades. A bit embarrassed she said: 'ok guys - sit back, you will retake the B version of the test, happy?'. So we took the test knowing the correct answers and got our As.
She didn't investigate into the problem. She took the easiest, band-aid solution. Was justice done? In a sense, it was.
I could write similar stories until the rest of the day. We, both teachers and students, have been lowering the standards for a very long time now.
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