A tale of 2 exam papers
Twenty seven years ago, in a small but important town in southern Nigeria, two teenage boys – bored with revising for their GCSEs – succumbed to the temptation of ‘guaranteeing the outcome’ of their Chemistry exam.
As with any situation with demand, supply always rises to meet it. As such, both boys independently went off to acquire the exam paper from different sources.
A few days later, they jubilantly reunited – each with their exam paper – suitably contained in large brown envelopes. As each boy opened his envelope and read the questions to see how well they were prepared, the first student commented that one of the questions didn’t make sense, thus prompting the second boy to look at the question.
Before too long, both boys looked at the papers side by side in disbelief. Both papers seemed identical on the front page but as soon as the pages were turned, the questions were completely different.
If they were different to each other, were either the correct paper or were both actually just passable fakes.
Despite their unscrupulous intentions, lady luck smiled on the boys. They still had a week before the exam and, to put it mildly, resumed revising with unquestionable focus.
One of those boys was me. I remembered I paid 70 Naira for my fake exam papers, at the time that was about £20.
That was the first and ultimately the last time I ever tried to cheat – neither in an exam or in any dealings with anyone.
Lessons to live by
That experience held some powerful lessons for a young person to learn, namely:
That some things are too good to be true – especially when the alternative is hard work. That the time you spend chasing the quick win is valuable time being ‘stolen’ from working hard on the surer win.
Something quite tremendous happened in addition to the lesson – I developed a strong principle of not cheating and not tolerating it from anyone else.
This is not to say don’t look for shortcuts – because there are some. But rather, invest in looking for the honest ones, that don’t compromise your principles. Of course, if you don’t have that principle then none of this matters.
What experiences and lessons about cheating have you had? Or what principles have you developed from your own experiences – I’d love to hear them.