Cheater

I'm sitting in the back of the classroom, staring at one problem minute after minute. Nothing. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I panic. It's the last test of the semester before the final and I need to do well. I look up. Most of the forty or so heads in the room are bent over a test in concentration. The professor is at the front of the room, sitting. She looks up occasionally but is mostly occupied with catching up on grading.

I notice a guy a few seats ahead of me on the right. He's hunched over like everyone else and from the professor's viewpoint so far away, he looks like every other test taker in the room. But from where I sit, I can see that he's not. Yes, he is focused on something on his desk, but it's not always the test. He looks at the test for a moment, then spends some time scrolling through his smart phone before going back to working on his test. Maybe he's just using it as a calculator, which would be alright except that calculators of any kind are prohibited during tests in this class. Is he Googling formulas? The professor handed out a formula sheet, and information not on the sheet is expected to be in our heads. Maybe he's logged on to a tutoring website and is working through the problems with an unsuspecting teacher. Maybe he's texting someone for answers. I don't know what he's doing. All I know is the only thing I see on anyone else's desk is a test, but this guy has his smart phone.

image via www.varsitycollegeprep.com

I look back at my test. I know how to do most of the problems but I'm stuck on just a few. My smart phone is in my backpack, powered off. I could pull it out and she wouldn't even notice, I start to think. I could do a quick Google search and put it back. It wouldn't even be that big of a deal. Yes it would, my conscience counters. You're not a cheater. But it's not fair, I whine to myself. Because I didn't study quite enough, I can't ace this test. That guy may have studied even less than I did, but he's probably going to do pretty well.

I replay in my head what I've been told for years: It'll catch up to him eventually. Oh ya, when exactly? When he keeps a scholarship and I don't because my GPA falls just below the cut-off? When he gets hired and I don't because he had an A-average and I had a B?

I turn back to my test and finish what I know how to do, which is most of the questions. I then look back over the few I am stuck on. If only I could just look this up real quick…nope, not going to happen. I sigh and get up to turn in my not-quite-completed test. Having a conscience sure is inconvenient sometimes.