The Perfect Score: Cheating On The SAT

Many children all across the United States and other countries try to replicate their favorite superstar athlete. Many athletes become the children’s idol and once the child learns that the athlete has cheated the game the athlete plays the child no longer looks up to the athlete. It is almost gotten to the point where no athlete that excels in a particular sport can be trusted. Every time a single athlete becomes great at their respective sport, speculation of steroid abuse immediately follows.

For many years sports have played huge roles in human’s everyday lives. From entertainment, political, financial and to actually competing in them. The task for the sportsmen or women, especially in the top rank, is to beat the other competitors and get a good result from it. Here there is a high amount of pressure on many athletes coming from the media, coaches, themselves etc. They have the wanting to do well and achieve their goals and aims so much that some of the athletes turn to performance enhancing drugs. Obviously training for competition is the main thing to do but using drugs is another helper to succeeding. So, to their way of thinking, doping does not seem like cheating it just seems like

Each year high school students from around the country take the SAT or ACT. The ACT and SAT are both standardized test used by colleges to determine the knowledge of a student and predict what their performance will be in their first year of college. An immense amount of pressure is put on student to receive certain scores in order to obtain scholarships and admission into college. Even just one point on a student’s score can determine if they will be accepted into their dream college. However, the results from standardized tests, such as the ACT and SAT, are often inaccurate. Because of this one’s knowledge and academic ability are misrepresented, and they are denied certain opportunities. Standardized tests such as the ACT and the SAT

The ACT and SAT were created to accurately measure the knowledge of our children and make sure they are prepared for college, yet often times it seems to have the opposite effect. Due to the tests, some students are deciding not to go to college just to avoid paying so much money when they do not think they can do well in college courses. Even if students do decide to go to college, they may avoid taking classes with large tests due to test phobia developed from the ACT or SAT (Paul 42). Seeing such low scores in certain subjects can lower a student’s confidence and willingness to take those classes in college. By not taking certain classes, a student is limiting what major they can complete which will lowering their career options (Paul 42). We can’t let this happen to our students! We can’t let one stupid test destroy the careers and futures of hundreds of teenagers. The long term effects of the trauma created by the ACT and SAT are detrimental to today’s students.

In the contemporary American education system high-stakes standardized testing has resulted in a focus on extensive test preparation, as well as a large increase in the numbers of teachers cheating by alternating their students' test scores. Both these phenomena are a direct consequence of the incentives and punishments directly linked to standardized test results.

In all areas of sports, professional, college, and even high school, there is widespread illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs. It seems like you can’t go more than a week without hearing about somebody’s PED problems. Although there are many reasons for athletes to choose to use these drugs, the cost of such use, both to the athlete and to society can be extraordinarily high. The question that many people must answer to themselves is “is it worth the risk”. Therefore, it is important to understand why performance-enhancing drugs are used, the consequences of their use, and then apply that knowledge to how they are represented in the media.

Dick Butkus, a retired pro football hall of famer, stated, “There is a myth out there that somehow anabolic steroids can turn a cub into a bear. Steroids won’t make you tough and competitive. What they will do is ruin your health. It’s that simple,” on his opinion about the use of steroids. Although the stance against the use of performance enhancing drugs is clear to Dick, not everyone agrees on the topic. Many players, ranging in all sports at different levels, have used PEDs (Performance Enhancing Drugs) at least once in their career to better their abilities and performances. Some of those players have been caught and have been rightfully punished for their use; however, others get away with using PEDs and remain praised above their opposition. I believe that the use of performance enhancing drugs is wrong and should continue to be banned morally by the fans and legally by the commissioners. There are few positives to using PEDs, which ignite the urge for players to become better at their sport for fame, money, or success. Nonetheless, the negatives immensely outweigh the positives. The use of performance enhancing drugs creates detrimental health risks on athletes, changes the way sports were originally meant to be played for the worse, and shows unacceptable influence on fans and children.

“Great Neck is a wealthy community, and the fact that such a scandal is playing out there is an illustration of the SAT arms race that takes place, particularly in very affluent towns where kids think they are failures unless they go to a school where their parents would be proud to put the bumper sticker in their back window,” says Robert Schaeffer, spokesman for the National Center for Fair and Open Testing in Boston, Mass., which tracks and critiques standardized tests." So much stress was put on students by their parents they felt the need to pay someone to take their SATs for them! Even though cheating on standardized test calls for major consequences students will still risk their academic future to do well.

In the world of sports it is a competitive place where athletes lay everything they have worked for their whole lives to win the game. Now these athletes have been striving for greatness and dedicating so much of their lives to getting bigger faster and stronger to be able to win some games and ultimately move up in their careers and possibly make a living out of the sport they love to play. Sports rewards players who are motivated and works harder than the other team and stay focused and just dedicate so much to the sport. Now there are shortcuts to becoming bigger and faster and stronger. While some athletes bleed sweat and work as hard as they can and sometimes get changes slowly and far between some athletes will take performance enhancing drugs which will help these athletes take a shortcut and beat out the others who strive to get better. There in my opinion is nothing wrong with athletes wanting to get an upper edge on opponents by getting bigger and stronger but when the athlete uses performance enhancing drugs to get an upper edge I do not agree with this and feel like those athletes should receive some type of punishment.

Nobody would argue that the quality of sports is basically dependent upon the level of skill of its players. As the skills of the players improve, so too does the quality of the game. So why are substances that would further athletes’ skills beyond human levels so ostracized? Doping is the practice of using steroids and other illegal substances to boost performance in sports and athletics. The debate of the morality of such substances has been going on for decades and continues to affect the world of sports in many ways. At the moment, steroids and all other performance-enhancing drugs are banned in their entirety from nearly all sports in most countries of the world. Scandalous lawsuits involving athletes abusing substances are constantly popping up, usually involving players and athletes that were considered fan-favorites or even heroes. Performance-enhancing drugs should be allowed in sports because it would make it easier to control them, allow athletes to perform better, and widespread use of steroids would allow more solid research and advancements in the pharmaceutical field.

Sports illustrated interviewed a cohort (group of people) of elite Olympic athletes, asking, “If you were given a performance-enhancing substance, you would not be caught, and you would win, would you take it? Ninety-eight percent of athletes answered yes.”(Charleston) That is a big number. Big risk with such a small chance of success. Taking drugs to enhance your performance is just not right. Striving to get better, takes patience and perseverance. Athletes are known for their road they take to get to where they are today. Along with jail time, athletes that commit illegal acts should be banned from their sport, for their careers will never be the same, children should not look up to athletes who do those things, and the chance of losing

To begin with, athletes that use steroids are poor role models for children. “Children often look up to athletes as a person they want to be just like, One reason

This is a material world promoting material values, thus meaning that it should not be surprising to see individuals being willing to do everything in their power in order to make profits. Or should it? The sports community today is troubled by a series of athletes who have yielded to society's pressures and abandoned their principles with the purpose of taking performance enhancing drugs. It is difficult to determine if it would be normal for the masses to judge these individuals, concerning that they are actually one of the reasons for which these people have come to consider taking performance enhancing drugs in the first place. However, the only ones who can judge them are other hard-working sportspersons who have stood by their principles and who respect the idea of sport in general.

Thirdly, many serious side effects and health risks are involved with using PEDs. The benefits of these drugs are really not worth the risks. ‘It is already known that steroids cause liver damage, heart attacks and strokes.’ (Mirkin, 2007) What’s worse, these drugs harm not only the athletes themselves but also harm their children. Mirkin (2007) said that, through a study on the children of the athletes who use PEDs, ‘more than 25 percent had

Athletes are amazing role models because they are responsible. In fact, “Teen boys don’t take steriods from athletes, it’s more from self asteem and wanting to impress girls” (sportsanddrugs.procon.org NA). Over the years athletes have been known to take drugs. Drugs then were allowed in sports because people didn’t know how they affected the body so harshly. Now, that drug have been banned in physical sports, athletes have stopped doing them. According to a survery “Drug in young teensc skyocketed in the early 1990s but dropped dramatically in 2003” (sportsanddrugs.procon.org NA). Athletes now know they would rather make a few mistakes then lose their job completely. Most athletes in the Olympics have confessed, such as Marion Jones. Athletes