A Fine Art

 You know what's common between relationships, exams, assignments and sports? The incidence of cheating. Some of the people involved are absolute gems, but there's also a ton of cheating. People who cheat in relationships ought to be condemned to languish in purgatory for the entirety of their lives, but the cheats in the other spheres-now those people are interesting. 

I'll tell you why. Cheating in assignments, exams and whatnot is easy until its not. However, the problem here is that people don't make it easy for themselves. I have done my fair share of online submissions; there's no doubt about that. By 'fair share', I don't mean that I'm no longer doing online submissions. I still am, but now it takes as much effort as it takes a hippo to yawn. Basically, it looks like a lot when it isn't. 

Kids these days have no idea how to cheat or copy in assignments and exams. And yes, I'm an adult, even though it pains me to admit it. I don't recommend adulthood at all. If it were an Amazon product, 1 star would have been the most it ever got. All the fun has been sucked out of life, so the only object I can relate to is a whoopee cushion. Noisy, half-deflated and funny- but not anymore.

Either way, kids and copying. They know they have to cheat, but don't know how. Let me give you a minuscule example. There are 16-year-olds who have submitted scanned answer sheets for their exams. There is absolutely no issue-except one. The sheets aren't theirs. In fact, some idiots have submitted the answer sheets of 2 other people. Different handwritings-what's that?

If it were a typed assignment, they would have been the goodest boys in the class. And yes, that was an intentional grammatical error. Not that these Einsteins would have realized, though. As someone born between 1997 and 2003 (the last of the "elite"- according to social media), I can tell you that copying is a fine art. And a really fine one at that.

It's not enough to pick up every alternate sentence from Wikipedia or Goodreads-if you put alternate sentences from Wikipedia and Goodreads, though, you're golden. Another rookie mistake which people make is with their formatting. I won't reveal trade secrets here, but just know this: if you're going to put an apple into a basket of oranges, at least paint it the right colour.

What tickles me to no end is that they think we don't know. Expecting that some teachers might not know or notice is one thing; expecting people a couple of years older won't know is another. To quote the Cred ad: "We are the OGs." Doesn't matter if you show Johann Gutenberg a newly printed book; he'll still know it's a book.

Gutenberg was the first man to make a printing press, by the way. There's also something called the Gutenberg Bible, which I think was printed by him. Either way, the point I'm trying to make here is that they're trying to pull tricks which we made up in the first place. So it's really stupid from our viewpoint.

One last thing before I'm done for today. The entries we receive for anything- be it an audition, a competition, or just any assignment- can always be checked online. Not extensively, of course, but all it takes is a search on Google to figure out where it came from. So when people copy and paste answers from a random site on Google, it's hilarious to find the exact site where they got it from. Doubtnut and Brainly. Does that ring a bell, anyone?

Well, that's it for today. I haven't revealed any trade secrets, I think, but maybe I've let slip a few. I'm not sure, actually. Some people seem to know everything, while others know zilch, so it's difficult to guess. Either way, stay safe, everyone. Adios!