The Perfect Score

Chris doesn't consider himself a cheater. Yet for the past four years, the 21-year-old senior at one of California's most prestigious universities (which he doesn't want identified) has used an arsenal of tricks to pass his classes. He's plagiarized, taken illegal prescription drugs to improve his focus, obtained exam questions in advance and text-messaged his friends via cell phone to find quick answers to tough questions. Still, he doesn't see any of that as out of the ordinary. "Sure, I've used test banks, study drugs, text buddies, cyberessays and picture messaging," he says. "But so does everyone."

That may be an exaggeration--but not as big of one as you might think. From Beijing to Bristol, the rates of academic cheating have skyrocketed during the past decade. In a huge study of 50,000 college and 18,000 high-school

students in the United States by Duke University's Center for Academic Integrity, more than 70 percent admitted to having cheated. That's up from about 56 percent in 1993 and just 26 percent in 1963. Internet plagiarism has quadrupled in the past six years, according to the same study. In Britain, a recent government-sponsored report found such rampant cheating in the state-run GCSE and A-level exams that Secretary of Education Ruth Kelly called for a total revamp of the coursework system before 2008. Hundreds of Asian universities' Web-based bulletin boards are dumping grounds for the memorized answers to Test of English as a Foreign Language questions--the basis of most U.S. colleges' admittance of foreign students.

Nearly all of India's ultracompetitive entrance exams have been stolen and sold to students at least once during the past five years. In 2004 students paid up to $15,000 apiece for access to answers to India's Pre-Medical Test--and the perpetrators pocketed $1 million. In China, where the number of university students has almost tripled since 1998 to 16 million, police last year cracked one of the biggest qiangshou (hired gun) gangs--Web-based agencies where students can hire expert look-alikes to take any of a host of national exams for them. The gang had already taken in $212,000 from nearly 1,000 students in 19 provinces across the country. Also in 2005, South Korea faced the biggest exam-cheating scandal in its history when officials realized that the previous fall's national college-entrance exam, the CSAT, had been infiltrated by more than 20 cheating rings across the country; they had text-messaged exam answers to paying students taking the test. "We've passed the tipping point, where cheating is so common that it's an accepted social norm," says David Callahan, author of "The Cheating Culture."

What's turning students into crooks? First and foremost, technological advances have made cheating easier than ever. From purchasing "original" essays from Web sites like Gradesaver.com to "outsourcing" computer-programming homework to experts in India via sites like Rentacoder.com, students can now buy A's for the price of a school lunch. At the same time, mobile phones and MP3 players have given test takers new tools: picture messaging lets them contact friends outside the classroom with photographed copies of whole exams. SparkMobile, a new service from SparkNotes (Barnes & Noble's take on Cliffs Notes), will text students themes to use for surprise in-class essays or beam them iPod-friendly audio summaries of classic novels.

Competition, though, is the real culprit. As the work force becomes ever more crowded and the number of college grads skyrockets, top educational credentials are increasingly seen as the only sure vehicle to success. Thirty-five years ago, just 11 percent of Americans had a college degree; now nearly a third do. In the European Union, the number of university graduates has shot up by 30 percent in the past five years alone. In hypercompetitive Asia, where most academic achievement is measured by standardized tests, that can lead to excruciating pressure. "Your exams are so closely connected to your admission to college that a 0.1 percent difference can determine whether you get admitted or not," says Sudha Ravi, vice principal at a prestigious New Delhi secondary school.