考试当然要公平公正，但考试作弊在印度却很猖獗。
有些人为了考试通过，父母家人齐上场。
爬楼换鞋，做手术都可以，只要考试通过就行。
这种全民作弊的现象与印度破败的教育体系有关。
今天我们来读5.28这一期《经济学人》Asia板块中的这篇文章。
India’s exams are plagued by cheatingIt is a symptom of a poor education system
考试作弊盛行，是印度落后的教育体系的痹症之一
本文结构比较清晰。
阅读本文，你会学到以下表达方式：
开始 入学门槛 毕业考试 高价 开除
期末考试 人字拖 睁一只眼闭一只眼
1. As india’s exam season kicked off earlier this year Facebook groups dedicated to helping with preparations were inundated with offers of guaranteed academic success. “Get leaked questions and answers before your upcoming exam, 100% guaranteed and secured,” read one. “Get certificate without sitting exams 100% legal,” promised another.
在今年年初印度的考试季开启时，脸谱网上帮助考生备考的组织的订单饱满。其中一个组织的业务介绍写着“考试前我们就能得到考题和答案，100%让你通过”，另一个则写着“不用参加考试，帮你合法拿到证书。”
2. India’s education system is brutal. The bar for entry to university is extraordinarily high. There is a near-unlimited pool of applicants for the top institutions. Until it changed its policies this year, Delhi University, among the best, required prospective students to have scored at least 99% in their school-leaving exams. Stratospheric parental expectations only add to the pressure.
Getting into university is not the end of it, either. High marks are necessary there, too, so that graduates can go on to foreign universities or find jobs at home. Plenty of canny (if dubious) entrepreneurs are only too happy to offer shortcuts to success—for a hefty price.
印度的教育体系很残酷。大学入学门槛奇高。几乎所有人都会申请好学校。直到去年政策出台，印度最好的大学德里大学要求毕业考试分数至少达到99%才有资格申请。
所以，成绩平平的学生的父母压力增加了。进入大学并不是最终目的。高分是刚需，因为你才能去国外留学或者在家乡找到工作。很多精明的（其实不靠谱）的企业家正好有了挣钱的机会，用大价钱给学生提供成功的捷径。
3. Cheating is thus widespread. It is also organised and elaborate. In a survey in 2021 by Learning Spiral, a big provider of online-exam software, 73% of university students admitted to cheating in online tests. Neha, who teaches at an engineering college in Maharashtra, a western state, reckons that 90% of her students cheat in some form.
所以，作弊现象猖獗，而且已经形成了专业组织。在2021年在线考试软件Learning Spiral进行的一个调查中，73%的大学生承认曾在在线考试上作弊过。Neha是印度西部邦马哈拉施特拉邦一所工程大学的老师，她估计她的学生中90%都做过弊。
4. At its simplest, cheating involves smuggling notes into the exam hall or buying stolen test papers. Students are routinely frisked as they enter the hall. Question papers are often kept under lock and key in police stations or government buildings. They are nonetheless commonly leaked on social media.
Sarita Sinha, a former schoolteacher who now runs a prep centre, says she does not find this surprising. “Even if you lock it in police stations, you think the policemen do not have children?” she says. Yet it works both ways. Once a paper is out online, it quickly goes viral. This means everyone—including the authorities—discovers the leak and questions can be changed.
最简单的作弊方式就是把纸条私自拿进考场或者购买偷来的试卷。按规定，考生进考场时要被搜身。考试试卷一般都会严格锁在警局或者政府大楼中。但是，试卷还是经常被泄露在网上。
Sarita Sinha曾经是一名老师，现在开办了一家备考培训班。她对此现象并不奇怪。她说“即使你把试卷锁在警局，难道警察就没有考试的孩子吗？”
但是，试卷泄露还有一个反作用。一般试卷被泄露到网上就会很快流传起来。而这就意味着，包括官方发现试卷泄露，那么考题就得变化。
5. Officials are turning to ever more sophisticated and stringent measures. This year, the state of West Bengal installed internet jammers near schools in many districts. It also put cctv cameras in exam halls and insisted students trade in their face masks for fresh ones provided by the school.
More basic methods are also used: in 2019, a school in Karnataka, in the south, forced students to wear cardboard boxes over their heads—cut open on one side—to foil cheating.
考试官员正采取更加复杂严格的手段措施。今年，孟加拉邦政府在很多区域的学校附近安装了网络干扰器。同时在考场安装了监控摄像头，并要求考生换下自己的口罩，戴上学校提供的新口罩。
更多基础的手段也在应用：2019年，印度南部卡纳塔克邦的一所学校为了阻止作弊，要求学生头戴纸箱，只留下一侧打开。
6. Yet even as officials come up with novel ideas, so do the cheats. In February, a medical student at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College in Indore, a small city, was caught with a skin-coloured Bluetooth device surgically implanted in his ear. A phone linked to the device was sewn into a secret trouser pocket.
Last year, ten students taking a trainee-teacher exam were arrested for attempting to use Bluetooth gadgets concealed in the soles of their flip-flops. At least 25 students had bought such footwear from a gang for 600,000 rupees ($7,700) a pair. It is often mandatory for students to remove shoes and socks before exams.
然而，“道高一尺魔高一丈”。今年二月份，位于印多尔市圣雄甘地纪念大学的一名医学生作弊被抓。这名考生在自己的耳朵中植入了一个肤色一样的蓝牙设备。一台连接着该设备的手机被缝在了一个隐藏的裤兜中。
去年，参加教师培训考试的学生因为试图将蓝牙设备藏在人字拖鞋底作弊而被抓。至少有25名学生从一个团伙中购买了每双60万卢比（约7700美元）的鞋子。通常在考试前会要求学生脱掉鞋子和袜子。
7. Parents, too, sometimes help with the cheating. In 2015 dozens of them scaled the outside of a five-storey building to pass answers to their schoolchildren taking crucial year-end exams inside. Hundreds, including parents, were arrested and at least 750 students expelled.
父母有时也是作弊帮凶。2015年很多父母爬到一栋五层楼上（冒着生命危险）给参加重要期末考试的孩子递答案。包括父母在内的几百人被抓，其中至少750名学生被开除。
8. The problem may be with the education system itself, rather than any innate dishonesty among students. Teachers receive low salaries and can be bribed to help or turn a blind eye. Schools care about pass rates. Learning revolves around memorisation rather than understanding or reasoning. Outcomes are poor. Exams requiring thought rather than regurgitation would be harder to memorise, says Ms Sinha.
The quality of education would improve, too. The Indian government is mulling changes to the way it assesses students at higher levels. Until then, the cat-and-mouse game between students and invigilators is doomed to continue. ■
这种现象不是那些天生不诚实的学生造成的，而是教育体系造成的。印度教师的收入低，所以会被贿赂，或者对作弊现象睁一只眼闭一只眼。
而学校关心的是通过率。学生学习的重点是记忆而不是理解或推理，所以学习结果很差。Sinha女士说要求思考而非死记硬背的考试很难记忆。
教育的质量可以提高。印度政府正在改变评估高层次学生的方法。在此之前，考生与监管者之间一捕一放的现状注定还要继续。
