Books like Cheat by Amy Goldman Koss

When Sarah gets her hands on the answers to the eighth-grade geography midterm and decides to share them with some other students, the consequences are far-ranging. Sarah is embarrassed and punished by her teacher, her friends are hurt and made to feel bad, and the school principal threatens to expel her. Despite the warnings, Sarah feels that it would be better if she could just cheat and that she would only feel bad about herself if she did the wrong thing. When her mother and a friend discover that Sarah has been cheating, they force her to stop and tell her that it's not okay to cheat. This leaves Sarah feeling confused and unsure of what to do. She goes back to the school and starts to feel bad for cheating. When she tries to confront the teacher, the teacher tells her that she can't cheat anymore and that cheating is not acceptable. Sarah is left feeling conflicted and confused. She decides to start over and tries to focus on her studies instead of cheating. Despite her efforts, she still feels bad for cheating and is still tempted to do it again. This leads her to start a game where she uses her knowledge of the test to guess the answers instead of cheating. This helps her feel better about the test and starts to make her feel better about cheating. The story ends with Sarah deciding to continue cheating and to use her knowledge of the test to cheat on the next test as well.

First publish date: 2003