I pulled the door open to the classroom and was shocked to find it completely empty. I took a seat in the middle of the back row and set my backpack on the desk next to me. According to the wall clock, it was two twenty-five. I had two and a half hours to complete the knowledge assessment. That should be ample time to check my answers and make sure my handwriting was legible. I wrote my name on the outside of the booklet and then opened to page one.
The first page had two questions on it and several lines for me to write my response. I flipped through the pages to see what the rest of the test looked like. Each page was formatted the same with two questions. I turned back to page one and read the first question.
#1. What is a gene?
Easy enough. I quickly wrote out my response and read it back. I covered what I felt would adequately define a gene and did so legibly. On to question two.
#2. What has enabled a given tRNA that sometimes it specifically recognizes several codons?
I have no fucking clue.I turned the page and decided to go through the test and answer the ones I knew first.
#3. Define an operon.
Okay, I knew this one. I quickly wrote my answer and then went back and fixed some of the letters that might not be legible.
#4. What is catabolite repression?
Next.
#5. Who discovered that X-rays induce mutations?
Don’t know. Someone smart, probably.
#6. What is recon?
No clue.
#7. Define a mutator gene.
#8. Describe split genes.
Fuck!
#9. In which groups of microorganisms is the Shine-Dalgarno sequence found?
#10. Why is genetic code said to be degenerate?
I turned the page and discovered I was at the end. Fucking hell! Ten questions, and I knew two of them. I stared at the page with the last two questions on it. This was probably material I would learn in my Molecular Biology class this semester. It was also material I might cover in other science classes that I’d take by my junior year. Hence, why they wanted students who were at least juniors.
I rubbed my eyes with the pad of my thumb and middle finger while I tried to clear my mind. I tried pushing Rami and my mom out of my mind for now. I had to concentrate. When I opened my eyes, I went back to the beginning and re-read the questions. I remembered skimming over some of these things in the book Professor Grant had recommended.
My eyes shifted to my backpack. I had the book in there.
It would be incredibly wrong for me to pull the book out and look up the answers. Cheating was wrong. I knew this.
I reminded myself the assessment test wasn’t an exam for a class at the university. Repercussions of cheating on exams for classes could result in expulsion, which I didn’t want or need. But this was for an internship with a company. Repercussions of cheating would possibly be to not be selected or ever hired by their company or any of its affiliates.
“There are lots of lab corporations,” I murmured to myself as I unzipped my backpack.
I opened the book to the index and started knocking down the questions I didn’t know. I summarized what the book said so none of my answers would look like they were copied from a book. Forty minutes later, I was done. Though I felt terrible inside and guilty for cheating, I felt good knowing I at least still had a chance at the internship. After all, it was for my family.
As I walked home from the bus stop, the hero feeling I had faded away. I wasn’t a hero, no matter if I ended up with the internship or not. I was the cause of my family having to leave Lithuania and for the deaths of people close to me, including Mom. Not to mention, the stranger I saw beaten to death in an alley. And if that weren’t enough, on top of all that, I was a test cheater.
Lucas
“Dammit, Justin.” I shook my head in both sadness and disgust as I viewed the surveillance video showing Justin looking at a textbook during the exam.
Cheating, in all forms, boiled my blood. Without fail, I encountered cheaters each semester. I hated cheaters with a passion, no matter who the student was. But never had I been this pissed off about a student cheating as I was with Justin. I’d had a soft spot for him ever since I laid eyes on him last semester.
