Marilyn vos Savant: Cheating "makes it appear you are more proficient than you really are"

Marilyn vos Savant's advice column in Parade Magazine has been a guilty pleasure of mine for years. But today's Q+A seemed apt for our site, and has echoes of an earlier post of ours, "No Mulligans."

Question: Moralizing aside, can you give me any persuasive reason why my friends and I shouldn’t cheat at school whenever we’re sure we’re not going to get caught?

Marilyn: Aside from what may happen if you get caught anyway? Possibly the best reason not to cheat is that doing so may make it appear that you are more proficient in a subject than you actually are. This will lead you into increasingly deeper water without knowing how to swim well enough. As you move into academic areas or courses that are over your head (because you didn’t master the foundations for whatever reason, such as not studying as much as you should have), you will find yourself in academic trouble that no amount of cheating can solve.