Ethics Test

I recently came across this ethics test given to a group of high school students. The questions are straight forward, and should be simple enough to answer. Did you note the key word there, "simple"?

Here are the questions:

1. Would you sell a story to the tabloids for $5,000,000.000, knowing it will ruin the life of a celebrity you don't know personally? YES / NO

2. Would you receive too much change from the Wal-Mart clerk; would you return the money to her? YES / NO

3. Do you agree with the following statement? "If drugs were legal, I'd totally do them." YES / NO

4. You accidentally run over a litle dog with your car. Do you:
Keep driving;
Contact the owner and explain the situation;
Contact the owner, but say somebody else did it;

5. Your best friend tells you they stole $10,000.00 from a charity. Do you turn them in? YES / NO

6. Do you agree with the following statement? "It's okay to steal from huge corporations, because they're inherently dishonest themselves." YES / NO

7. Would you exaggerate your losses on an insurance claim? YES / NO

8. You have the opportunity to obtain the answers to a test in your most difficult class. YES / NO

9. You find out that your friend cheated on a test, would you turn them in to the teacher if there was no possibility of them finding out? YES / NO

10. You work for a business and have an employee discount at that business. Your friend comes in and asks you to purchase a product for him/her using your employee discount. Would you make that purchase? YES / NO

How do you think your student would respond to these "simple" questions? The test I came across, and I'm not going to tell you who the test belonged to, revealed the following answers:

1. YES
2. YES
3. NO
4. Contact the owner and explain the situation;
5. NO
6. YES
7. YES
8. YES
9. NO
10. YES

I found the responses interesting. When I questioned the respondent as to the answers, I was told, "It was all a joke."

I'm sure the teacher asked the students to consider the questions because of the ethics involved. The students were not to turn the papers in, and evidently there was no class discussion. Maybe, there should be a semester specifically on ethics.

If students don't learn ethics at home, and school is their next primary environment, perhaps - as the above answers indicate - ethics have not gotten a home in some high school students heads.