Close Topic Options

Deceitful Practices

Instructions: Look at the questions below and then use the words that follows to represent which form of deceit it refers to:

1. You have assigned homework in three subjects. When your mother asks if you finished your home work you answer, "I've finished my science paper." You do not mention math or language.

2. You are given permission to visit a friend two doors away. You park your bike there but go through the back yard to another friend's house a block away.

3. You claim that you have cleaned your room, but actually you pushed everything under the bed.

4. You report that your brother ate a large piece of cake being reserved for dinner but neglect to mention you also ate a piece.

5. The telephone rings. You say, "If that is Elizabeth, tell her I am not home."

6. You purposely overslept and were 15 minutes late for school or work. When asked about it you say that your alarm did not go off.

7. "I'm not supposed to tell this to anyone," Ann confided to Cindy. "So don't you tell another soul".

8. You are babysitting for three children and spend most of your time on the phone. When the parents return, they say they tried to call, so you tell them the phone was accidentally bumped off the hook.

9. A new girl in the neighborhood becomes friendly with you, then drops your friendship after she is included in another group.

10. "Tell Adrianne that she is a genius in school, and she'll let you borrow her class notes. I do it all the time, " said Nancy.

Forms of Deceit

1. shifty, misrepresentation
2. betrayal, disloyalty, violation of confidence
3. untruth
4. half-truth
5. false flattery
6. pretend, insincere
7. misleading, deceptive

Practices Deceitful

1. half-truth

2. misleading, deceptive

3. misleading, deceptive

4. betrayal, disloyalty, violation of confidence

5. pretend, insincere

6. untruth

7. betrayal, disloyalty, violation of confidence

8. misleading, deceptive

9. betrayal, disloyalty, violation of confidence

10. false flattery


Hmm, I never used "Shifty/misrepresentation." I think because any of the ones that would fall under that fit better in other categories, in my opinion. A lot of them work for two, probably because they all are straight out dishonesty!

I don't know how beneficial this activity would really be... Is it really necessary to know the different kinds of deceits so long as you know they are deceit? A more important thing to learn might be where the line is drawn between honesty and dishonesty, and have situations that represent both in the list. It sounds like the kind of activities that we did with Sunbeams, but it could work with older kids too if you made the example situations a little harder to discern between than you would for sunbeams, of course.