Cheating

The other day I was talking with my friend about cheating, or as he called it, "consulting with friends", on our english quizzes. After every reading that's assigned in my english class we have to take a ridiculously hard quiz on that reading, and pretty much every Student Assistance Period (basically a half an hour free period at Madison where you can do whatever you want) my friend gets the questions and their answers for the day's upcoming quiz from another student. He feels that since the subject of the quiz isn't something we'll ever use again (which I concede is true) he's justified in cheating because it's not important to actually learn the information. In addition, my friend says by "consulting with a friend" he's rebelling against my English teacher's unreasonably difficult quizzes. He feels that if our teacher is going to quiz us it should only be to make sure that we read the assignment and not to see how well we remember the reading.
In response to my friend's first point, I think that it doesn't matter what someone cheats on; if you get in the habit of cheating it often leads to worse things. If it's okay to cheat on a small reading quiz, then how long until it's okay to cheat on a big math test? On a final? The attitude my friend takes toward cheating, I feel, is self-destructive. In regards to the second point, while I do feel my friend has a legitimate complaint (I make the same objection all the time), i also feel that sometimes life isn't fair and rather then raging against the system my friend should adapt and play by the rules.
So am I hopelessly naive or right on target? Any comments would be appreciated.