Si quelqu’un essaie de tricher pendant le contrôle, la professeure peut le punir.

Si means if. It introduces the condition:

• Si quelqu’un essaie de tricher pendant le contrôle = if someone tries to cheat during the test
• la professeure peut le punir = the teacher can punish them

So the whole sentence follows a very common if + result pattern.

Quelqu’un means someone, so it is grammatically singular. Because of that, the verb must also be singular:

• quelqu’un essaie
• not quelqu’un essaient

Even though someone can refer to any person, French still treats quelqu’un as singular.

After essayer, French often uses de + infinitive to mean to try to do something.

• essayer de tricher = to try to cheat
• essayer de comprendre = to try to understand

So de links essaie to the infinitive tricher.

Yes. Both essaie and essaye are accepted forms of the present tense of essayer.

So these are both possible:

• quelqu’un essaie
• quelqu’un essaye

In modern French, essaie is very common, and it is the form used in your sentence.

Tricher means to cheat in a general sense: breaking rules unfairly in a game, on a test, and so on.

In a school context, tricher is the normal verb for cheating on a test.

A related verb is copier, which literally means to copy and can sometimes mean copying someone else’s answers, but tricher is broader and more natural here.

Pendant means during, so pendant le contrôle means during the test.

Also, contrôle is a common false friend. In everyday school French, un contrôle often means:

• a test
• a quiz
• an assessment

So here le contrôle does not mean the control in the English sense.

La professeure is a feminine noun meaning the female teacher/professor.

French has a few possibilities here, depending on region and style:

• la professeure = common and explicit feminine form
• le professeur can still sometimes be used for a woman in some contexts
• la prof = very common informal version

In this sentence, la professeure is a clear, standard choice.

Peut is the third-person singular form of pouvoir.

It can mean:

• can
• may
• is able to
• sometimes is allowed to

In this sentence, it most likely means that the teacher has the authority to punish the student.

Because punir takes a direct object when you punish a person:

• punir quelqu’un = to punish someone

When French replaces that direct object with a pronoun, it uses:

• le
• la
• les

So:

• la professeure peut le punir = the teacher can punish him / punish that person

You would use lui for an indirect object, usually after verbs that work with à, such as:

• parler à quelqu’un → lui parler

But punir does not work that way here.

In a structure with a conjugated verb plus an infinitive, object pronouns often go right before the infinitive they belong to.

So:

• peut le punir
• va le voir
• doit la prévenir

The pronoun le is the object of punir, so it is placed immediately before punir.

Because quelqu’un refers to an unspecified person, French often uses the masculine singular pronoun as the default form.

So le here can refer to someone in a general, unspecified way.

If the person were clearly female, you could say:

• la professeure peut la punir

But with quelqu’un in a general statement, le is very normal.

French normally does not use the future tense directly after si in real conditions.

So French says:

• Si quelqu’un essaie...
• not Si quelqu’un essaiera...

This is a standard pattern:

• si + present, then a present, future, or imperative in the main clause

In your sentence:

• si quelqu’un essaie = present after si
• la professeure peut le punir = present in the main clause

This expresses a real or general possibility.