According to a recent report, cheating among college and university students is on the rise. However, Groveton College has successfully reduced student cheating by adopting an honor code, which calls for students to agree not to cheat in their academic endeavors and to notify a faculty member if they suspect that others have cheated. Groveton's honor code replaced a system in which teachers closely monitored students; under that system, teachers reported an average of thirty cases of cheating per year. In the first year the honor code was in place, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating; five years later, this figure had dropped to fourteen. Moreover, in a recent survey, a majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without. Thus, all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's in order to decrease cheating among students.
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation and the argument on which it is based are reasonable. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The effect of the honor code has been proved based on less cheating cases reported, and the survey about students’ decreasing tendency of cheating if the honor code is in place. However, it requires further examination to claim the proofs to be valid in support of the honor code’s efficacy.
First of all, less cheating cases reported can’t directly indicate the decrease of the cheating behaviors. Indeed, it can only explain that fewer cheating behaviors are being caught or revealed. The honor code relies on the notification from students, and it is unknown whether students will just cheat together and tend not to report any cheating behaviors. Therefore, further questions on exactly where the cheating cases drop may uncover the mystery, in that if the cases decline significantly in specific classes, it is highly possible that students take advantage of the honor code system and cheat together.
Moreover, the survey only captures what students “said”, not what they actually “behaved”, and it is common that people may act differently compared to what they said. Therefore, it is premature to declare that students do cheat less when only oral answers are being included. It is necessary to investigate how students truly act when the tests are being conducted. In other words, is there any variance of students’ behaviors before and after the honor code is applied? Only when the survey of students’ behaviors are also examined, can we reach a more accurate understanding of the impact that the honor code arouses.
Last, with the doubt of the efficacy of the honor code, it is questionable whether it can create the anticipated function in other colleges, since each college has its inherent differences. It means even though the honor code does lead to a positive outcome in Groveton College, which is not fully proved, it can’t guarantee the same results will be replicated in other colleges. More details on other colleges’ specific challenges about cheating can help to assess the adaptability of the honor code.
To sum up, the face value of the dropping cheating cases do not indicate the real decrease of the cheating behaviors. Also, the survey fails to assess students’ real behavior changes after the honor code applies. Finally, wrong assumptions on the adaptability of the honor code in other colleges reveal the weakness of the statement.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 17 15
No. of Words: 388 350
No. of Characters: 1929 1500
No. of Different Words: 184 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.438 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.972 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.529 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 138 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 112 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 86 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 30 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.824 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.326 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.647 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.412 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.616 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.152 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 9, column 335, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...s reveal the weakness of the statement.
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, finally, first, however, if, may, moreover, so, therefore, first of all, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 10.0 12.9520958084 77% => OK
Conjunction : 7.0 11.1786427146 63% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 28.8173652695 73% => OK
Preposition: 51.0 55.5748502994 92% => OK
Nominalization: 5.0 16.3942115768 30% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2015.0 2260.96107784 89% => OK
No of words: 388.0 441.139720559 88% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.19329896907 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.43821085614 4.56307096286 97% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74050768047 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 191.0 204.123752495 94% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.492268041237 0.468620217663 105% => OK
syllable_count: 625.5 705.55239521 89% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 4.96107784431 161% => OK
Article: 5.0 8.76447105788 57% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.70958083832 37% => OK
Conjunction: 3.0 1.67365269461 179% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 19.7664670659 86% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 44.5633175757 57.8364921388 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 118.529411765 119.503703932 99% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.8235294118 23.324526521 98% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.70588235294 5.70786347227 117% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 8.0 8.20758483034 97% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 1.0 4.67664670659 21% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.354349702647 0.218282227539 162% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.129904198592 0.0743258471296 175% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0646516824294 0.0701772020484 92% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.218027994956 0.128457276422 170% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0501863593222 0.0628817314937 80% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.4 14.3799401198 100% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.12 12.5979740519 104% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.72 8.32208582834 105% => OK
difficult_words: 98.0 98.500998004 99% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.