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 author of the passage recommends that all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes in order to decrease cheating among students. Because since Groveton College adopted the honor code, the reported cases of cheating from teacher decrease, and students reported that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code. However, there are several questions need to be answered to make the claim as tenable as it stands.
First of all, the author cites a report that cheating among college and university students is on the rise, but cheating Groveton College is decreasing. Notwithstanding, readers may want to know who wrote that report? The report could be written by the fair third party or by faculty of Groveton College. If the report was from the fair third party, the content maybe reliable. Yet if the report was written by the faculty of Groveton College, the reliability of the report is suspicious, since he or she may want to establish a good reputation for Groveton College, and therefore they can recruit more students for next several years. Thus, the author should provide more information to show the source of the report.
Secondly, the author claims that since Groventon College adopted the honor code, the cheating cases reported from teacher has decreased. However, was the reduction caused by the adoption of honor code? The passage mentions that under the system of honor code, students are encouraged to report their classmates if they suspect that other students are cheating. Maybe some students would be willing to report their classmates, but more students care more about their relationship with peers, since studying in university is not only to learn professional knowledge, but also to build their network. Hence, decrease of the reported cases may not be as reliable as the author thought.
Finally, the author cites another survey that majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with honor code. Still, did those students answer what they really thought? Perhaps they answer that they would be less likely to cheat just because they do not want to catch their professors' attention, since if they become suspected to their teachers, it would be unlikely to cheat successfully. Due to this reason, the validity of the survey may be dubious. Therefore, citing this survey may not be able to make the statement more convincing.
The author needs to answer the questions mentioned above, to make his or her statement as plausible as it stands.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 2 2
No. of Sentences: 20 15
No. of Words: 416 350
No. of Characters: 2053 1500
No. of Different Words: 178 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.516 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.935 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.429 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 148 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 111 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 74 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 33 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.636 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.85 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.331 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.543 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.122 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, hence, however, if, may, really, second, secondly, so, still, therefore, third, thus, first of all
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 15.0 12.9520958084 116% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 11.0 13.6137724551 81% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 16.3942115768 43% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2117.0 2260.96107784 94% => OK
No of words: 416.0 441.139720559 94% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.08894230769 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.51620172871 4.56307096286 99% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.53538999595 2.78398813304 91% => OK
Unique words: 187.0 204.123752495 92% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.449519230769 0.468620217663 96% => OK
syllable_count: 643.5 705.55239521 91% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 4.96107784431 20% => OK
Article: 13.0 8.76447105788 148% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 6.0 1.67365269461 358% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 20.0 19.7664670659 101% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 22.8473053892 88% => OK
Sentence length SD: 59.8789403714 57.8364921388 104% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.85 119.503703932 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8 23.324526521 89% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.25 5.70786347227 109% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 8.20758483034 122% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 5.0 6.88822355289 73% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.37628327354 0.218282227539 172% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.125765156272 0.0743258471296 169% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.132697108028 0.0701772020484 189% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.223983049742 0.128457276422 174% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.137115966799 0.0628817314937 218% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 14.3799401198 90% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 59.64 48.3550499002 123% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.7 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 81.0 98.500998004 82% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 11.1389221557 90% => OK
text_standard: 10.0 11.9071856287 84% => 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.