The following recommendation was made by the president and administrative staff of Grove College, a private institution, to the college's governing committee."Recently, there have been discussions about ending Grove College's century-old tradition of all-

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The following recommendation was made by the president and administrative staff of Grove College, a private institution, to the college's governing committee.

"Recently, there have been discussions about ending Grove College's century-old tradition of all-female education by admitting male students into our programs. At a recent faculty meeting, a majority of faculty members voted in favor of coeducation, arguing that it would encourage more students to apply to Grove. However, Grove students, both past and present, are against the idea of coeducation. Eighty percent of the students responding to a survey conducted by the student government wanted the school to remain all female, and over half of the alumnae who answered a separate survey also opposed coeducation. Therefore, we recommend maintaining Grove College's tradition of all-female education. We predict that keeping the college all-female will improve morale among students and convince alumnae to keep supporting the college financially."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

The argument above is written by administrative staff of Grove college suggesting that the college should sustain their tradition of all-female education. The author based his/her argument on the high percentage of student objection to break the tradition that was extracted from 2 surveys. Although the argument seems cogent at first glance, getting accurate on it reveals that there are some questions that authors ignore them which their answers can make some obscure aspects of the argument clear and can strengthen it.

First, it should be asked that does the current morale that exists in college environment is consequence of all-female policy? What is the norms and values in related region? Are cooperation and morale lower in other places that both genders exist for example in other colleges in the same area that offer coeducation . It is possible that this atmosphere is due to their social values. Further, Is there any other male person –not student, employees or staffs- in the college? How do students will interact them and are female staffs performance better than males?.They are questions that should be considered to conclude that through all-female education morale will be preserved in college.

The other question is that, does alumnae opposing, mean they will abort supporting college? What is their purposes of patronizing and supporting college? Is it only because they want to show their advocacy of all-female tradition? Or they want to improve other students educational quality and their available facilities? If so, it will not be likely that they leave supporting the college if coeducation will be committed.

Also, the author did not present the essential statistics and information from the surveys that are needed to evaluate the surveys, effectively. For example, the surveyed students include what proportion of all the students? Are they different in their study field , city, cultural base or not? Maybe they were not a significant part of students. A small sample group can invalid the extracted result from surveys, also, if all of them were from similar categories, so it is probable that most of them have the same attitude and in conclusion the right outcome will not be obtained. So, it could not be mentioned that the policy should be continued because majority of students advocate it.

To summarize, it can be seen that answer of above questions could made the argument more clear and dispel the fallacious points that are in authors logic to conclude.

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is consequence of all-female policy?
is the consequence of all-female policy?

does alumnae opposing,
are alumnae opposing,

How do students will interact them
How will students interact them

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argument 1 -- not OK from 'Further, Is there any other male person –not student, employees or staffs- in the college?'

argument 2 -- not exactly. Need to be more specific, suggested:
perhaps fewer alumni who donate substantial sums to Grove responded to the survey than other alumni did. If so, then the survey results would distort the comparison between the total amount of future donations under the two scenarios. Besides, the memo provides no information about what percentage of Grove's students and alumni responded to the surveys; the lower the percentages, the less reliable the results of the surveys.

argument 3 -- not OK. In GRE, we have to accept all data or evidence are true. It is important to find out loopholes behind surveys or studies. Loopholes mean that we accept all surveys told are true, but there are some conditions applied, for example:

It works for time A (10 years ago), but it doesn't mean it works for time B (nowadays).

It works for location A (a city, community, nation), but it doesn't mean it works for location B (another city, community, nation).

It works for people A (a manager), but it doesn't mean it works for people B (a worker).

It works for event A (one event, project... ), but it doesn't mean it works for event B (another event, project...).

for example:

'Grove students, both past and present, are against the idea of coeducation.' then you can ask: how is the idea from incoming students?
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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 3 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 21 15
No. of Words: 407 350
No. of Characters: 2050 1500
No. of Different Words: 208 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.492 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.037 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.598 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 152 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 80 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.381 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.271 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.381 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.275 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.498 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.077 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5