Several years ago, Groveton College adopted 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

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Several years ago, Groveton College adopted 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. The honor code has proven far more successful: in the first year it 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. Such evidence suggests that all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's. This change is sure to result in a dramatic decline in cheating among college students.

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.

Provided argument discusses on one of the problems faced by educational institutions, which is to cultivate the habit of not cheating in academic endeavors. The argument speaks about Groveton college, which initially used honor code for several years and later moved on to teachers monitoring students closely. According to the argument the later solution is not as effective as the former solution and its suggesting, moving on to the former solution of honor code. In supporting its claims the argument provides some evidences.

One of the evidences provided by the argument is about the decline in number of reported incidents on cheating. While this should be a good news, but, this could be because of the system not being effective. In order to be able to evaluate the provided evidence the argument should answer the following questions. First, the argument speaks on the decline from 21 to 14 incidents after 5 years. Was it just during the year the college moved to teachers monitoring? Because, the argument also reports an average of 30 incidents per year, if this is the average then it should have resulted in more incidents which happened during the later years. The argument should also answer the question on what was the average number of incidents reported per year when the honor code was in place? This way we can compare both the averages and see if the conclusion makes sense.

While the decline might have been alarming, the argument doesn’t consider answering the questions on change in student attitude. Every year students arrive with different set of attitudes, while reporting on the number of cheating incidents, the argument should answer the question on was the incidents among the same year students who were previously reported? If the decline is because of a new set of students arriving, it might be because of students attitude towards cheating is changing, and it weakens the argument.

Finally, the argument speaks about a recent survey where majority of students stated their preference towards honor code than the existing system. While the mojority tag on the survey might sound reasonable, the argument should answer questions like what was the total count of students participated in the survey? Did it cover both male and female? Did it cover students from different years and different programs? Without answering these questions, the evidence can’t be evaluated for its trustability. For example, if the survey covered only a small portion of the college then It would be biased.

Also, the study stated in the argument is just about the Goverton college. Hence, thaking this study in to suggesting something for all the colleges isn’t appropriate. The argument should answer if similar study was conducted in other colleges and check what kind of system they are using? and how good the system is? before arriving at a conclusion. Hence, with several questions to be answered and lack of evidences the conclusion made in the argument isn’t agreeable.

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Average: 5.3 (3 votes)
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Sentence: While the mojority tag on the survey might sound reasonable, the argument should answer questions like what was the total count of students participated in the survey?
Error: mojority Suggestion: majority

Sentence: Without answering these questions, the evidence can't be evaluated for its trustability.
Error: trustability Suggestion: No alternate word

Sentence: Hence, thaking this study in to suggesting something for all the colleges isn't appropriate.
Error: thaking Suggestion: thinking

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argument 1 -- not OK. Maybe there are other reasons causing the decline. Like argument 2.

argument 2 -- OK

argument 3 -- not OK. Well, in GRE, we should not cast doubt on the survey it selves. We have to accept it can answer all questions you asked. The loopholes of the survey is that: if students are closely monitored by teachers, how is the rate? maybe more students will not cheat.

argument 4 -- OK

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Attribute Value Ideal
Score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 3 2
No. of Sentences: 25 15
No. of Words: 495 350
No. of Characters: 2453 1500
No. of Different Words: 211 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.717 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.956 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.537 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 189 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 148 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 117 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 19.8 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.473 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.6 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.317 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.502 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.112 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5