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

Essay topics:

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.

The author asserts that all colleges and universities should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton’s because this change will bring significant drop in cheating among students. However, this argument is implausible as it is based on several questionable assumptions.

First, the author assumes that the reduced reporting of cheating over the five years means the actual reduction of cheating. However, this is not necessarily true. The actual number of cheating by students might have not changed. For instance, it is likely that students are reluctant to report cheating of their close friends or threatened by the cheating student not to report it. If so, even though the reported cases have reduced, the actual cheating might not well represented in those numbers. Therefore, the honor codes might not have an effect in reducing the cheating.

Second, the author cites the recent survey that the majority of Groveton students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code. However, this survey is too vague to ensure that the honor code is actually effective to students. Who was the respondent of the survey and how many students participated? Which percentage does the majority accounts for? Without the specific number and scopes of respondents, it would be erroneous to say that the survey is definitive. Therefore, if the survey result might not be true, it might not prove the positive effect of the honor codes on student’s attitudes.

Finally, the author presumes that the adoption of honor codes in other colleges will bring the same result as it did in Groveton. However, even if the honor code was effective in the Groveton, it is not ensured that it will succeed in other regions as well. If a college was suffering from the high rate of cheating among students, it is possible that students in other colleges are using this as a chance to do cheating without teacher’s monitoring. Therefore, the cases of cheating might increase much when the honor codes are adopted in this college. Therefore, unless it is proven that the honor codes have the same effect as Groveton, it is unlikely to have the positive results.

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Average: 4.3 (3 votes)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 356, Rule ID: DOES_NP_VBZ[1]
Message: Did you mean 'account'?
Suggestion: account
...ted? Which percentage does the majority accounts for? Without the specific number and sc...
^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, finally, first, however, if, second, so, therefore, well, for instance

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 4.0 11.1786427146 36% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 14.0 13.6137724551 103% => OK
Pronoun: 31.0 28.8173652695 108% => OK
Preposition: 40.0 55.5748502994 72% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1817.0 2260.96107784 80% => OK
No of words: 358.0 441.139720559 81% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.07541899441 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.34981470047 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.70862884202 2.78398813304 97% => OK
Unique words: 164.0 204.123752495 80% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.458100558659 0.468620217663 98% => OK
syllable_count: 568.8 705.55239521 81% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 9.0 4.96107784431 181% => OK
Article: 8.0 8.76447105788 91% => OK
Subordination: 6.0 2.70958083832 221% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 4.22255489022 24% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 40.9040496068 57.8364921388 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 95.6315789474 119.503703932 80% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.8421052632 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 4.21052631579 5.70786347227 74% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 1.0 5.25449101796 19% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.20758483034 73% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 10.0 6.88822355289 145% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 4.67664670659 64% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.364679487103 0.218282227539 167% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.118025316669 0.0743258471296 159% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0746213479397 0.0701772020484 106% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.225418922432 0.128457276422 175% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0650004191318 0.0628817314937 103% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.9 14.3799401198 83% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.5979740519 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.01 8.32208582834 96% => OK
difficult_words: 79.0 98.500998004 80% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 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.

argument 1 -- not OK //maybe other reasons caused the number of cheating down

argument 2 -- not OK //maybe even more students will be less likely to cheat if teachers closely monitored students

argument 3 -- OK
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flaws:
In GRE, we have to accept all data or evidence are true. It is important to find out loopholes behind surveys or studies.

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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.0 out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 358 350
No. of Characters: 1750 1500
No. of Different Words: 156 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.35 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.888 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.484 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 129 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 96 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 71 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.842 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.968 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.737 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.34 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.521 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5