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.
In the passage above, the author suggests that all colleges and universities should adopt a honor code that is similar to what was implemented in Groveton College in order to decrease the number of cheaters and cheating situations. The prompt cites the success in the honor code used in Groveton College as reasons to why other colleges and universities should implement this solution. However, before this idea can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
First of all, are all college and university students across the country the same? In other words, can it be expected that a similar honor code can change the perspective of cheating among students outside Groveton? It is possible that other universities have tried the honor code before but showed it to be ineffective, thus relying in teachers to monitor their students during the year. Another possibility would be that other institutions utilize an artificial intelligence algorithm to inspect the work of all students. Due to a huge data base, the artificial intelligence can effectively point out students that might be either copying work from their class mates or from other students from previous years. If either is valid, then the information in the original passage is significantly weakened.
Secondly, is the recent survey reliable? One possible scenario that undermines this assumption is that students might have given false information in the survey in order to cheat even more. For instance, students, aware that their friends were being caught red handed more often decided to contrive a masterful plan to deceive the professors and the school board into thinking that they are less likely to cheat with an honor code. The honor code has a couple of flaws if all the students adhere to the cheating scheme. With a lessening of monitoring from the teachers, it becomes easier to cheat if all the students in the classroom are unethical, thus tricking the college into believing that students are just. If the above is true, then the argument does not hold water.
Last but not least, is the honor code the one and only method to be used? The author states that Groveton college changed completely the rules of monitoring, leaving it to the students rather than the teachers. Although the number of cheater caught was less than what was perceived years ago, there are still some of them being caught. What if the institution adheres to multiple ways of monitoring students? That could bring the number of cheating episodes to a even smaller number, suggesting that the best way to deal with these students is by having different proof methods. This just comes to show that the argument is flawed.
In conclusion, the argument as it stands now, is significantly flawed due to its reliance in several unwarranted assumptions. Therefore, if the author is able to answer the three questions and provide more evidence, then it will be possible to fully evaluate the viability of the ideas in the passage.
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Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.0 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 496 350
No. of Characters: 2446 1500
No. of Different Words: 240 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.719 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.931 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.591 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 173 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 134 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 101 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 45 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 21.565 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.079 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.652 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.284 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.489 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.08 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 91, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
... colleges and universities should adopt a honor code that is similar to what was ...
^
Line 7, column 462, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...ring the number of cheating episodes to a even smaller number, suggesting that th...
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, first, however, if, second, secondly, so, still, then, therefore, thus, for instance, in conclusion, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 31.0 19.6327345309 158% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 10.0 11.1786427146 89% => OK
Relative clauses : 15.0 13.6137724551 110% => OK
Pronoun: 33.0 28.8173652695 115% => OK
Preposition: 68.0 55.5748502994 122% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2506.0 2260.96107784 111% => OK
No of words: 496.0 441.139720559 112% => OK
Chars per words: 5.05241935484 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.71922212354 4.56307096286 103% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.66577624732 2.78398813304 96% => OK
Unique words: 247.0 204.123752495 121% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.497983870968 0.468620217663 106% => OK
syllable_count: 783.9 705.55239521 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 6.0 8.76447105788 68% => OK
Subordination: 5.0 2.70958083832 185% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 1.67365269461 0% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 21.0 22.8473053892 92% => OK
Sentence length SD: 54.9357762165 57.8364921388 95% => OK
Chars per sentence: 108.956521739 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 21.5652173913 23.324526521 92% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.82608695652 5.70786347227 102% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => 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: 7.0 4.67664670659 150% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.362009262447 0.218282227539 166% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.100770735259 0.0743258471296 136% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0874910443685 0.0701772020484 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.192467970137 0.128457276422 150% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.107119943938 0.0628817314937 170% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.1 14.3799401198 91% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 50.16 48.3550499002 104% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.01 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.4 8.32208582834 101% => OK
difficult_words: 117.0 98.500998004 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.4 11.1389221557 93% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
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.