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242.The following appeared as an editorial in the student newspaper of Groveton College.
"To combat the recently reported dramatic rise in cheating among college and university students, these institutions should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton's, 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 an old-fashioned system in which students were closely monitored by teachers and an average of thirty cases of cheating per year were reported. 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 conducted by the Groveton honor council, a majority of students said that they would be less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without."
With the mechanism to agree not to cheat and monitor each other, the speaker offers the fact that the cases of cheating decrease a lot in 5 years. What’s more, the survey has showed that a majority of students said that they would be less likely to cheat with the honor code. As a result, the speaker suggests adopting honor codes similar to Groveton’s to combat the dramatic rise in cheating among college students. The preference seems quite reasonable; however, the speaker overlooks several elements that would affect the result and thus come up with a hasty suggestion.
First, the rationality of the mechanism of 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, is questionable. Whether the students should shoulder the responsibility to monitor each other need to be considered since the premise of notification is ill based on suspicion. Cheating includes copy, peep at others or even using electronic implement to transferring answers. With such diversity, it may be too hard and unfair for students to judge whether their classmates want to cheat. Such measurement, if not controlled well, would harm the relationship between the students or spur them to organize together to cheat. If so, such honor code would not effect to prevent cheating, but to deteriorate the situation and impede the relationship inner the campus. Without completing the honor code mechanism, the preference should be carefully considered before taking it.
Second, the speaker fails to offer a more complete evaluation of the situation of college and makes a hasty comparison with the data offered. There are many reasons why students cheat and hard test would lead to more cheating because students want to pass. It’s quite possible that the test five years ago was much harder than the recent one, which results in the façade that the amount of cheating decreased. Such neglect of elements that may affect the results leads to ill-foundation of the evidence. The speaker cannot convince me with the comparison because of such potential flaws.
What’s more, the survey conducted by the Groveton honor council cannot present the whole students because the speaker fails to offer the amount of the respondents. Since the respondents may cover only small percentage of whole students, it isn’t able to reflect the common ideas though the majority of it claims so. The survey is convincing only when it draw enough attention from the students to express their ideas. Without offering more information about the survey, the evidence is questionable.
To sum up, the speaker offers a hasty preference without making a more complete research on the actual situation of the campus and the reasons why students cheat. What’s more, the survey the speaker provided is ill based and s/he fails to consider the possible result if honor code is taken. All in all, since such measurement would affect the school spirit, the preference should be considered carefully with a full-scale study. |
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