GRE Argument Topic 20

NOTE: The above topic has wording similar to Argument Tasks 112, 113, 131 of this Website. However, if you read carefully you will notice that the topic and the task instructions are different. Hence, it is very important to read the topic as well as its instructions completely before you start to write your response.

Sample 1:

Why do students cheat? They do it at every level: elementary school through college and from the most gifted to the most challenged students. How does a school prevent cheating on the part of its students? Groveton College claims to have created a tool that decreases the number of cheating incidents by students on its campus. At Groveton College, students essentially monitor themselves by adhering to a recently instituted honor code. Under this system, students agree to avoid cheating and to report suspected cases of cheating to a faculty member. Before another college adopts Groveton’s policy, the administration should ask why Groveton changed from its former practice of having teachers closely monitor their students. Is there some academic research that proves the efficacy of honor codes and peer reporting? Has Groveton responded to a petition by either or both its teachers and students?

The reported decline in the number of reported cheating incidents seems impressive on the surface. Another college looking at these statistics may agree that an honor code is the policy to create on its own campus. That school would be advised to look further into the numbers. The report cited reveals an average number of cases reported when teachers were monitoring students but omits a yearly average for the years since the honor code has been in place. During the first year of the new practice, students reported twenty-one cases of cheating, and in the most recent year only fourteen cases. It would be easy to assume that there has been a steady decline in cheating at Groveton College. What were the numbers during the intervening years? It is possible that those numbers, when added to the first and last years’ totals could average thirty, the same yearly average under the old system of monitoring.

Groveton has taken the additional step of surveying its students about the effectiveness of the new honor code. Students report that they are less likely to cheat with an honor code in place than without. Did the survey ask about other practices used to curtail cheating? Is an honor code preferable because the consequences are less severe? Did Groveton change the consequences for cheating when it allowed students to self-report? It is entirely possible that this response is biased by a fear of negative consequences resulting from cheating, making students unwilling to admit their true propensity to do so.

Colleges and universities agonize over the amount of cheating on their campuses. In response to the report that says cheating is on the rise, a college or university may be willing to try anything that appears to have some success. Reporting incidents of cheating is similar to closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. The cheating has already occurred. Any institution of higher learning might be better served by discovering why students cheat. Are the course loads and work requirements too cumbersome? Is there too much pressure to succeed at a high level? Is there too much competition to be admitted to graduate school or to get a good job? Society itself may have created an environment conducive to cheating by demanding that its college graduates be the best and the brightest.

Before accepting the recommendation to adopt Groveton’s honor code, other colleges and universities should demand more information and scrutinize the practices that they have in place. Perhaps the best course of action is stopping cheating before it occurs. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Sample 2:

This argument is based on an editorial in the student newspaper of Groveton College. As per this editorial, the institutions should adopt honor codes similar to Groveton’s to combat the recently reported dramatic rise in cheating among college and university students. The author has pointed out the effectiveness of the honor codes system in Groveton College. However, this argument contains several critical flaws, which render it unpersuasive.

First of all, the author gives the conclusion without comparing the situation of other institutions with that of Groveton College. The author has not given enough details about the measures taken by Groveton College. There might be some other measures also, which were put into execution at the same time with the honor codes system, that must have helped to abate the cheating number of students. There is also a possibility of the exam becoming easier for the students. Hence, there is a probability of the other changes being effective instead of the honor codes system. Even if the honor codes system is effective in Groveton, it does not necessarily mean that it will have the same effect in other institutions. The author should have ruled out these possibilities before concluding the argument.

Secondly, it is wrong on our part to assume that simply by saying that the students agree not to cheat in exams, these students actually will not cheat. It is quite possible that they tell lies and they will cheat irrespective of what they have promised. Similarly, suspecting a student of cheating does not mean that he is really cheating. May be the student who is suspected by another one actually does not cheat. If that be the case, then it will be wrong to punish that student and being wrongly suspected by other student will harm the relationship between the two students.

The author has also said that that the honor code is successful by only showing that five years later the number of cheats declined to fourteen from twenty-one in the first year. However, he failed to consider that it is also possible that many students just do not want to inform their faculty when they suspect that someone is cheating. The number of cases reported does not necessarily mean the number of actual cases. It might be possible that students have reduced reporting the cases or they have lost faith in the new honor code system. Without considering and ruling out these and other possible explanations, the author’s conclusion is doubtful.

In addition, the reduction from 21 cases to 14 cases is not a great improvement to have taken place in 5 years. It might have been that proper counseling sessions had been given to the students in these five years and it might have made them reform their old ways. In that case, more emphasis should be given to providing successful counseling sessions to students rather than embracing the new honor code.

The author should have given details of a survey where students were asked the reasons why they cheat in exams. He should have collected reliable inputs from the faculty members regarding the new honor codes system and the other measures to stop cheating. That should have supported his argument in a much better way.