Glory

Reader Response to "Too Much Pressure"

The short story "too much pressure" by Colleen Wenke struck close to home because I just recently graduated high school. I know the pressures teachers put on kids to get the good grade. And I know all the secret ways kids have learned to deceive there professors. Some students would reason that it takes a different kind of thinking to create new ways to cheat. Idea's such as writing the answers on the inside of the water bottle label, although creative, was still just outright cheating. Unfortunately, the temptations to cheat are everywhere in high school. Why would you spend three hours of your time, on top of any sports you may have or homework due the next day, studying for a test when you could just as easily spend 5 minutes and write out a cheat sheet. The average student thinks the most logical thing to do is to cheat. They think that after the test, you aren't going to ever need to know the material again.

The author, Colleen Wenke, puts up a very convincing argument. She gives many different points of reference to enhance her case. She uses varying techniques to reinforce her belief. In paragraph 8, she uses a statistic to enforce her idea, "as many as 98 percent of students who participated in the survey admit to cheating." This method to present information jumps out at the reader and catches your eye. The author also quotes interesting facts from other authors. In paragraph 9, she quotes Robin Stansbury; ""They see others cheating and they think they are being unfairly disadvantaged."" This is a smart way to support your proposal. Both of these techniques support the author's argument, and help to persuade the reader's opinion.

The Author, regrettably, does not do as well a job as explaining her solution as she did describing the problem. She spends 9 paragraphs