Free iBT independent writing task submission

**Yannick** · Subject: Score / feedback for Lou Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:08 am

lou wrote:

Human being are experiencing a lot of activities in everyday life either bad or good which may either or both make them feel happy or sad or attained their satisfaction.

People sometimes should do thing that they do not enjoy doing to attained satisfaction eiher in respond to their needs or wants? For me in my opinion, I strongly believe that sometimes we need to be flexible when circumtances arises that we need to do a thing that we don't actually enjoy to satisfy our needs. This happened in circumstances that we have no other choice for example choosing between survival and profession. In order for us to survive we need to work to meet our basic needs but the only available job is the one that is not inline with your profession and you are not happy to do the job because its not in line with your profession.For this insatance,needs is more important than wants though you want to do work that makes you happy but it doesn't satisfy your needs, sometimes you need to still work though you are not happy you still do it because it is needed.
Other people do things that they will not enjoy to make other people happy. For example, between children and parents, a child will study a course that is chosen by their parents, though the child isn't happy to do it, she must obey her/his parents. Furthermore, other people may just do it because its a trend or fashion,now a days friendship sometimes depend on doing what your peers are doing inorder to accepted to the society where they are or to maintained friendship.

In conclusion, whatever our reasons are, we need to do sometimes things that though we don't enjoy we have too, to meet our needs or wants . We need to be flexible sometimes inorder for us to survive, Thats what we live for, aren't we?

Hello Lou. Thank you for submitting your independent iBT TOEFL writing effort.
Your score / range = 2 ~ 2.5

Key areas for improvement

1) Your introduction needs to be developed. What we have here is a one-sentence paragraph that does nothing in telling the reader/assessor what you are going to be writing about. Your introduction must be intriguing or interesting to the reader/assessor. One way is by using the ‘you’ pronoun and asking the reader/assessor questions about the topic. Then restating the test question and giving your position on the given topic.
2) You have some good ideas, but they are lost on the reader/assessor because of the vagueness (your introduction shows indecisiveness), and repetition (body paragraph 1). Avoid using anything, something, somewhere, etc. when a noun can be placed, and use synonyms to make your writing less repetitive.
3) Watch the use of your pronouns. In your first body paragraph you have we and you in the same example ( In order for us to survive we … you are not happy … ). This is also seen in your 2nd body paragraph.
4) All and all this is not a bad effort. You need to ensure that your ideas are stated clearly, and that you leave no room for the reader/assessor to infer what it is you are trying to say. Your conclusion has a good finish, but you need to work on restating your topic sentences.

Best of luck with your iBT TOEFL test.

**Jason** · Subject: Score/feedback for veena Mon Oct 08, 2007 9:03 pm

veena wrote:

All of us in this world are bound by certain limitations and constraints made by the society. We are forced to abide by the rules, to live in and to be accepted by the society. This makes us to do a lot of things which may not be of our liking.

For instance, there are some places like restaurants, doctors office and temples which have brought in a ban on smoking. This may be for the benefit of the non-smokers and to maintain the sanctitiy of those places. The smokers may feel dissatisfied by this ban, but they'll have to restrain from smoking whether they like it or not.

Another example would be in children having to follow the rules made by the family. Atleast, it is customary in any Indian family that the children of the family come and greet any elders and guests who are visiting. They may be more intersted in watching Television or be in a telephonic conversation with a friend, but they are required to leave whatever activities that they are doing to come out to speak and greet the visitors in order to be polite and courteous.

There are also situations when we may have to visit some relatives or attend a wedding along with them, just to make our parents happy. Though we do not feel very happy doing this, it also causes no harm to anyone and for the satisfaction of our elders, it is worth doing so. There are other things like studying, kids enjoy spending most of their time in playing and hanging out with their friends, but they'll start nagging their parents when asked to study. Though they feel its not such an enjoyable activity, it pays them later when they do good in their exams and succed in their career and life in their future.

In short, we may not always like to things we're asked to do as it does not give us any pleasure. But we may not know sometimes, that what we think as enjoyable may not be the right choice for us. It is worthwhile to take the advice given by our elders to do the right thing sometimes and at times just to keep them happy.

Hi veena and thanks for sending in your essay effort.

This will land you a 2.5 to 3.0 on the TOEFL. You've got some great language use and you're quite articulate, and there are some great examples in your writing. The main problems here come down to organizing your main ideas around your central thesis in a more logical/clear fashion.

Suggestions for improvement:

1. State very clearly in the intoduction what your main thesis is. You have certainly given a nice lead-in to the topic, but your thesis is alluded to rather than clearly stated. Once you have introduced the topic, make sure you clearly state whether you are in agreement or disagreement with the central question asked in the topic.

2. Organize your ideas into 2-3 main areas, and introduce each one with a clear topic sentence that can refer back clearly to the thesis you have established. Your first two paragraphs here are continuations of something you stated in the introduction - the first paragraph is just one big long example that does not appear to exemplify a central idea. Same for the second paragraph, which concentrates only on another example. Examples should be used in paragraphs to support and illustrate some sort of central idea, that is stated in a topic sentence. The third paragraph actually does come close to having a topic sentence, but in effect is just another long example.

3. Try expressing these sorts of topic sentences for the three paragraphs you've written:

(a) Being in public often forces us to do things we might not like doing, because there are legal and social requirements we have to think about.

(b) Family customs and traditions are other important life considerations that sometimes force us to do things we might not normally want to do.

(c) Personal attachment and loyalty to our parents dictate that sometimes we have to do things we don't like doing because we decide that making them happy is more important than making ourselves happy.

These are the sorts of clear, generic topic sentences for which the examples you've given would be strongly supportive.

Those are the things you most need to work on - getting the introduction (through clearer use of a thesis statement) and body paragraphs (through better use of topic sentences) right.

Good luck with it!

- Jason

_________________
Jason Renshaw
Managing Director: www.onlinEnglish.net
Published textbook author with Pearson Longman
http://www.onlinEnglish.net/jason.html

**Jason** · Subject: Score/feedback for Julie Mon Oct 08, 2007 9:15 pm

Julie wrote:

I disagree with the statement that people should sometimes do things that they do not enjoy doing. People do things well because they have highly motivation and interests. Thus, without these two factors, people can hardly doing a good job. Besides, if people "have" to do things that they are not really like, they would feel stressful. Therefore, since people need motivations, interests and good mood to have better performances on their jobs, I don't think people should be forced to do something they don't really like.

First, people are always intending to do thing because they have strong motivation. If people have weaker motivation, they often fail. Take taking exams as a example. Why there are some particular people can get better grades than others? The answer is related to the motivation. When people have highly motivation on getting good grades, they must have strong wills and concentrations on their studies. In contrast, people who have less motivation may not willing to pay more times on studies and they would get lower scores at last.

Second, people always like to do things they like, because they have interests. Interest is a key factor to push people moving on and have good performances. When you are interested in one thing such as gardening, you would undoubtly read a lot of books concerning gardening and you would take good care of your garden. Interest can support you when you meet difficulties and you will try your best to find the solution. However, If you have no interest at all, you would not push yourself to do things you don't like.

Thirdly, if people do things they don't enjoy doing, they would often feel stressful. Basically, people are emotional and easily influenced by the environment. If you have no motivation and interest to do the things, you sometimes question your ability or will. Under this kind of circumstance, you would sometimes feel confused, tense, and then feel stressful. And people who are stressful can not do things right.

Hi Julie, and thanks a lot for sending in your essay.

This is a strong effort, which came close to a perfect score - but two main weaknesses have held it back. Your score on this essay would in my estimation be from 3.4 - 4.0 (out of 5.0). What has hurt the score is (a) the lack of a clear conclusion to the writing, (b) a slight lack of supporting exemplification for a couple of your body paragraphs, and (c) some problematic use of grammar.

Other than those things, it's a superb essay. There was a clearly expressed thesis in the introduction, and a great summarizing of three overall rationales for your opinion. Each body paragraph has a well defined topic sentence, guiding the reader through the main reasons for your take on the topic.

Suggestions for improvement:

1. Round out your overall essay with a conclusion, that re-states your main position and your three arguments for feeling that way. Make sure to use different expressions and sentence patterns compared to the way you wrote about them in the introduction and topic sentences. Remember to make sure in the conclusion to leave the reader with a final lasting impression of the way you feel.

2. Use more solid examples to support your ideas. You certainly dedicate a lot of your space to reasoning, but without solid real-life examples they can come across as slightly vague. The example about gardening was good, whereas your other examples aren't all that convincing. A great way to make your examples more convincing is to make them personal - for example in the first paragraph give an example relative to yourself or a friend or a family member in terms of studying and getting good grades.

3. Make sure you edit your writing. There are frequent grammatical errors in parts of your essay, and I think you would be able to fix many of them yourself if you managed the time to do 5 minutes editing at the end of your writing. Pay attention especially to different parts of speech - as in, hw to use words as nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. This gave you some trouble in this particular essay.

The good news here is that you're fast on the way to producing excellent essays. I thought your introduction and organization were really great.

Best of luck with it!

- Jason

_________________
Jason Renshaw
Managing Director: www.onlinEnglish.net
Published textbook author with Pearson Longman
http://www.onlinEnglish.net/jason.html

**Dean** · Admin Posts: 14 Join date: 2007-10-02

Natasha wrote:

People's activities can be divided into desirable and not desirable. Sometimes we spend wonderfull time doing amusing and interesting things. But it also often happens that we have to make ourselves fulfil tasks which are not pleasant. It's my belief that even though we don't wish to have such experience it is inevitable but necessary.
It is generally known that a person is not likely to be successful unless she or he works hard. Sometimes studying, mental or physical work seems to be so difficult and even annoying in some cases that we don't really feel like doing it. For instance, when I am preparing to my exams and have to read lots of different information which is often boring or hard to remember i don't feel good at that time. However, after getting a positive grade which can contribute to getting a high level degree and making career I realize that it was really worth studying. Also, people of different professions, like doctors, lawyers, economists need to work hard which is not always enjoyable to be useful both for the society and to support their own families. Otherwise, civilization wouldn't have developed and those people and their families would have been poor or unhappy.
Another reason why doing not desirable things is essential is expecting future rewards or rest. If we are always doing things we like, they don't seem to be so inspiring, and life becomes boring. For instance, my hobby is travelling, but if i were always just going around the world i would have quickly become tired out and no more interested.
In conclusion, doing things which we don't wish to do is really important. They are a part of our personal development and even enable our lives to be more fascinating. Thus, I consider that we should try get rid of our lazyness, be hardwoking what will lead us to success in future.

Hello Natasha. You have written a solid essay using complex structures and vocabulary. I think you would receive a score of 3.5 to 4 on this essay. Your biggest weaknesses are in regard to organization and delveloping your ideas.

Suggestions for improvement.

1) Your first body paragraph is actually two paragraphs in one. Once you wrote about people of different professions you should have started a new paragraph. Make certain that each paragraph contains only one main idea.

2) The example in your second body paragraph should be expanded upon. Your writing at this point seems to be rushed so take your time and really explain your example in detail.

3) To allow yourself more time to fully support your opinion I would try concentrating on only two body paragraphs. Therefore you need to narrow down support for your thesis to your two best reasons and compose one body paragraph for each.

Thanks for taking part in this forum!

**Yannick** · Subject: score / feedback for Rand Thu Oct 11, 2007 2:31 am

rand wrote:

People are preferable to do things that they enjoy doing,since any person will certainly not succeed if he doesn't enjoy doing his work.For example
I would certainly fail in my studying if i didn't enroll in my favorite field of study which is Information Technology.
However,sometimes people do things that they do not enjoy doing,since they are forced to that,and the situation itself force them to do that.For example,some people are forced to enroll in a limited field of study when they get low scores.
For my part,i prefer do things that i enjoy doing because my acheivement will be much better.

Hello Rand. Thanks for submitting your iBT TOEFL independent writing essay.
Your score / range = 1

Key areas for improvement

1) Your introductions need help. An introduction has to fulfill a few basic elements. i) It needs to interest the reader (who are you writing to and why), ii) it needs to tell the reader what you will be writing about (the topic), iii) it needs to have a thesis (your position on the topic) and iv) it should have your main ideas (how are you going to support your opinion)

2) Your body paragraphs need to have a topic sentence (one topic sentence for each paragraph), supporting sentences (details and reasons) and supporting examples. The word ‘supporting’ is very important. This means that everything you write must link back to the main thesis.

3) Your conclusion needs to summarize your main points (not repeat), and bring your entire essay to a close with either a final comment/thought or a follow-up question.

I am hitting only the basics of essay writing with this post because at the moment this is where you are struggling. Once you are able of constructing an essay, then we can look at sentence building.

Best of luck.