Graduate / Study Plan for my Canadian study permit application for MSc in Civil Engineering [4]

Zaid, you did not write a study plan, you wrote a personal statement. Since you did not write the expected information in relation to your thesis studies, you will not be able to use this essay. A study plan is specific in target. The whole point of the essay is to determine the focus of your studies and the reason for it. Therefore, you have to choose a specific problem, maybe specific to Ghana fire department fighting abilities, what is weaknesses are and, based upon the existing research, suggest ways and means to improve their equipment and fire fighting abilities. Or, you may delve into reasons for the fire disasters in your country, what your assumed reasons for such catastrophic fires are, and how you can research methods by which these may be prevented in the future. Your research thesis in relation to fire fighting co-relate to civil engineering and the building designs or materials used in construction within your country.

The study plan should indicate the problem you wish to research, what the possible outcomes might be, and how you plan to undertake such research. For the undertaking, discuss what sort of research work will be required, where it might take place, and how long you think you will need to complete the research. The final aspect of the study plan will be real time application of your research in Ghana. How do you propose to implement these studies and how do you propose that a Canadian education will help you complete your academic goals.

Write a new essay, one that clearly shows your study plans. Do not muddle the presentation with personal information, academic references to your research abilities, and other irrelevant information. Stick to the study plan. Nothing more, nothing less.

Writing Feedback / Some people argue that history is of little and no use to us. [2]

Mai, I prefer to point out your grammar mistakes first. That way you have a better idea as to how you will be scored in the GRA and C&C section. The more errors you have, the lesser your score in those sections will be.

You have an unclear phrase in the part where you say "new invention'. Since the first word was experiment, that means the invention is new. So you created a redundancy in the statement that lessened the clarity of the information you were providing. In the second paragraph, you do not need the word "of" after the verb "lacking". There is no need for a determiner at that point. You need to practice using the connecting word "the" where required as well, such as in the statement "about THE significance of history". You appear to have a problem with the use of determiner words such as "is, if, the, etc." You should review the rules regarding how to properly use these words with nouns or verbs and remember it for future writing application.

Don't use old English words such as pithy. While it sounds impressive, unless you have a dictionary beside you at the test center, you won't be able to use such impressive words from ancient English. Just use simple, everyday, current English words as those will be more than enough to increase your LR score. In addition to that, your word choice does not apply to the statement you are trying to make because the meaning of the word is "concise and forcefully expressive". It does not sound natural in the presentation, specially since you are an ESL.

The essay format you have given here is incorrect. This is a 5 paragraph essay because the instruction asks you to provide an explanation for 2 public points of view along with a personal point of view. So the format is:

1. Paraphrase
2. Public POV 1
3. Public POV 2
4. Personal Opinion based on an analysis of the 2 public POV
5. Concluding summary

Your essay is only partially responsive to the prompt because of the missing second public point of view. So your score will be limited to the areas where you represent the prompt, which may not be high enough to help you pass since you have several mistakes that will cause points deductions on your part.

Writing Feedback / Ielts task 2 about relocating to cities from rural areas [3]

Ezgi, let's start the review of your essay with your grammar mistakes. That way you get to know what sorts of additional grammar study and practice material you will need to use in order to improve your written presentations.

When using common phrases, be sure that you present these properly. For example, you used the term "searching a job" when the proper phrase is "searching for a job." You missed "for" as the determiner in this sentence. Be mindful of your spelling, MIs-spelling an English word can have a direct effect on your LR score. The word is "process", not "proces".

As per the prompt requirement that indicates; "What solutions can YOU offer?" there is immediate evidence that you did not understand the prompt requirement, leading you to deviate from the proper prompt discussion. Where does this evidence from? You indicated in your prompt paraphrase, as part of your thesis statement / discussion instruction that; "... government can take steps to overcome the potential issues." In outline form, you can see the mistake better:

Original Question: What solutions can you offer?
Your Response: ... government can take steps to overcome these potential issues.

Therefore, your essay will be considered only partially correct in response to the given task. The correct part is the statement of the consequences of this problem. The wrong response has to do with the solutions to the problem. The essay was asking you for a personal solution suggestion, not a government based solution. As such, your essay has missed half the proper discussion points for this essay and will be scored accordingly. You will be scored only for the parts that you responded to correctly, which means that your essay will then fall under the word count, causing points deductions for the shortness of your essay presentation / not meeting the minimum word requirement. Combined with your other grammar problems, I am not sure if you will have enough scoring consideration left to get at least a passing score for this type of work.

Writing Feedback / Essay about the disadvantages and advantages of taking a gap year. (Ielts writing task 2) [3]

Hoang, the good news is that you have managed to avoid making any grammar or sentence structure errors during the writing of your essay. Expect to be scored highly in terms of your essay's LR and GRA potential. So that means you have delivered an essay that meets the indicated 2 scoring considerations to a great extent. However, with that said, I cannot say that you can score highly in terms of the TA consideration because the presentation of your discussion is under developed and choppy in presentation due to the lack of proper transition sentences or phrases at the end of the paragraphs.

You also lack the minimum 3 sentence requirement for the opening paraphrase and concluding summary at the end. Your opening paraphrase lacks a proper paraphrase which could have been presented as:

High school graduates have shown a trend of skipping their first year of college after high school graduation. Known as a gap year, there are some concerns regarding the advantages and disadvantages of this practice. This essay will discuss the generally known facts regarding the advantage and disadvantage of this growing practice.

Then the concluding statement should have summarized these important points from the reasoning paragraphs over 5 sentences to provide a clear reminder of what the discussion topic was, what the reasons for the discussions are, what the talking points were for each paragraph, then a closing sentence that merely sums up the preceding presentation to close the essay .

Even worse, the second paragraph is more than the maximum 5 sentence requirement due to the second discussion topic you presented at the end of the paragraph, which resulted in an underdeveloped discussion presentation for that topic. That will have a direct effect on the C&C scoring potential of your essay.

Since you have a maximum 5 paragraph allotment for each Task 2 essay, you could have used a transition sentence at the end of the first topic for discussion to help introduce the second topic. The second topic should have been fully developed in discussion content in the next paragraph over a total of 3-5 sentences, a practice that, when you get used to doing, immediately increases your scoring potential due to your ability to clearly explain your opinions or develop public discussions.

In truth the errors you made are what I consider to be unintentional errors since you are not familiar with the proper formatting of the Task 2 essays yet. You should learn how to better present your paragraph discussions as you develop your writing style. Try to read the other task 2 essays at this forum and take note of the advice given to those writers, learning what their mistakes were and how to avoid those same errors on your part should help you polish your writing skills in no time.

Scholarship / GLOCAL EMJMD PERSONAL STATEMENT [3]

@SanamHasnani I read your essay several times and always came to the same conclusion, you failed to respond to the first aspect of the prompt that indicates; "You should outline your motivation for choosing the GLOCAL programme" So basically you need to add a paragraph somewhere in the middle that explains your motivation for choosing a specific GLOCAL programme.

You didn't really indicate which program you are interested in enrolling in considering the number of universities and course choices that are included for consideration with this application. To do this, you should revise the first 2 paragraphs of the essay. Make your opening paragraph a strong statement of motivation and intent pertaining to the problem of your country in terms of promoting female interests in the workplace or in business and why this problem motivated you to take action through advanced studies related to the problem.

I believe that the rest of your essay responds to the requirements. You are just lacking the reference to that one prompt in the presentation. Since there is a maximum word count, you will find that you will need to adjust the rest of the essay content to suit the word requirement. So expect to revise the total essay presentation, just in case. Don't worry though, the essay sounds strong at the moment. I expect it will be stronger after the addition of the required response.

Undergraduate / Essay on a place where I grew up. 'Do the things you've got to do to, do the things you want to do' [2]

It is very unfortunate Andrea that this essay is exactly what you hoped it would not be. It is mediocre. The quality is not good because there is no connection between your family experiences and background that you depict with the person you are today. For every anecdote that you have to tell, there should be a corresponding lesson learned on your part or development of understanding or personality adjustment that resulted.

For example, How does playing the piano connect with who you are today? What sort of lessons were imparted to you by your abuelita that you found yourself applying to your life later on? Why do you consider her a role model instead of merely being someone in the family you wanted to please? How does the fact that your parents do not have a college education due to their circumstances affect your belief about a college education? Do you consider it important because of their lack of education? How do you feel about having under educated parents? How did that affect how you see them?

If you review the essay you should see that you only told their story or gave memorable references to what you remember about them, but there is a lack of justification regarding how these memories and experiences with your family has helped to shape the person you have become today. The reviewer will definitely learn a lot about your family background, but he is will also come away from the reading knowing very little about who you have become because of your family history. I strongly suggest a revision of the essay to better reflect the 2 points for each family member presentation paragraph.

Scholarship / Setting Up International Networking (Chevening scholarship). [5]

Bella you have confused an interactive working environment with networking. Being active in engaging one person at Lancaster University in the completion of your duties is not the same as networking with heads of various departments at Lancaster and 2 or 3 other universities whose jobs all intersected for use in the completion of your own work tasks. What you have shown is not a networking essay. It is an interactive essay only.

Now, are you sure that this person whose name you are mentioning will be writing your recommendation letter? If not then do not mention this person's name and instead, mention the position only. If you mention the name, this person will be expected to be your referee and will have to vouch for everything that you said regarding your working experience with her. It is best to omit the mention of names in this section as much as possible. It is the title and importance of the responsibilities of the person that you interact with as part of your network that is more important.

Your son's favorite book has no place in this essay. That total paragraph should be removed. Actually since the whole essay needs to be thrown out due to irrelevance to the prompt, that mistake is actually negligible. Please, stop trying to sound like you are writing a letter to a friend. Your non-professional tone and use of first names is very unprofessional for such an important formal essay presentation. You are writing to a person of respect and whose credentials are far higher than yours. Respect in written communication is of the utmost importance.

Do yourself a favor. Stop trying to write what you think the essay should contain and try to understand the prompt. Since the application is now closed, you will have to submit this next year anyway. Unless you are only asking for my opinion of this essay which you submitted in this cycle which, I can tell you, will not help your chances in getting the scholarship. Read the other networking essay samples here as posted by your competitors this cycle, you will clearly see why this essay is not good enough and will not be able to compete or compare to the networking skills of your competitors. Also, you have to focus on explaining how you will use your network in the future after you graduate and how the Chevening community can also put your network to good use. Right now, due to the informality and irrelevance of your presentation, you have not accomplished any of the goals of the prompt you were provided.

Writing Feedback / IELTS essasy Task 2 Young adults seem to prefer to spend their leisure time on shopping [5]

Nguyen, an essay, such as a such direct question essay or combination public pov and personal opinion requires a first person reference as per the original prompt instructions. First pronoun usage is a must. There is no way to discuss a personal opinion without presenting your original mindset. That is why I always advice my students to be clear with their ownership discussions. What that means is use first person references for personal opinion requirements and second or third person references for public opinions.

Now, what I explained is my teaching style. Other teachers do it in other or similar ways. While there is no right or wrong way of writing the response easy, I believe that personal pronouns must be used for clarity where required. It is a reference that helps with coherence and cohesiveness in the essay. The reader needs to know who is speaking at all times and it shows that the writer understood the writing and pronoun requirements of the prompt. It increases the TA score when such clarity in discussion references are indicated throughout the essay as well.

If the student agrees with that writing style and is comfortable with it, then great. However, if he agrees to a different writing style based on his teacher's instructions or his own writing style then that's alright too. I found though that my students all had almost perfect and perfect IELTS scores using my aforementioned writing style.

Graduate / Need Critique/Advice on Condensing the SoP - Microbiology PhD Program [6]

You can take this down to 1000 words if you simply review the essay and cut down in the content. You are being too informative, too detailed in explanation when what is required of you is just a 250 word paragraph for each specification. Whittle it down to the most important elements, highlight what needs to be highlighted, leave the discussions and contemplations at the door. Those are not required for such a presentation. The basic rule is, for a 1000 word essay, use no more than 250 words to respond to each requirement.

In my opinion paragraphs 1,4,7, and 8 can be edited for content and presentation. You can compress the information presented in these paragraphs by editing the content of each paragraph to compress the information in paragraph 1 and 4 then 7 and 8 into a single presentation. If necessary, try to compress the presentation of the paragraphs as best as you can. Again, create cohesive paragraphs rather than extremely detailed paragraphs. Your priority is to meet the word count by editing your content. Something that I cannot do for you because I am not sure which parts of this presentation are highlights and what you would consider for deleting or retaining. This is a highly technical paper that you must edit in order to preserve the type of presentation you want to show the reviewer as a graduate school candidate.

Undergraduate / What is your greatest skill and how have you developed it over time (UC essay question) [3]

Amanda, you have made a word choice error by using the word "apart" when you mean to say "a part". "Apart" means to separate while " A part" means "to include". There is a noun phrase problem in this essay in reference to plurality in your presentation. When you say "... several month-long..." that means you required more than one recovery time. The plurality reference here being "several month-recovery" means that the phrase should be replaced by "several month-long recoveries".

With regards to the content and relevance of your essay, I cannot say that you can actually say that dancing is your greatest skill because it has caused you several injuries over the years and you are still currently recovering from one of those injuries. A skilled dancer would not be so extremely accident prone as an amateur. The types of injuries you describe tend to be professional dancer level injuries. You may want to consider changing your prompt to an obstacle you needed to overcome instead. That sounds more in line with your information presentation.

Writing Feedback / The reasons why some persons don't feel safe either at home or outside. [4]

Phuong, since you only wrote the opening paraphrase, I cannot say that you did a good job at it. Why is that? Well, you started the essay in the middle with a reasoning paragraph rather than showing the reader how well you understood the question by properly paraphrasing it. The correct paraphrase for this essay would have been:

These days, it appears that people have some apprehensions about their personal safety at home. This is a fear that they carry with them even after they leave the home and spend time outside. There are several reasons that people have a continuing fear for their safety such as...

As for this current paragraph, your first sentence is too long and lacks clarity. Don't use too many words when a single word such as "must" rather than "have to" would come across more clearly to the reader. Watch out for your punctuation marks as well. You have redundant punctuation marks in the third sentence. You cannot use a comma followed by an ellipses in a single sentence. Either use the comma and connect it to the next sentence or use the ellipses to indicating a continuing though process. Personally, I believe you wanted to use a period at the end of that sentence.

Essays / Essay question - do your examples (cinema, painting) fulfill the mandate for socialist realism? [5]

Hi Berry, I have a different take on the given instruction. Based upon what I know and my experience with these types of prompts, you are being asked to consider the definitions of socialism in the context of the Soviet Cultural Production. Remember that Russia / The Soviet Union was born out of the ruins of a civil war that saw the death of the royal family and an end to the culture of Russia as it was known to the people. Stalin had to introduce a new culture to the people that would make them more receptive to socialism. The best way to do this is always through propaganda films, publications, and other forms of art. Stalin had a clear socialist realism ideology in mind. Therefore, to write this essay, you first need to understand what socialist realism is all about and how Stalin used it to promote his new government. Once you understand that, you can choose any of the art forms in relation to the discussion. The evaluation should be based upon a specific ideology that Stalin was promoting through the use of that medium. Once you make that connection, you should be able to write this evaluation essay with little problems involved.

Writing Feedback / Why urban areas has led to overpopulation and which are possible solutions for these problems. [4]

Shazia, please review the rules on writing using the subject - verb agreement as this seems to be an ongoing problem within your essay sentence presentations. You also show several situations where you created a disagreement within a noun phrase such as using the term "times" when the more appropriate reference is "time". You should also review the rules as to when to use certain punctuation marks. In this instance, you should have placed a comma after the introductory element "times". Hence the presentation should be "Many times, people..." Also, do not capitalize a word after a comma. Only a proper noun may be capitalized in this instance or when it is the first word after a period. Familiarize yourself with the use of auxiliary verbs (pay rather than paid) because these help keep the clarity of the sentence / paragraph content.

Now, with regards to your approach to this essay, since this is a direct question essay, your opening paraphrase should have at least 2 sentences towards the end that respond to each question as part of the discussion outline. The questions to be answered are:

1. Identify one or two serious overpopulation problems (indicate 2 in the response sentence)
2. One explanation each as to how the government (1) and the individual (1) can resolve the problem.

Now, this is a 4 paragraph essay at this point covered as follows:

Par. 1: Paraphrase
Par. 2: 2 reasons discussion that clearly uses a transition phrase to connect reason 1 and reason 2.
Par. 3. Discussion for the government solution with a transition sentence to connect to the next paragraph
Par. 4: Discussion for individual solution.
Par. 5: Concluding summary

Avoid run on sentences that create unclear discussion representations such as the last sentence in paragraph 6. In addition to that, Please remember that the Task 2 essay cannot have more than 5 paragraphs. That is the requirement. Learn how to write coherent and cohesive short sentences and paragraphs instead that utilize transition sentences and phrases to help introduce connected but new discussion topics.

Writing Feedback / IELTS essasy Task 2 Young adults seem to prefer to spend their leisure time on shopping [5]

Viktoria, this essay basically entered deviation territory when it ignored the direct questions being asked in the original prompt and then proceeded to discuss your own understanding of what the instructions are about. Let's be clear here. Nothing in your essay can be considered a response to the original prompt. It was neither interpreted properly in the restatement, nor did it respond to the given questions as part of the thesis statement. It should have been indicated in the paraphrase as:

Millenials have come to be known as a generation of new adults who spend their free time purchasing items. The reason behind this is their financial independence at an early age. Since they do not tend to have good financial decision making skills yet, I see this spending habit of theirs as a negative feature. I will explain in more detail below.

Knowing how to write is different from knowing what to write. Knowing what to write requires an understanding of the question. Once you understand the question, you will know how to respond to it. What you have shown is that you know how to write but not what to write. That is because you clearly misunderstood the question or did not understand it which is why you wrote an essay so far from the original prompt requirements. This would result in a failing score for your essay in an actual setting. Work on your English comprehension skills before you proceed with your practice tests. Understanding what you need to write is more important than simply knowing that you can write in English. The latter is useless unless you have a clear idea about what you have to write about. Here is a tip, these types of questions are a single opinion essay. Start from there.

Writing Feedback / Colour can affect how people feel. How true is this statement? [4]

Ken, whatever you do, never use Grammarly for checking your grammar in the essays. It steals your essay and information which means you lose the rights to the essay that you just wrote. That is a very bad idea. Rather, read more English grammar rule books and do more grammar exercises. Both are available online as apps and neither will steal your essay information which might prove to be a problem for you in the future.

In reality, your essay is not bad at all. It can easily gain you a passing score at the very least because your discussion for the most part is clear and within the requirements of the prompt. You also show a clear idea of public understanding about the effects of color in the workplace and in a health care setting. That is fantastic because you allowed yourself to show how well read you are when it comes to current events and pop culture. That will definitely help in increasing your TA score.

The main problem I have with your writing is that in the opening paraphrase, you failed to answer the direct question regarding how true the statement is. However, you did good work in explaining that the essay will be about how the colors affect people in the workplace and recuperating places like hospitals. While this paragraph is missing one set of responses to the direct questions, you also neglected to provide the minimum 3 sentence format as the minimum requirement for the task 2 essay. You are also lacking the proper summary conclusion of the discussion since you left the essay open ended with a single sentence presentation. Aim to score better with at least 3 sentences so that you can show your English grammar and vocabulary skills to the examiner.

Overall, you have the potential to score at least a 5.5 - 6 with this type of writing. Which is a very good start for you.

Writing Feedback / An IELTS Task 2 about Young vs Old leaders [3]

Nguyen, this is a highly insightful essay that I believe is very much on point to getting at least a 6 overall score. The reason why this essay did not get a 6.6, in my opinion is because you did not appropriately respond to the question given in the original prompt within your paraphrase. You must also respond to the question given using the word choice for response originally given. In this essay, the word choice response is agree or disagree. There is no question about what you believe therefore, you response statement should have been:

I disagree with the opinion that youthful leaders could be more beneficial to a business due to several factors.

You need to refer to the original discussion in your thesis paraphrase by using the keyword from the original question. That shows a clear understanding of the given instruction and a degree of analysis provided based on the existing discussion topic. It will be sure to drive your TA score higher.

Your reasoning paragraphs are sound and logical. Those are very well written and presented paragraphs of the complex nature which are sure to increase the GRA score of your essay along with the C&C requirements. Your LR may also score well since you obviously have a clear understanding of English words, its meaning and how to use it in a sentence.

One mistake in your essay though, your concluding summary did not really pass the summary presentation. It lacks a presentation of the prompt, your opinion, and your reasons in summary form with an accompanying closing sentence. That is at least 4 sentences in total that could have further increased your TA score.

Undergraduate / College personal essay: What does home mean and how it affected me? [2]

Wardo, the essay was really going well in terms of discussing your personal growth and understanding of others before you suddenly, and I mean abruptly, introduced your mother's illness and your desire to study in the U.S. into the last part of the essay. Those two topics feels tremendously out of place and threw the whole "period of personal growth and understanding of others" discussion through a loop. The essay became confusing as it suddenly discussed a non-related topic. Almost 80 percent of the essay is on point discussing how you developed as a person and learned about others during your time at boarding school. I feel that you should simply focus your discussion on that and close it with a self realization in reference to personal growth and how you came to understand how the other people live and how to get along with them. Leave your mother's diagnosis out of it. It has no place in this essay.

However, if you feel that you want to focus the discussion on your mother's illness in relation to a period of personal growth, forget the understanding of others as it doesn't apply to this case, then revise the essay to use the diagnosis of your mother as the overall theme of the essay. From beginning to end that should be the focus of the discussion. Don't just suddenly throw it into an already established and enlightening presentation as you did here.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task1_NOx emissions by vehicle type in London in 2020(%) [2]

Huang, with only 1 word written over the minimum word requirement for this essay, I cannot say that you have fully utilized your scoring potential based on the scoring brackets. Writing too little means you are not well versed in the use of the English language or you lack the analytical skills to properly write this essay. Writing too many words indicates that you are trying to score higher based solely on your LR skills rather than your TA ability in relation to the remaining scoring brackets. Either way, what I can see with this essay is a writer who is too nervous to try and write a maximum of 175 words for better scoring consideration.

Your summary overview is incomplete. It also misrepresents the periodic table name for Nitrogen Oxide in the presentation. The reader should first be informed that NOx is the symbol for Nitrogen Oxide in scientific discussions. You also should have indicted what type of image was provided, how the measurements were done and what vehicles were involved. For example, I would have written this as:

A pie chart that shows the division of Nitrogen Oxide in London based on 6 types of vehicles has been provided. The measurement, which was done in percentages shows the amount of emission for the bus, taxi, motorbike, car, van, and lorry transport systems. Throughout the analysis, the scientific symbol for Nitrogen Oxide, NOx was used and will be used as the reference name in this analysis report. The trend shows that the bus has the highest emission capacity of the 6 transport types.

You are writing run-on sentences. Each paragraph of this 4 paragraph essay needs to be completed using a minimum of 3 sentences with a maximum of 5 sentences for C&C and GRA purposes. You will score quite low in those sections because of your jumbled presentation. I am afraid that your score will not be very good for this presentation because you have not done enough and written it properly to get a better scoring consideration.

Scholarship / What a PTDF 2019 overseas scholarship would do for me [2]

John, your first paragraph is not very relevant to the given 3 prompt questions. You should just remove that and focus on developing the remaining 2 paragraph, with the addition of a new paragraph as required by your revision and edits. What I find severely lacking in this essay is a positive and clear direction for your future in relation to the development of your country. You lack the reference to a career path going forward within a specific field. Your essay is taking too much for granted in terms of general considerations when the prompts are pretty specific about its requirements, the first of which is that you have a clear academic interest in the pursuit of a professional goal.

Consider the work you did as a helper, then think of what sort of personal ambitions you may have created stemming from it. How will that help you should you complete the course? How will your addition to the energy sector of Nigeria be helpful to your country? What is your personal goal for these studies? What is your professional goal in relation to the improvement of the Nigerian energy sector and at the same time, the economy? These are the basic statements you have to respond to as a part of the new draft version of this essay. After you have clearly developed an outline based on the guide questions, you will find that you will be in a better position to expand on your responses in relation to the given prompts.

Writing Feedback / It is true that consumers could purchase goods at lower cost these days [3]

Ngyuen, this is a single opinion essay. It is not a comparison essay discussion. A comparison essay discussion always has the instruction: Discuss both points of view and give your opinion. This is a single opinion essay because the instruction is asking you discuss whether the given statement has more advantages than disadvantages. You are being asked for a personal opinion. Your job in this essay is to support one point of view. Therefore the discussion sentence should be indicative of whether you think there are more advantages or disadvantages. Your thesis statement should have been:

Based on several considerations, I believe that there are more disadvantages to the given scenario.

The more proper and better scoring paraphrase for the opening presentation would have been:

As more and more people can buy cheaper products these days, a discussion has arisen regarding its advantages and disadvantages. The question for consideration has become whether or not the advantages of this purchasing ability are far greater than its disadvantages. I believe that this buying capacity has more disadvantages than advantages. My reasons for this belief are to be found in the succeeding presentation.

After that, you should have 2 succeeding reasoning paragraphs that support your given statement, without creating a comparison discussion. The kick-off should be:

The main reason I view this situation as a disadvantage is because....

The other reason I have to support my opinion is that....

In the end, the reasons I have offered support the fact that...

The overall format for your discussion is misguided. Therefore, you will only be scored for the part of the essay that supports the disadvantages. The rest of the essay that reasons out in support will be disregarded in the scoring process.

Scholarship / How the proposed activity will enhance collaborative partnerships with key institutions in Indonesia [2]

Dininta, you should use only the l3rd paragraph of this essay as the basis of your revised essay. That is because the 3rd paragraph directly respond to the question regarding an enhanced collaboration between Australia and Indonesia, which you just have to further develop as this is already implied and discussed on a superficial level in the 3rd paragraph. Try to think big in this paragraph. What sort of existing collaboration is there that you hope to expand upon after your training?

Try to think of your study plan for this course. What sort of masters thesis do you hope to write? How might you relate your research with partnerships in both Australia and Indonesia? How will your thesis , which will use information from Indonesia as well as Australia, help to strengthen Australia's abilities as an educational, training, and research center for your field of interest? That is, when all the information is combined in your thesis paper.

Research Papers / The effect of Physical Activity on individuals [2]

Melanie, you need to work up the first paragraph. You can't start it with "January first comes around and gyms are filling with people..." without first establishing the foundation for this event. You should also clarify that this is a yearly occurrence that has a direct connection with the physical activities of a person, the guilt a person feels for being inactive, and how the good intentions often turn out to have dismal results. That way you can build a solid foundation regarding the improvement of a person's health when he engages in physical activity.

Your second paragraph makes mention of some pretty specific data which had to be sourced from somewhere. Please remember to cite all sources of information in your essay. I guess that was an oversight on your part since you remembered to do exactly that in the succeeding paragraphs. Save for these two observations, and the fact that your opening paragraph has a mistake in its presentation in the last sentence. "Show" coming in after a comma means this is in the middle of an existing sentence and should be written in lower case. It is not a proper noun nor used at the start of the sentence so it does not qualify for the privilege of being capitalized in the presentation.

Scholarship / Set out the skills and attributes you possess that will enable you to develop as a leader [2]

Dininta, you are not offering an impressive leadership essay here. You are focused on your academic leadership when all the other applicants will have at least 2 years of actual professional leadership skills to speak of in their essays. You are speaking of highly academic leadership skills that the reviewer will not be convinced that you have what it takes to professionally develop as a leader in this field. Balance the presentation between the foundation of your academic leadership with your professional leadership.

You need to use more profession based leadership examples in order to improve your chances for consideration. By proving that you have performed leadership roles within your profession / line of work, you will be able to show evidence of having the potential to continue to grow as a leader during your time of study as you will be combining your professional and academic leadership skills whenever called upon to do so during this study period.

Scholarship / University of Technology Sydney will assist my professional development and career [2]

Dininta, Your first paragraph is irrelevant. You are wasting valuable word count by narrating your previous experience. You need to merely answer the question directly, without the fluff representation. Do not enumerate the courses being offered. Instead, focus on what you feel are your weaknesses in terms of your professional development then hand pick the subjects and activities that the course offers which will help you develop those areas. There is no need for you to enumerate all of the subjects, you need to only be specific as in: weakness = subject + training program = professionally developed skill. Do not tell the reader that you are eligible to apply for membership at the Australian Computer Society. Instead, you should state that as a member of the organization by virtue of your being a graduate of the university, you look forward to using this professional network to develop your professional contacts as applicable in your home country.

Writing Feedback / Memoir - writing sample (first day at school) [3]

Barbara, when you write a memoir, it is normally a hindshight look at a previous experience or set of experiences. For example, if I were to write about coming to Canada with my family, I would start the paragraph by explaining why my family decided to move. Then I would narrate the negative and positive experiences I had during this time. From the heartbreak of leaving all that was familiar to me all the way to the unfamiliarity that I had when I arrived and the difficulties of blending into a new culture. I would end the paragraph by saying what it is that I believe made the whole ordeal worthwhile.

What you wrote is less of a memoir and more of an IELTS task 2 essay introduction. Those are not the same kinds of essay. You are too dry, unimaginative, and basically boring in this essay. It does not reflect the sense of a person whose past has just been affected by a major upheaval and is now in the healing and immersion process.

Scholarship / Summarise how the proposed activity aligns with Australian Government priorities [2]

Don't try to cover too much ground with your response. You are throwing in all possible responses in here which is leading you to over reach with your response. Choose to focus your response on only 1 of the given 4 choices. Based on your response, I believe the focus of your essay is on the National Innovation and Science Agenda with a co-relation with increased opportunities for institutions and individuals in regional Australia. This sort of response should be less about space technology and more about satellite communications in relation to remote relay stations as represented by the most obvious carrier, the mobile phone companies.

Your response should indicate how satellite communication and imagery will be able to help the agricultural section of Australian society given that most of Australia is still an outback which means communications still prove to be a challenge in these areas, even though these areas are heavily involved in agricultural undertakings. Your response can be two fold. First, discuss how your proposed activity will help detect early weather patterns that could prove to be problematic for farmers, ranchers, and other sectors of agriculture and second, how your research can develop a more reliable method of communication based on more advanced use of radio waves and soundwaves, in collaboration with the mobile phone companies. The latter could prove to have some sort of military use that you could gloss over in your discussion.

Narrow the discussion field, pick a more specific area to discuss in relation to your project. Choose the proper government priority project by decide which one represents your possible undertaking the best. Be less generic and have a clear direction for your response. This is too vague and filled with under developed discussion points and possible project ideas.

Writing Feedback / Deforestation is happening in many parts of the world, what can be done to solve this problem? [3]

Nguyen, please remember that there is a 3 sentence minimum requirement for each paragraph written in a Task 2 essay. That is required in order to help you improve your sentence structure and grammatical presentation in relation to the coherence and cohesiveness of your essay. There are several paragraphs in this presentation that are overly long or sentences that can be considered as run-on sentences. Always present only one topic per sentence, never try to connect two separate discussion sentences by using commas. That creates run-ons and also blurs the discussion being presented.

Good work on responding to the direct question in the prompt paraphrase. This shows that you understood what type of discussion was required for the topic. However, you still came short of the minimum sentence requirement. Also, you mentioned in the first sentence that humans are responsible for environmental problems. That is a discussion deviation. It changed the subject of the paragraph. What you should have said instead was :

Man is responsible for deforestation because of his activities. These deforestation activities happen worldwide.

Try to use as little of the original keywords in your essay to show your LR skills. That is why I used the term "worldwide" rather than "all over the world". That phrase is still too similar to the original which was "many parts of the world."

Letters / Cover letter for applying Ph.D. in renewable energy technologies [3]

Mohammad, your essay speaks of your strengths in a detailed manner. However, that is not going to be able to help you receive a PhD opportunity as a research associate or aide with the professor whom you spoke to. Mostly because you failed to connect your strengths, interests, and potential for research with the existing research of this professor. How will your research help improve his own research? How will your past experiences be useful to his research or make you an asset to the research team?

You have not presented any stand out information in this essay that could help convince the professor that you would be an interesting or useful addition to his roster of researchers. You may want to rethink the presentation of your essay to go from just enumerating and explaining your strengths to having these traits works in accordance with the requirements of the professor. I am sure that since you spoke to him previously, you have an idea of his requirements for his research assistants. Highlight those factors and make sure to explain it in a manner that directly relates to his own work. That is the best way to impress the professor and also, make your application more relevant to his needs.

Undergraduate / My story; I moved to the United States from Ghana, a small West African country [4]

Kim, this essay is focused on the background of your mother. I learned so much about her, where she came from, what her problems in life are, how she is striving to succeed, and a host of other information. Now, let me ask you this question, who is applying for admission to the university, you or your mother? Exactly. Since you are the applicant, the essay should be discussing you rather than your mother.

The reviewer could care less about your mother and what sort of relationship you have with her, how you view her, etc. She is not the applicant, you are. So the reviewer needs to get to know you through this prompt you have chosen. I cannot even suggest changing the prompt in this instance because there is no common app prompt that would like you to tell the story of your mother.

Therefore this essay, though heartfelt and impressive, does not work for your application simply because the focus of the discussion is on your mother rather than you. Show me an essay that uses this prompt, but focuses on you, the applicant, then maybe your common app prompt essay will get somewhere.

Writing Feedback / An essay of IELTS task 2 about the reasons and effects of cosmetics [4]

Mark, this is a direct question essay, not an opinion essay. Therefore, your opening paraphrase is partially incorrect and your concluding summary is also incorrect. The original prompt already told you what information you would need to include in the prompt paraphrase in order to prepare your discussion. These requirements are as follows:

Outline the reasons for using such products and discuss what effects they have in terms of health and society.

Therefore, the end of your prompt paraphrase should indicate 2 reasons, without a discussion presented along with one effect each for health and society again, without a discussion.

The reasoning paragraph does not appropriately discuss the reasons. What you should have done was present a 5 paragraph discussion essay that represented the following:

1. Prompt paraphrase with an outline of responses
2. First reasoning paragraph with a transition sentence for the second reason at the end.
3. Second reasoning paragraph with a transition sentence for the health and society effects
4. A discussion of the social effect that uses a transitional phrase to introduce and begin the discussion of the health effects.
5. A summary of the previous 3 statements that does not introduce a new topic for discussion as you mistakenly made in this presentation to close the discussion.

Scholarship / Enhancing the Internationalisation for Australia's education, training and research sectors. [4]

Aaritha, you misunderstood the following question in the essay:

-Describe how these partnerships will strengthen the capacity of Australia's education, training and research sectors

Your response is focused on the benefits of the study in terms of India based benefits. The question is asking you to explain what sort of benefit your participation in the program will bring to the program. It isn't about how the Australian government supports India. Rather, it is about how the partnership of these two organizations will develop the capacity of Australia to strengthen its education, training, and research sectors. That means, you need to think of the projects these two organizations already collaborate on, discuss that, then speak of how you see the project entering another level of education, training, and research requirements for the Australian counterpart.

Undergraduate / Public speaking - Second opinion on my UC Personal Insight Questions! [2]

Eknoor, you have to change the second paragraph as you have it presented at the moment. In this type of essay, you do not need to present rhetorical questions. Providing these rhetorical questions leaves the essay lacking in qualifying information. Rather than questions, present the responses instead. Depict how you influenced the team using an internal debate, one where the team participated in arguing with you which proves that you used logic and reasoning to influence their final decision to take on the challenge. By elaborating on your influencing skills, you will be able to give more meaning to the win that the team had that year. It becomes more prompt supportive in presentation.

If it were up to me though, I would choose a more advanced topic for this presentation. Something that showcases your maturity as a person or the development of an adult mindset that helped you to influence the situation. While your current essay does show how you contributed to the group effort over time, the situation and theme that you have chosen to discuss seems too simple and unimpressive. It lacks the "wow" factor that would make it memorable to the reviewer. Then again, that's just me. You don't have to change the essay if you don't want to. I am merely stating my opinion based on insight regarding this type of prompt statements.

Graduate / The positive impact of occupational therapists on people of all ages - SOP essay [5]

Nadia, sadly, what you wrote is not a statement of purpose but rather a personal statement. Therefore, you are nowhere near the final stages of editing this essay. You need to write a statement of purpose that addresses specific elements as required for such a paper. This version is not applicable to a statement of purpose because of the personal rather than academic nature of the content. The academic content is what a SOP normally contains. A personal statement, on the other hand, contains the development of your interest in a specific course. As you can derive from what you have written, your piece has a more personal nature that deals with the development of your interest in OT. Therefore, this essay is not applicable.

Since this is a statement of purpose for a graduate program, you must focus your discussion on both your college academic and professional accomplishments and goals. For the academic side, you have to make sure that you indicate what your previous college course was that prepared you for a masters course. Any academic accomplishments during your college period will help. A clear explanation of your internship experiences in relation to OT or general nursing, with the reference to your father's experience being only one or two sentences in the presentation as that is of a more personal nature rather than academic or professional.

Give a detailed discussion of specific professional experiences that could prove that you have a professional insight into what the career of an OT is like and what you hope to improve, change, or implement to improve service in this particular area of healthcare. Prove that you have a career plan that covers 5 years at the most. This should include plans that you hope to pursue as an OT masters degree graduate.

At the end of the essay, you need to explain why you have chosen the OT masters degree program at this particular university and what influences helped you come to that decision. A highlight of this part will be the internship or training program of this university that you hope to participate in. Close the essay on a hopeful note by coming full circle in the discussion of how you envision OT practices of the future and how you hope to be the start of the next gen of OT practitioners.

Scholarship / Master at the University of Melbourne to taking my networking and leadership skill to the next level [2]

S, for this leadership essay, you have neglected to explain in simple terms what this course of study in relation to the leadership activity is all about. The ranking of the university is irrelevant in this instance. The reason who chose the university should focus on the highlightable courses that set it apart from other Australian universities that offer the same masters course. An explanation as to why these highlights relate to your academic and professional goals will help better explain your interest in attending this course at this university.

Rather than indicating only your internship plans and the offices where you plan to do it, you should also indicate the schedule of the internship as required by the prompt you are responding to. Any incomplete information may be a reason to reject your application so you need to make sure that all of your responses align with the Endeavor Scholarship Leadership prompt. At this point, you not only have to improve some parts, but you also have to fill in some blanks.

Writing Feedback / Choosing to live in a horizontal or vertical city has been a headache dilemma to city dwellers [2]

Nguyen, I will not continue to review your essay based on the grammatical mistakes, sentence structure errors, or even coherence and cohesiveness because you made a big mistake at the very start of this essay. The mistake was that your prompt paraphrase turned a 5 paragraph tri point of view essay into a single opinion /point of view discussion. This shows that you do not have the appropriate English comprehension skills with which to accomplish the test requirements. You decided to issue a direct question response when it was not necessary to do so. A direct question response is only required when being asked a direct question in the prompt, which was not the situation with this particular presentation. This essay instructed:

Original Instruction: Discuss both views and give your opinion.

Paraphrased Instruction: I support that large cities planned to develop towards the suburbs would bring more benefits.

Correct Instruction Paraphrase: It is important that I understand the basis for both opinions for the discussion before I develop my opinion about this subject.

In addition to that mistake, you also said that the topic is a "headache dilemma", this is a mistake. the points of view are neither a headache nor a dilemma. What is being offered here is a discussion of opposing ideas. Avoid exaggerating your comments because that will not help increase your score, but it could lower your C&C as well as LR scores due to incoherent use of terms and wrong vocabulary understanding.

Each point of view must be presented as such, individual public opinions rather than implying that the two points of view are based on a personal opinion. That is not the only basis of the discussion. There are 3 discussion considerations: the pro, the con, and the personal opinion. Each should be clear in the essay with two being of public knowledge and one being of personal knowledge and experience.

Due to the marked errors in this essay, there is no chance that this can qualify for a passing score. Since your essay is tangential in response, you will only be partially scored for the part of the essay that you do respond to. Since that will mean that the essay will be coming in under the required minimum word count, then you cannot be considered for a passing score.

Undergraduate / College Essay - Fashion Institute of Technology Essay for Illustration [2]

Sarah. would you consider flipping the first and last paragraph positions in the essay? I feel like the essay will be stronger and more notable once you start it off on a positive note. That way, the current opening paragraph helps you to close the essay on a more hopeful and determined note, which can help it stand out in the memory of the reviewer. You may also want to consider naming the social media pet accounts and the name of the dog shelter, just in case the reviewer decides that these pieces of information are worth doing a follow-up on. Overall, the presentation is strong, personal, and highly insightful. The fact that you have all of these scholarships and awards to mention makes you a clear contender for admission to the university. I don't see why the reviewer might think otherwise. Everything about your skills shows a high level of professional expertise even though you have yet to become a true professional or receive professional training as a college student.

Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK1 - Crimes committed in two countries [3]

Ronia, the summary overview is incomplete due to 2 missing information, the 3 types o crimes and the measurement reference for the numbers (millions). Other than that, the summary you presented plus the trending statement is acceptable. Again, you need to properly summarize the information because that will help you outline the discussion you will be presenting. So make that part as accurate as possible. It is something designed to first help you figure out how to write the essay and second, help the reader understand what you wrote.

Some grammar issues exist in your essay:
- "changed became" which should be referred to as "and changed slightly".
- "Instead of increasing, barely did street..." must be presented as "Rather than increasing there was a decline in street robberies from..."

You must learn when the connecting word "the" must be used. In the phrase "highest point of the 35 years", "the" was not a required connecting word since this is a complete phrase rather than a sentence.

Scholarship / My potential contribution towards Mozambique development - Commonwealth Scholarship [2]

Walter, there seem to be a number of missing references in your essay. Either the references are missing or you did not present it clearly enough within your written work. The missing parts are as follows:

- ·The audiences and users of your proposed study
- the timeframe for their implementation
- ·How the impact of your work might be measured

The first one on the list should have been integrated into your paragraph 3 response where you said that Geophysics can be related to Science and technology. A clearer reference to the audience being geophysicists in your home country and some other scientists would have sufficed as part of the audience for your study. Bacteriologists could be one of the additional audiences and users of your study. I am sure you can think of some other scientists whose work will coincide with your own to represent as a part of the response.

The second one, relates to the way that you indicate your projects for implementation. As a masters degree student, you need to outline these projects as a 5 year career plan at the most. You are asked to present a timeframe and present it you must. Consider all the factors required for the completion of your project and hazard a guess regarding the start date and completion date. Whether you meet it or not is not an issue at the moment, you just have to prove that you have a project schedule in mind.

As for how the success of your project can be measured, you should also consider how you will be forwarding this information to the CSC. While your measurement metrics are acceptable, you have not explained how you plan to get this information over the scholarship committee to prove that you are doing well as an alumna of the scholarship.

Everything else in the essay corresponds to the requirements so you don't have to worry about the other parts of the prompt requirements. I just want you to be sure that the 3 part I mentioned are really clear, understandable, and applicable to the requirements of the review committee.

Scholarship / Enhance and increase Australia's influence in Education and Health-Endeavour [4]

It would be best if you did additional research regarding the specific collaborative efforts that Australia has with the health ministry of your country and then elaborate as to how James Cook, as a partner educational institution helps to promote these programs in your country. This essay should showcase a workable collaborative effort between your country's department of health and its Australian counterpart. You must make sure to indicate any partnership programs between the two universities as well that relate to the strategic policies of Australia.

Try to use examples that will illustrate the strengthening of Australia's capacity with regards to training and research sectors within your own country. Use specifics instead of implications. Implying does not equate to a usable partnership that will strengthen both countries. The same goes for the benefits in terms of education and social development on both ends. The explanation should be in terms of a 2 way street that allows both parties to gain something from passing within each other's countries and educational sectors based on Australia's strategic policy.

Writing Feedback / Environmental issues have always been a controversy among the world. Who should take a charge of it? [3]

Ronia, aside from the missing ownership reference for the first reasoning paragraph, I would have to say that you actually exceeded my expectations this time around. You clearly showed an understanding of the prompt and explained it in a manner that is understandable to most native English speakers in your opening paraphrase. Your reference to the restated discussion instruction was clear and helped to outline the discussion process that was to follow in the reasoning paragraphs. Excellent work.

Good job with showing ownership of the discussion in the second paragraph. You allowed the reader to know that this was based on the second point of view reference in the original prompt, which helped to create a cohesive and clarified discussion in the presentation. The same goes for your opinion statement. Your reasoning was acceptable and actually doable in terms of application in real life.

I would say that although your presentation could have been more complex and expanded to help with the coherence and cohesiveness of your presentation, your task accuracy was a bullseye, your grammar use was acceptable along with your vocabulary, you should only consider this the first step towards your writing skills improvement. I would like to see you keep up and improve your skills with your forthcoming essays. This time, I want you to practice using transition sentences at the end of every reasoning paragraph to help introduce the next discussion topic with more clarity. The aim is to further improve your GRA as well as C&C scoring potential.