Writing Feedback / Some people say that economic growth is the only way to end hunger and poverty, while others ... [2]

Jagpreet. your TA score for this essay will not be enough to help you get a passing score overall. That is because your TA in terms of prompt paraphrase is incomplete. You created a personal opinion essay discussion for the whole essay when it should be a 2 public point of view + personal opinion discussion. Let me outline the mistake for you:

Original instruction: Discuss both views and give your opinion.
Your Response: I believe that it effect our ecosystem in many ways.

The opening paraphrase must indicate the upcoming discussion instruction by paraphrasing the instruction sentence. This should therefore read something like:

It is important for me to analyze these two public points of view validity so that I can give a personal opinion on the topic.

You should have divided the 2 public points of view into 2 separate paragraphs. This is a 5 paragraph essay, which means the two points of view require stand alone discussion paragraphs. By combining the discussion into one paragraph, you under develop the discussion for both points of view which means your cohesiveness and coherence score will be largely affected by the little developed reasoning presentations for each side.

Your concluding paragraph should have been a concluding summary which includes a repeat presentation of the discussion topic, reasons for the discussion, and your personal opinion as the closing sentence. Neglecting to do that means your TA will receive additional deductions in points considerations.

Writing Feedback / A professional baseball player [2]

Rafiq, you are getting your English terms mixed up in this essay. The correct sentence is "Many people dream of playing professional baseball". That is just one of the serious mistakes you made in reference to the sport in your essay. Unfortunately, there are too many of these errors for me to correct so I will just leave you with just one sample of the properly written sentence.

You have also shown that you are sometimes not capable of spelling the English terms properly such as "Caise" instead of "because". The whole essay sounds like a writing exercise that you did not even take an effort to properly write. You capitalized the words famous, talented, and rich when these are not proper nouns nor used at the start of a sentence and therefore, should be written in lowercase letter. That is a standard English writing rule that you have chosen to disregard in your writing.

I understand that you are not a native English speaker and you are just learning the language at the moment. It is important the you take great pains to properly write in English if you are to improve your writing skills. Use an online language corrector if you must. Those can help you learn to proper sentence structure and grammar usage of words. More simple English writing exercises and an increase in English reading material will also help in that regard.

At this point, your essay is not an acceptable first effort because you did not even try to write this properly. If you had typed this in MS word, you would have even instantly gotten assistance from the bundled grammar checker, which you should not ignore as it can help you learn how to write in English more effectively as well.

Undergraduate / Contributing to Community - MIT Supplemental Essay [2]

Jackie, you can improve this essay by first, removing the reference to Grey's Anatomy. You just don't know how irritated and bored the reviewers feel when they read television show references as one of the influencing factors of a person in a choice of career. Mostly because they know that the show takes shortcuts, portrays events unrealistically, and 100% fiction based but people take a gospel truth.

Next, you should use your current closing paragraph and develop that into an animated opening paragraph instead. It has the tendency to create a more personal connection between you and the reader at this point as opposed to the television show influence and reference. By developing that opening paragraph more, you should be able to close it with a transition sentence that can represent one of the more notable volunteer activities that you have undertaken at the hospital.

Even as a volunteer there surely has been at least one time when a volunteer activity you participated in left a mark on you and further pushed your desire to enter the medical field. Use that experience. Don't just narrate it though, involve the reader by creating a vivid description of the scene, events as it unfolded and the final outcome. That way you will be able to show how you tackled challenge and how your participation changed the outcome of the event. Without your presence there as a volunteer, how would the scenario have ended up instead?

By animating the presentation, you will make it less bland and far less generic than the current presentation.

Scholarship / My chosen courses - their degree programs work in any industry and are internationally diverse. [2]

Charles you have not written this essay properly. The first 2 paragraphs of this essay must reflect your academic qualifications for the courses you have chosen. That includes a description of any academic honors you received or internship performance recognition awards. The next paragraph relates directly to your qualifications based upon your profession. A simple professional history, along with an explanation of your motivation to choose these courses will help you develop a more profession related response.

As for your course choices, this sounds like you are choosing college majors instead of masters degree courses for a scholarship. Let me ask you, which of these universities have given you an unconditional acceptance for your application? None of these course choices and university choices indicate that you have gained admission to any of them. That is a main requirement you know, you need to have at least one acceptance to a university of your choice. Rather than simply detailing the course curriculum, a clear understanding of how your academic and professional background suit the qualifications for completing course, along with a possible future application in your line of work are part of the required presentations per university. You are not accomplishing that in this essay.

You are also including a post study career plan in this essay when that should be a separate essay. Remove that paragraph and instead, conclude with a note of hopefulness regarding how you hope to contribute to the professionalization of the accounting industry in Liberia.

Delete this current essay in totality and write a new one based on my instructions above. The current essay is nowhere near a competitive nor relevant Chevening UK study plan essay. There are more examples than you need to look at available at this forum. Review those samples and try to develop an essay that is closer in depiction to those which better follow the Chevening standard for essay writing. Otherwise, you will fail to compete for scholarship consideration.

Scholarship / "Father's business" - Chevening scholarship review [4]

Raheemi, there are two potential leadership and influencing presentations in this essay that you can use for a revised presentation. The problem, is that both events lack a proper reference and influencing presentation. The situations I speak of are the times when you led your family business and your most recent occupation with the military. These are the two work related experiences that I believe you could better build upon to create a proper semblance of your leadership and influencing abilities on a local and national scale. Both of which will be sure to impress the reviewer.

For the family business, you need to prove that you were capable of crisis management even though you were handling a small family business, you were able to lay the foundation for your future development as a local leader and influencer. Perhaps there was a time when the business was in trouble and you had to influence certain parties, or the employees to resolve the issue without closing the family business. The leadership and influencing skills on your part would be highly evident in that scenario.

Then create a transition paragraph that would help to connect your previous experience with your job at the ministry of defense. Even though you are just an office administrator, I believe that you could find a time when you were called upon to lead and influence a particular sector in the office. This being the ministry of defense, you can highlight your national leadership and influencing skills. The projects you indicate are too administrative to allow you to highlight your leadership and influencing abilities on a national scale. This part of your narrative shows that you are capable of working alone, but not that you can lead a team. It highlights your innovative ideas, but not your ability to influence your superiors through your leadership of a team and the method by which they accomplish their tasks.

Pay attention to my suggestions and try to develop a new draft based on either one or both of the suggested events. Use the event that best illustrates your leadership and influencing abilities. While these are the potentially best methods to do that, the activities you have presented do not make me confident that you can actually pull it off. So take your time. think about clear instances that can help to explain the required skills in the essay. You have the time to think about it and revise this essay properly.

Don't use this version. It doesn't showcase any true leadership and influencing abilities that could be useful in strengthening your application. It lacks focus as there is no true target to your presentation. The most this essay can do is serve as the draft basis of your new essay which hopefully, will be better developed than this one. If you are not sure about how to change your essay, look at the available samples at this site. You won't lack for related examples to your applications and in fact, you can learn from the mistakes of others in relation to improving your own presentation.

Undergraduate / 'I can't take it anymore I want to quit!' Common App Essay for University of Michigan [2]

Hannah, the personal growth in this essay is almost an afterthought in the discussion. When you read the essay, you will come to realize that the progression to the period that sparked personal growth should come earlier in the essay. You can establish your homeschooling and C grade in the first paragraph. Then use one paragraph to explain how you felt, then another to depict at what point you came to the realization that home schooling stunted your personal and social growth along with giving you a false sense of your degree of intelligence because you were studying at your own pace when you were homeschooled. Then explain how you came out of your shell based on each aspect I mentioned. That way, a clear and definitive period of personal growth can be created and understood when your essay is read.

Scholarship / A scenario in which you have needed to show leadership, how you approach this and the outcomes of it [5]

Henry, regardless of whether it is for Chevening or Mastercard, you cannot use such academic based references as the response. You are a professional at this point. You are applying for a masters degree scholarship. Therefore, you need to indicate an experience at no less than 2 years old in a professional scenario. The scholarship requires you show leadership abilities. Though not indicated, a professional leadership ability is always required or implied because you are going to need to relate those skills to your interest in pursuing higher academic studies in relation to your career progression. Therefore, you still need professional leadership qualifications. MS courses always rely on professional not academic experience because it is expected that all applicants have a minimum of 2-5 years work experience in their chosen profession prior to applying for an MS scholarship or admission to a MS course in a university. The same review still applies to your current work.

An academic examples is weak. It doesn't show how you have developed your leadership skills at present. You are telling the reviewer that you had some amateur leadership experience which is good, if you were not up against applicants who will be using current profession based leadership examples. That is why I am telling you the essay is too simplistic and cannot accomplish the task of making you a competitive scholarship applicant. Your application will fall to the wayside when placed in direct comparison with more qualified applicants with current professional leadership skills.

Scholarship / An impact: Cite cases in which you thought and/or made attempts in ways... [3]

Mohammed, this is a very interesting presentation that you should try to further develop by indicating how old you were when you started learning the American curriculum at your school. More importantly, indicate if you were attending an international school, hence the English based curriculum. Clarify if you were frustrated that your parents did not speak to you in English which gave you a hard time in terms or relating to them and conversing with them. It isn't really clear where your frustration is stemming from in the essay so you need to clarify early on that this was a frustration you had when dealing with family members and friends. The rest of the essay will be clear after that in terms of meaning and the effect it had on your family and peers. This is definitely an interesting and relevant essay when considering the prompt requirements.

Scholarship / Tax awareness and law clinic - CHEVENING ESSAY ON LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCE [6]

Oluwasikemi , you can't just keep listing your leadership and influencing activities in this manner. While I can see that you do have some relevant activities that can lead the reviewer to believe that you are a potential leader and influencer in your country, the fact that you simply narrated these as an outline rather than an in-depth analysis and discussion of your related legal activities lessens the impact of the essay. In order to revise this essay, you will need to create a focus and draw the attention of the reviewer to the issue of community justice.

First, you need to explain why you were involved in this. How does it relate to your profession? Are you a pro-bono lawyer for some people? You are the manager of a law clinic. Great. You have the foundation for your leadership discussion. Go on to explain what the Freedom of Information Act is and why it must be used to make the government accountable. Aside from giving speeches, how else do you lead and influence people in relation to this law. If you find it hard to justify a leadership and influencing path based on the law, then you need to find a different, law related incident to speak of. For example, as a practicing lawyer, how did you prove the innocence of a client and how did you influence the jury to believe you? You get the idea. Now, run with it.

Scholarship / I'm a Russian journalist who is applying for Chevening Scholarship this year [4]

Kristina, I am going to be completely honest with you here and tell you that this is not a leadership and influencing essay. You accidentally wrote a personal statement, which has nothing to do with your leadership and influencing potential. It feels like I am reading an essay that simply narrates your academic background rather than justifying your professional leadership and influencing abilities. The essay itself is weak because of that missing discussion. You have not provided an essay that can be considered a leadership and influencing essay.

There are other applicants for the scholarship in this cycle that are properly and professionally qualified to go back to their countries to continue to lead and influence their countrymen towards a positive development. I suggest that you use one of your recent news articles to help signify that. Your capacity as a journalist provides you a unique opportunity to lead and influence people using your words, don't waste the opportunity to prove that to the reviewer. However, you cannot use an academic article written in college, you need to use a currently published article in the publication of your choice. You stand to have an extremely strong leadership and influencing essay if you can just properly focus the essay on a relevant presentation.

Scholarship / A scenario in which you have needed to show leadership, how you approach this and the outcomes of it [5]

Henry, this is absolutely a useless Chevening leadership and influencing essay. The scholarship program is looking for leaders and influencers in their current profession. Profession being the keyword here. I have no idea where you got the impression that a 2 page paragraph relating to your academic civic activity would qualify has a professional leadership and influencing essay. It simply won't. This essay will not even get you past the screening round. Look at the samples available here. Note how a majority of them always focus on their professional critical situation handling skills. Without the proof that you can lead and influence in your line of work, you are not displaying a useful and promising leadership and influencing ability essay.

Focus on your profession and develop an essay that depicts the development of your leadership and influencing skills based on a workplace scenario. That way you at least have a relevant professional presentation. If you find yourself as not being in a leadership position at work, then turn to a current community based organization that you have led through a notable activity at some point. An activity that had a community based positive impact would work best for you.

Scholarship / Recruiter for overseas agencies - Chevening Network [3]

Radwa, the whole essay is soo superficial in representation to make any sort of impression on the Chevening reviewer. It would be better for you to focus the essay on your networking ability as a recruiter for overseas agencies. Explain how you got started in the business, how you built your network, why you needed to build a network, what type of network you created and how the network functions at present. If the network has a clear international base, this will further help to increase the interest in your network. However, the network needs to have a logical function in your profession. You must indicate how you use this network and how vast the coverage is. Convince the reviewer that the network will be beneficial to the Chevening community for some reason. The selling point will be whether or not your recruiter network has an actual use in a specific line of business or profession and whether or not the network will actually have a definite purpose should it become a part of the Chevening community because of your inclusion as a scholar.

Scholarship / My commitment to Academics - Chevening Networking [3]

Tosin, this essay does not signify a currently working network on your part. While I understand that you could consider these contacts as a part of your legacy network, these are very far back in years and were acquired during your internship. It would appear to the reviewer that you do not have any existing network at present and therefore, could result in your non consideration as a potential scholar. As I am sure that you are currently a hardworking professional who has developed a more national scale of contacts, it would be best for you to try to simply explain how you develop your contacts but, relate that to a currently existing network. Narrate how your current network has served your career purposes and how you have helped those in your network so that you can prove that the Chevening community should be interested in acquiring these series of contacts through your addition as a scholar.

Finally, feel free to mention the names of notable people in your networking essay on the understanding that the very same people whose names you mentioned will be writing your letters of recommendation for the scholarship. If they are not the same people as the referee, then you should not indicate their names. So get their permission to mention them by name through the assurance that the recommendation letter is forthcoming. If not, then mention their position but not their names.

Graduate / I am the master of my fate and I am the captain of my soul. Business Analytics Master SOP [3]

Komal, since you have indicated 2 highly different, unrelated career paths in this essay, you must find a way to reconcile the two into a unique career path that will best utilize your interest in data analytics as well as your degree in Computer Science. Now you claim that you wish to complete an MS in Business analytics but you have not given any justified purpose for this interest. That is what is clearly missing in this essay, the purpose for the interest.

Now, if you had indicated that perhaps you wish to start your own travel agency, when you can combine your interest in big data and your degree in computer science, then you might have a more convincing purpose for this combined career path / change in current career direction. One of the problems in this essay is that there is no clear training that indicates a career in Business Analytics is in the cards for you. Being an able cabin crew member at an airline does not mean that you will succeed in this of work. Don't you have any other experience that can better indicate a training in business that can help convince the reviewer you have some business background to help you merge the two interests.

As for the computer science part, at least you have a college degree in the field which, though unused on your part as a profession, serves to give you the analytics foundation for the line of study. The essay you wrote is honest but not really indicative of a proper purpose and supporting information that can convince anybody that you have what it takes to complete this course and deliver on its requirements. In fact, the latter part, about you trying to find a job and you coming in on a dependent's visa will not serve to help your purpose at all. Only academic, professional, and other related experiences to your chosen course will help improve your SOP presentation.

Writing Feedback / Nha Trang - DESCRIBE A WELL-KNOWN DESTINATION YOU HAVE VISITED [5]

@lahoaithu I don't really find this essay interesting in a creative manner. You are just narrating your experience there, without involving the reader in the process. A really effective creative writing piece should involve the reader in the scenes and experiences rather than simply informing the reader as you do here. Take the reader on the adventure with you. Don't just give highlights of your trip. Be the tour guide. Liven it up. Be immersive instead of simply descriptive. There is a big difference between the two. The first one, creates a writer who knows how to use his imagination to engage the reader and the latter, simply knows how to write and describe things. I am convinced that you would rather be the former right? Next time, aim to be creative and involving rather than simply descriptive and informative.

Scholarship / The desire to surround myself with wise people made had impact on my leadership and influence skills [3]

Awab, all of these information can be summed up into your character as a leader within one paragraph. The information in this essay is only good for establishing the opening paragraph of your leadership and influencing essay. While this is an interesting essay, it can only be used in its entirety for a simple MS application essay as part of a personal statement. It is not leadership and influencing material.

For the leadership and influencing essay, you need to be able to prove not only professional leadership and influencing, but you need to prove that you can do this in a national or local government scale. Prove that you can make a change in your country or community once you go back home after you complete your studies. The reviewer is looking for future leaders in the country and those people usually have far stronger representations than you do of the required skills. Professional involvement is preferred but community service is also acceptable, provided it is recent and still existing as a part of your volunteer programs. I would however, prefer that you represent professional skills instead because your competitors are highly qualified applicants in their line of work.

You can't use this essay. Write a new one that better reflects the requirements within the proper requirements of the essay.

Undergraduate / Fresh off the Boat and Me - US College Essay (Harvard) [3]

Harrison, this is a tremendously busy essay. It is so busy that you aren't really depicting a true background, identity, interest or talent in the story. There is so much going on that your presentation is disconnected from one another most of the time. Making it a bit difficult to follow the point of your essay. You have two choices at this point. Either pick one of the three indicated topics to focus your writing on (you were never supposed to write about all 3 in the first place) or, use the open topic prompt and provide a unique prompt for your given essay. That way you won't have to write a new essay, you can retain the title you created, and all you will have to do is develop a prompt that better suits what you have just written. If you decide to retain this essay, just create a prompt that merges your family history and your successes in life.

Writing Feedback / Sports can be bridge to peace and understanding between countries and societes [2]

Tran, you have a good prompt paraphrase but your response to the question is missing. What is your measured response to the extent question? I am afraid that you misunderstood the prompt and wrote simply a personal opinion essay from beginning to end. The essay should be a response to the question being asked in the original prompt. That is the basis of the thesis statement of your prompt paraphrase. Look at the missing piece in your first paragraph below:

Question: To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Response: Not only does it cause a decline in international conflicts but it can also help the people in a country have an opportunity to show their patriotism.

As you can see, what happened in your response is, you changed the total discussion parameters of the essay. Instead of providing the extent response (ex. partially, totally, significantly, wholly, etc.) you provided a personal opinion instead for the rephrased thesis part. Therefore, this essay will get a failing mark in the task accuracy section. Which means that the essay, though proper in explanation in the reasoning paragraphs, but lacking a concluding summary at the end, will not be able to get passing marks in an actual test. Aside from the reasons previously mentioned, there are also the remaining scoring criteria deductions that the essay will be getting, all of which combine for a negative score on your part.

Scholarship / Motivation Letter for Image Processing and Computer Vision Erasmus Mundus Scholarship [2]

Minh, your motivation letter is too long and is not really qualified as a motivational letter because you wrote a personal statement instead. A motivational letter should take no more than 6 paragraphs to complete, 5 being the ideal number of paragraphs for this presentation. You should only be introducing your academic background in relation to your chosen masters degree course.

Signify your motivation for additional studies by informing the reviewer about your prior academic and professional qualifications. Don't be too wordy as you are now. Just be direct to the point as follows:

Par. 1: The motivation or objective for your studies
Par. 2: Your academic background that supports your claim of having the theoretical foundation for the course.
Par. 3: An example of your professional background in relation to your chosen course that will show a continuity of the educational process.
Par. 4: Explain why you feel that you will be able to succeed in your future profession after completing this program
Par. 5: Highlight your skills, strong points, and interpersonal relationships that will ensure that you will be a positive addition to the program.
Par. 6: Why do you believe that you will make for a better scholar than the other students? Close on this note.

Writing Feedback / Problems with student behavior. What causes this and how to react. [2]

Nguyen, your approach to the prompt paraphrase / thesis statement is incorrect. The other problem, is that you added a discussion in the concluding summary that was unnecessary. The reasoning paragraphs are strong and well written though. Those are the major problems with your work. There are some minor issues as well that I will be pointing out in this review. Let me get into more details below.

As I previously mentioned, your opening paraphrase has an incorrect approach to the discussion instruction. Unlike the comparison opinion essays, this is a direct question essay. For a direct question essay, you must present at least one direct response for each question. This will help you to better create your discussion outline for the reasoning paragraphs and also, offer the reader a quick insight into what the discussion you will be presenting is all about. So, rather than saying "This essay will...", you should instead be saying; "One of the possible causes of this problem are..." and "A doable solution can be found in..." as a response to both questions in individual sentence presentations as part of the prompt paraphrase.

I also believe that you have a slight prompt deviation in the essay because you focused your paraphrase on teachers, when the proper synonym to use would have been educational institutions, faculty, or school house. Not teachers because they are not specifically mentioned in the paraphrase. The discipline of the student is an overall academic problem and not just a teacher's problem. However, that slight mistake did not take away from your effective reasoning so you can forget that for now. Just make sure you don't do it again in the future.

A review of your concluding paragraph shows that you are closing the essay with a strong summary of the causes and solutions you presented. However, you added a personal opinion as the final sentence, which was based on a different topic that was not part of the original summary or given presentation. That was a personal opinion that was not required by the prompt and therefore, should not have been presented because it opened a new line of discussion which, as you very well know, cannot be done when presenting a concluding paragraph. Always review the prompt requirements and make sure to deliver only the required data. Don't add information that isn't specifically asked for because that could change the slant of your essay or, as in this case, create an open ended essay which means you did not effectively close your discussion.

By the way, just as you should not write less than 250 words, you also should not write more than 300 words. At 448 words, you did not only write too many words but you ran out of time to actually write this essay. You also did not leave any time for you to review your content for clarity, cohesiveness, sentence structure, and other grammar related issues that may have an effect on your final score. Next time, write using a timer. If you are not done by the time the timer indicates the end of 30 minutes, you are writing too much information in the essay. You should use no more than 25 minutes for your draft. The last 5-10 minutes should be used for review and editing. That is the best way to improve your score.

Scholarship / ACTIVE MOBILITY. LEADERSHIP ESSAY. CHEVENING [3]

Maria, you focused too much on explaining the project in the essay that your leadership skills became a mere after thought. To top it off, there is no credible reference to any influencing skills coming from you within the workplace either. This essay only defines what you think leadership means, how you think you embody it, what your work situation was, and how you led the project. You led, but did not influence anything in the project it seems. Your role was more of delegation rather than actual leadership. You were more of a friend to your team subordinates rather than an influencer. You did not really have any real problems with the project that challenged your leadership and influencing abilities on a professional or community level. So this essay is nothing more than an exercise in narrative writing on your part. There is no effective or remarkable sense of leadership and influencing coming out of this piece of work.

While indicating that the project was a success indicates your ability to complete a project, that does not necessarily exemplify an effective leadership or influencing role, which is what the reviewer will be looking for in your presentation. This essay just doesn't work. You need to display your conflict resolution abilities at the very least, on a professional scale if not a community based one that highlights your leadership and influencing roles. This is a non-competitive essay that cannot help strengthen your application during a time when you are up against some of the best qualified applicants for the Chevening Scholarship.

Scholarship / Leadership means that you keep learning all your life, gain experience and pass it to others [3]

Mahmoud these are not the kind of leadership roles that you should be presenting for assessment as a Chevening scholar. The credentials you present are too inferior and does not qualify you for the scholarship. There is no reference to the possibility of you being considered for a leadership and influencing role in your country at present or in the future. All you did in this essay was narrate some sort of leadership skills, but not really profession related skills that could be considered a marked representation of your leadership and influencing traits.

The reviewer is not interested in your biography, which is what you are presenting here. He is only interested in actual and strong leadership and influencing examples from you based on your current profession. That is severely lacking in this essay which renders this piece of writing unusable. You must focus on your current profession, any leadership and influencing role you performed, and narrate how this might signify a future role for you as a leader in your current profession whose influence will be far reaching.

There are numerous samples of Chevening leadership and influencing essays at this forum. All written by your competitors. Read their work so that you will understand why you need to come up with a more competitive piece of leadership and influencing essay. Your current essay will not make it past the screening round based on the qualifications of your competitors at the moment.

Writing Feedback / Some people believe the range of technology is increasing the gap between people. Argument essay [3]

Fuad, please do not take what I am about to tell you in the wrong way. My advise is being given in the form of constructive criticism in order to help you improve with your upcoming practice tests. This essay is not going to get you even close to a passing score in the actual IELTS test. This will only get you a score of around 3 at the most due to severe problems existing in the essay.

The very first problem that is very obvious in your essay is that you are not capable of writing even simple English sentences in a manner that can be easily understood by the reader. Most of your writing suffers because of the improper sentence structure and word usage. It would be best for you to start intensive English language lessons in order to improve that part of the problem. You must read, think, speak, and write in English 24/7 if you want to improve those basic skills of yours. If you do not improve your ability to use the English language, then you will not pass this test.

Try to make sure that you explain each topic sentence in every paragraph completely. That means, not just giving reasons for the topic discussion without explaining it thoroughly. You should remember that the best written IELTS tests are those that contain only one topic for discussion per paragraph within 3-5 sentences. That way, the total 5 paragraph presentation will come across as clearly explained and easily understandable. Just remember this, you are not being tested on the number of reasons that you know, you are being tested on how well you can explain one reason based on the given topic.

In the 2nd paragraph, you did not clearly explain how technology has made virtual studying available to all. Nor how does internet shopping and other technological advancements relate to how the gap between the rich and poor has been further developed because of these tech advancements.

I cannot even begin to move on to explaining the other points for improvement in your essay because the problems I mentioned above are the ones that have a direct relation with your ability to score well on the test. Fix those 20 problems first then we can try to fix the remaining problems of your essay writing skills.

Please refer to the abundant Task 2 written examples at this forum as part of your review process. Learn from the mistakes of others, improve based on what you learn from their lessons. That way you can also improve your capacity to write proper prompt responses based on the given instructions. Something you failed to do in this essay because you forgot to give your personal opinion at the end as required by the prompt instructions.

Writing Feedback / There is a different approach on how the organization gives promotion to their employees. [3]

Hi Nuradia, you have written an essay that can possible gain a score of 3 in an actual test setting. The main problem with your presentation is that your sentences are not well developed structurally and your presentations often provide confusion in terms of meaning to the reader. Let me show you some sample problem sentences with corresponding corrections below:

- ... the best position depends on the organization's characters.
An organization will never promote on the basis of character although that is one of the promotion considerations when looking at a candidate. However, you are using the term in the wrong manner in this sentence because character depicts the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. A company will more likely promote from the ranks based on the needs of the company. That means, the company will promote the person who performs best in the field that the company requires improvement upon. This error shows vocabulary problems on your part. You got the meaning of the word wrong although the reader can guess what you were trying to say.

- Despite, this kind of organization ...
Despite what? Despite means without being affected by; in spite of. You cannot use despite as you did in this sentence because the word, without a follow up explanation means nothing. This left the sentence without a proper structure and subject.

- by knowing the character of the organization
Again, it is more proper to use the word "needs".

It is totally depends on the organization's needs.
- Finally! You used the right term to explain what you meant. Good job!

Graduate / Personal Statement for university International Relations Program [3]

Nicole. I see that you have taken the lessons that you have learned from your Chevening application essays and applied to the writing of this one. That is why you have done a good job in developing your response to the essay prompts. I do not see any need to change anything nor edit any of the content because you have successfully provided all of the required information to the reviewer.

The essay highlights your competence as a future diplomat. Although, I would have liked to see a reference to your own personal ambition of becoming an ambassador when you mentioned the MUN. I believe that since that is the final objective of your career, you should have somehow inserted that as a highlight in this discussion. Then again that's just me. Even without that reference, the essay is strong and useful for its purpose. Good job !

Undergraduate / BEING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COURT -- (COLLEGE ESSAY) [2]

Ameya, don't use this essay. The common app prompts come with 2 specific and separate topics for discussion. Those are previously listed and should not be joined into one essay because each prompt has a specific set of requirements. You cannot join the two essay prompts into a new one. Rather, the common app, open topic essay is meant to address a topic that is not included in the common app listings. That is your opportunity to address something about you as a person, a student, a child or, it is the opportunity for you to inform the reviewer about something of importance to you that you feel will add value to your application. That is why you cannot combine the two prompts in order to create a new discussion.

If you want to address an obstacle you overcame, then write about that alone. If you want to address your background, then write about that. Nothing else. The two topics cannot be combined because they address 2 different yet specific issues about you as a person and student. It would be better if you can find an original prompt to use your essay with if you feel that you really want to use this. An essay which, by the way, isn't impressive at all in presentation nor information.

It is not impressive nor interesting because you cannot reconcile the two topics within your presentation. They contradict in terms of presentation. It does not work. Personally, I would like you to just choose a topic from the common app prompts so that all you have to do is further develop the relevant presentation from this existing essay. You already have the work done so just complete it.

Scholarship / Meeting new African people - What excites you. Mastercard Scholarship [2]

NWACHUKWU , simply being involved in social media campaigns for various causes and organizations does not prove a passion nor a topic that is important to you. Social media participation and friends / networks created via social media is not recognized as a true method of keeping in touch with people and making contact with them. These are all too superficial in presentation to be taken seriously by the reviewer.

If you truly wish to improve this essay then remove the social media presentation and use real life, physical interactivity based participation in your causes. Use organization names, explain how you volunteer there, why does doing that for the cause make you feel good? How are you able to impart your personal values to the people whom you have helped through these organizations?

These are the information that is expected for presentation in this statement based upon the prompt. A truly passionate and socially conscious person would not just rely on social media to leave a mark, that person would be out there leaving his mark and working with others to actually promote the cause within a real time set up.

Graduate / AASSupporting Statements. How did you choose your proposed Course and Inst. M. Accounting ANU [4]

Zamir, your approach to the prompt is too simplistic. You need to further develop the reason you chose the course and the institution as well. What you have here explains the predicament of the tax area you are working in, but not the specific points that have a direct effect on your profession. That means, your essay is informative in a general manner, but it needs to be more informative in a manner more specific to your professional goals first and academic needs second.

Therefore, it would be better if your tried to develop a 2nd version of your response. One that better addresses the prompt by responding to the following guide questions:

Proposed Course:
1.What is your current position at the DGT?
2. What are your duties and responsibilities in that position?
3. What are your perceived weaknesses in completing your work tasks?
4. What course do you believe you have to study in order to improve in your workplace participation?
5. How do you see your studies in this proposed course helping you to get a job promotion and why?

Chosen Institution:
1. How did you hear about the university?
2. What makes the course offering for the Masters in Accounting the best offering at the Australian National University?
3. Which courses specifically relate to your aforementioned problems in the workplace?
4. How do you see yourself applying what you have learned?

Using the above guide questions, you should be able to write an extremely relevant response within only 2 paragraphs. You don't need more than 2 paragraphs to fully explain your academic and professional goals for this prompt. The questions I provided will help you deliver a more focused and relevant series of informative sentences that the reviewer will be able to use in considering the validity of your application.

Undergraduate / Essay about the environment I was raised in and how it shaped me as a person. [3]

Amanda, the truth is, the essay is very clear in terms of your description and discussion of every aspect / topic provided in the essay. The main problem that I see is that you did not divide the essay into the proper topic paragraphs that would have helped with the clarity and coherence of the presentation. You may want to divide the paragraphs into topics instead of stringing them together into a single, lengthy paragraph presentation as you do now.

If I were to ask you to remove any aspect of this essay, it would be the part where you indicated that your parents would be supportive of any lifestyle that you choose. Since you do not appear to be "coming out" to the reviewer, that single sentence is misplaced and lacks discussion depth in terms of explaining something about you to the reviewer. Aside from that sentence, the whole essay just needs formatting adjustments in order to make it work better. At least, that is my opinion of your work.

Scholarship / The necessary platform to acquire the required knowledge and experience; Chosen courses essay [3]

Babatunde, you are not properly addressing the prompt requirements. The first paragraph of this essay should be based on your university history. The major that you took, the internship, the grades that you had, any remarkable achievements that imply you are scholar material. The second paragraph should explain your current profession in relation to your general relevant work experience. Discuss your employment history in a summary form to justify the skills that you have developed in relation to your current profession. After that, you need to breakdown your university choices.

None of your university and course choices are justified by an academic and / or professional foundation on your part. In order to convince the reviewer that you are going to be able to complete the masters degree course, you must convince him that your career path is leading you towards this course and that your career progression relies on these additional studies to help make you a better professional in the field. You have not indicated anything of the sort.

It isn't enough to explain the course and what you hope to learn. You have to convince the reviewer that you are on the right career path through your course choices. Your final paragraph should close by extending a definite explanation of how your career goals tie in with your desire for higher academic education. Without it, your essay will not be considered helpful to your application nor prompt responsive.

Undergraduate / A custom question on academic and career goals, that received criticism [3]

Ali, your essay is so roundabout in responding to the prompt that you ended up giving a non-response to the essay. When asked who or what influenced you, pick one of the two, do not try to represent both because when you do that, you end up giving incomplete responses to the prompt. You should not be using such simple responses such as "my cousin gifted me with a Mechnix toy set for my 9th birthday." What kind of answer is that? Exactly is as laughable response that no reviewer is going to take seriously.

A proper response would be, "While the Mechanix Toy set I received on my 9th birthday introduced me to the world of Engineering, it was not until I came across the work of noted engineer XXX that I became set on my career path. He influenced my career choice because... It was because of him that I set my specific career goal as..."

You don't need all of the fluff that you speak of in this essay. Instead, clearly explain, from beginning to end how you were influenced into this career and what your professional goals have become because of it.

Scholarship / Can anyone help me with the essay for Endeavour Scholarships and Fellowships application ? [4]

Lin, your essay does not respond to the question posed by the prompt at all. I believe that your non-responsive writing is because you actually do not know anything about the program that you are hoping to participate in at this point. This is supposed to be leadership activity on your part but you are speaking of an internship where you are not going to be developing any leadership skills. You There are no details about how that might be achieved presented in your essay. There is also a confusion as to the host organization because you first speak of NDTV in New York but towards the end, indicate that you will be working with a media organization in Australia through the internship the program provides. I thought that the NDTV internship was the whole point of this essay?

I believe that this essay is confusing and does not relate at all to the prompt requirements. It would be better for you to write the essay when you have more details to work with. Try to find out specific details in relation to the prompt questions otherwise, I do not believe you will be able to write a proper response essay for this prompt. If you don't have information about the internship program, then there isn't any basis for your application assessment and you will be rejected as an applicant. Don't expect to win a sponsorship if you cannot answer the questions related to your application.

Scholarship / Essay on my Leadership and influencing skills as part of requirements to win Chevening Scholarship [5]

Taofiq, it is unfortunate that you do not have any really meaningful leadership abilities indicated in this essay that convey your ability to become a noted influencer and leader in your profession. The reviewer is not interested in the training that you received as a future leader. He is interested in learning about your leadership and influencing style in relation to the improvement of your community or your nation. You do not display such type of leadership nor influencing skills in this essay because these are too amateur and non profession related.

What you need to do is show the reviewer that you are an upcoming leader and influencer in the field of medical or biotechnology in your country. Something that showcases your leadership style in a manner that says, "If this guy completes his MS course, he will go back and improve the lives of his people through his leadership and he can influence the government or related health organizations to help his people become healthier. I should take a chance and review the other essays of this person for further consideration." This essay instead tells the reviewer, "He has leadership training but no actual implementation skills. There isn't any proof that this applicant has what we are looking for. I cannot progress his application to the next level."

Academic research is good. Academic leadership is acceptable, if you were not up against professional scientists, scientific researchers, medical doctors, and other high profile government health officer candidates who have verifiable accomplishments in relation to the prompt. You are not in line to compete with them based on this essay. Unless you can prove actual competition on the professional front, based on true national or community leadership and influencing skills, then you don't have a chance to compete past the screening round.

Try to write an essay that reflects your professionalism along with the development of your leadership and influencing skills in a manner that highlights a notable accomplishment that can lead to your consideration as a future leader and influencer in your country. You cannot use any part of this existing essay. It is not competitive at all for the purpose you wrote it.

Undergraduate / William and Mary "What Makes You Unique?" Essay: Amiibo Collecting Essay [3]

This is a highly engaging, imaginative, and inclusive essay Pietro. I was immersed in your search and actually rooting for you to find all the missing pieces. It really introduced a different side of your personality that, although part of your non-academic endeavor, gives the reviewer a clear idea of the type of determined student you will be should you become part of the student community. You did a very good job when it came to combining the inspirational, impressive, and comedic aspects of the prompt requirements. Good job!

One point for improvement though. I am not sure how the unboxing discussion fits into the presentation. I think you should add one paragraph that brings the discussion full circle, back to the unboxing discussion. If you don't go back to that topic, the essay feels incomplete. All you have to do is create an all the more interesting narration of whether you unboxed your collection or not and then add another sentimental closing line to drive your point home.

Good job overall though. You should be proud of having written this essay in such a manner.

Undergraduate / What have motivated you to study in the eight-year program? My love for Science [2]

Sydney, when you say that you were too young to understand what the illness of your uncle meant, exactly how young was that? More importantly? Why was his cancer treatment seemingly a family reunion of sorts each time? Why were you, at such a young age present for these treatments? It may be best for you to explain how old you were at the time and why you were not scared of being in the hospital while the treatment for your relative was ongoing. That would better explain your early exposure to the medical field in relation to your experiences in medicine.

Your motivation is non-existent. You sound just like any average med school interested student. There is no strong motivating factor either in relation to your exposure to cancer treatments or other patients at the hospital. The essay isn't strong enough to explain the development of your interest in medicine nor what sort of motivation you have for pursuing this career.

Some questions that could provide a motivational response collectively are:

1. What field do you want to specialize in and why?
2. How does your experience with illness in your family influence your decision regarding medical school? Remove the reference to prayers at this point and stick to medical science or science subjects. You are not trying to gain a medical scholarship from a religious institution. That constant reference is out of place in a medical science based application.

3.How do you see yourself becoming an asset to the medical field in 8 years? By any chance, do you have an ambitious cancer treatment program you hope to start? Or maybe do further research into early cancer detection and non-invasive treatments? Perhaps a career in auto-immunology research and development for cancer patients? These would be strong motivating factors to present.

Or, you could look to the objectives of the medical school for a motivation:

The Rice/Baylor Medical Scholars Program (MSP) promotes the education of students who are scientifically competent, compassionate and socially conscious.

Therefore, your motivating factors need to reflect something within these 3 areas or all 3 areas of medical study focus. Discussing your volunteer service at a hospital, hospice, or home, in relation to the aforementioned factors that could have helped to increase your interest in medicine could also help improve your essay. Try to write a new more relevant essay while you still can.

Undergraduate / Essay about a story of my life that demonstrates my character or helped to shape it [2]

Sabrina, I learned more about the type of character your father has and your family struggles in this essay much more than I learned about a story of your life that helped to shape who you are today. While I can understand how the events leading up to the move to the US may play an important factor in character building, the way you narrated the events removed the focus from you because you chose to focus on all your family members and their own personal growths and determination stories instead. This essay is misdirected in presentation.

In order to better this essay, you must change the content or better yet, write a totally new essay. This time, start from the point where your family had finally moved to the US. Talk about how you adjusted to life in the country and how you overcame any hindrances to your blending in with the US culture and norms. Talk about your culture shock, adjustments you had to make, how this affected you socially, mentally, and emotionally so that you can tell the reviewer how you overcame things in order to become the person you are today. Those are the events and incidents that had a direct contribution to your character in terms of helping to shape it.

Undergraduate / The powerful aromas of ginger and turmeric - 'encountering an obstacle' essay [2]

Sam, the prompt you picked does not fit the response that you wrote. This is not an obstacle you had to overcome. What you experienced was a realization during an event that helped to spark an understanding of yourself and others. Therefore, the prompt you should be using for this essay should be changed to the following:

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

I believe that this prompt works best for your essay because you came to realize something about yourself, your culture, and the social norms that surround you. There is a clear personal growth in terms of accepting your culture in a world that you thought would be judgmental, an understanding of yourself as you came to realize there was nothing to fear, and an understanding that the world around you doesn't really care about petty stuff such as traditional foods of other cultures becoming part of the lunch presentation in the form of your boxed lunch at your school.

Consider changing the prompt, I believe your essay will benefit from the simply change. It also saves you to the time of having to write a new essay. Just polish this one a little bit more with editing and punctuation checks. Try not to use the term "As I" within 2 closely presented paragraphs as the opening phrase. Vary it up to create interest in the paragraph.

Graduate / ESSAY- MSc in Finance UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER [2]

Since this is an academic essay that is supposed to render itself as serious as a heart attack in its presentation, you need to remove all references to "etc." in your presentation. That creates a lack of academic seriousness and shows a disrespect to the reviewer. Stay focused on an academic and professional tone at all times.

Your immediate career goals and your back up plans need to represent the strategy that you will use to get hired by these companies since you are a non-American in the times of "America First" trying to get hired by an American company. You will not be their priority hire based on the new focus of their economic strategy. So, how do you plan to stand out in terms of qualifications after you study so that your immediate career plan and back up career plan companies might decide that you are a better person to hire than the American candidate applying alongside you?

Since America is engaged in a trade war with China at the moment, it would be best to skip the part about you taking what you learned back to China to improve your family business. Rather, focus on helping the American economy get ahead first, then going back to China to help your family business after you have "repaid" your host country for the training and work experience it has given you. Indicate about a 2 year period for this as part of your long term career plan.

Scholarship / Sponsors and campaigns - Leadership essay for my Chevening application-Maedeh [3]

Maedeh, you have to delete this essay and write a totally new one. The target of your new essay should be to be able to relate how your leadership and influencing style has helped to improve the lives of the people you come into contact with in Iran. A simple task such as the garbage clean up, though national in scale, is too low key and not really indicative of a leadership and influencing style. Your academic and association experience is even worse because that did not have any national impact.

By finding key leadership and influencing characteristics of yourself in your current professional setting or through a significant community service activity, you should be able to prove that you have the best interest of your country or the best interest in terms of helping your countrymen, at heart. That means, your leadership essay needs to present specific information about a particular cause in your profession that you are focused on participating in because it can help improve the state of your country and countrymen.

Without a reference to the concern for a true national or community based situation or problem, supported by the movements you made to change that situation (leadership and influencing), then it won't matter how many books and journals you read or leadership documentaries you watched. You will not be able to prove that you have the ability to become a future leader and influencer in your country in the future as required by the scholarship program.

Essays / Detailed examples/position? An Enquiry about Chevening Scholarship LEADERSHIP Essay [6]

Ghaidaa, your essay content is extremely weak from what I can tell. You are focusing on simplistic leadership skills alone when Chevening is looking for national leaders and influencers in the country. You have to prove that you can make a difference in the lives of your students beyond being just their teacher. While all teachers are admirable, not all of them can be considered to be true leaders and influencers beyond the classroom setting. What else do you do other than teach the students? How do you, in your current capacity, help to train them to become future leaders in your country?

The essay becomes stronger through examples that portray a national relationship to the goal of the essay. Notable community organization membership on your part can help improve your essay. Provided the NGO is of note and the activities you participated in clearly indicate that you held an important leadership role, the situation you were faced with is something that has a direct impact on the lives of the people, and that your solution (influence) led to the betterment of the community.

Go beyond the simplistic idea of leadership and influencing as you have it understood now. You need to go the extra mile to prove that you have the ability or the resources to change the lives of your countrymen should you be awarded and once you complete your studies under the Chevening sponsorship. The national impact of your leadership and influencing skills at present are very important to this presentation. National impact in leadership and influencing is the key phrase here.