Writing Feedback / Some people think that the students should have a gap year? [3]

@Ahnne This particular prompt asks you to discuss the advantages or disadvantages of a student taking a gap year before attending college. It does not ask for your opinion as to whether or not you agree to having a student take a gap year. Based on that mistake, you will have failed the TA section of this test immediately. This is not an agree or disagree essay. This is a comparison essay that does not require your personal opinion.

In addition to that mistake, all of your paragraphs only present subjects for discussion but does not actually explain why you believe these reasons as advantages or disadvantages. Each paragraph should have only one topic for discussion because the remaining 4 sentences should be used to defend your presentation regarding the (dis)advantages of the discussion. Without it, all of your paragraphs are not fully developed and will see low scores in the C&C scoring section.

You are also showing a lack of care when it comes to your punctuation skills. Your closing paragraph is missing a period at the end. In addition to that, the closing paragraph is supposed to be a summary of the body of paragraph reasons. Since you did not do that, expect to lose further points in terms of TA scoring.

Please remember to post the complete and original prompt for your essay the next time you post your work for review so that everyone who decides to advise you will be doing so based on proper instructions. Had it not been for my familiarity with the topic, I would not have been able to properly assess your essay and given you a generic or misguided set of advice instead. In order for you to receive helpful advice, you need to give us the criteria for reviewing your essay first.

Scholarship / Endeavour Scholarship / Proposed Program: Sustainable Design [4]

The admin has decided that your question warrants a response. So here is my detailed explanation regarding the reasons why your last paragraph is not enough for a response to the questions provided.

1. What your proposed program is intended to achieve - This is not about the objective of the class(es) you will be taking. This is about how you plan to apply the lessons you will be learning and skills you will be developing during the course of your study in your actual job. How do you plan to apply these information to your own architectural designs or client requested concepts? That is what this program proposes to achieve based on professional / career objectives you have set out for yourself. The reviewer could care less about what the course proposes to teach the students. It is how the students use what they learn that is important.

2. Details, including proposed dates and locations of any proposed fieldwork and/or internships.
- You do not indicate any study plans for your course that includes the required internship dates, company where you will be completing your internship, and the duration of this practical exposure in the field of architecture. A sample response would be:

Towards the end of my classes, the course will allow me to have a 4 week internship at the XFY & Partners architectural firm. The architectural firm is known for is sustainable designs in relation to... which is one of the sustainable goals I hope to attain in my own designs for... My internship shall begin on November 1, 2018 and end on December 1, 208. I will most likely be assigned to the Grafting Golf Course project of the company located in Alvam Bay, Practical City. Here I plan to develop my skills in the area of ... in relation to my future plans as a ...

I hope that my expanded explanation can help you better revise your essay. Good luck with your application.

Undergraduate / College Essay for University of Texas at San Antonio (Topic A) Household, community, and environment [2]

Sofie, this essay has a razor sharp focus on your unique family unit that helps it tell an interesting story about who you are and how you came to be. However, your story is presented in "chapters" so to speak so each chapter of your life presentation should be given a separate paragraph. That makes it easier to follow the narrative you are presenting and also helps to highlight certain aspects of the presentation.

I don't think you should start the presentation at age 4 though. There wasn't really much going on in that part of your life based on the manner you were telling it. However, if you could add more information about how your mother was something like a wonder woman of sorts, raising a newborn and you at the same time, with an indication of the problems your family life faced at the time, then your opening sentence will carry more emotional impact for the reader. The part about her being in labor but caring for you at the same time draws attention but requires further development.

With regards to your father, consider discussing some points where you were in disagreement with him that led yo to eventually choose to live with your mother. That will be more convincing for the reviewer to read instead of complaining about having to move your things between homes. A complicated relationship that left you with no choice but to pick one parent over the other would make more sense.

It is because of these questions that I have about your relationship with your father that makes me question if he is included in your definition of "my parents". Since you claim to not spend a lot of time with your dad and you don't get along, I think you need to be more definite about what your definition of your family nucleus unit truly is.

The complete presentation is impressive. It is a very good depiction of who you are and why. Although some questions exist and clarifications are needed at certain points, I believe this is a strong enough essay to catch the attention of the reviewer once it is read.

Scholarship / Chevening Leadership Essay - LEADING THROUGH INNOVATION [3]

Bayu, delete the first half of this essay. The only relevant part that you should work on developing is the part that discusses your entry into Pertamina. You may begin by discussing the type of leadership training you received from them, Be particular about the areas of leadership where you believe you stood out or gained recognition for it. That way you indicate your leadership style without actually having to explain it in detail.

I want you to revise your team leadership presentation though because there is too much focus on the "I" of your leadership but not enough of the "we" recognition in terms of team influencing. Your essay glosses over the most important aspects of the essay which is the example of your leadership and influencing skills in action. You are not really convincing the reviewer as you tend to tell him rather than show him your abilities. It is the example that is important in this discussion. Not the definition nor the run-down of your leadership and influencing presentation.

Specifics are required and highlights are important in the presentation. By doing so, you will most likely develop a competitive leadership and influencing essay. I don't doubt that you can do that because you were trained by the company to become a leader. You just have to make sure you focus on that development of your leadership and influencing style.

By editing the essay in the manner that I suggest, you will definitely fall below the word count and have room to further improve the essay because of the paragraphs you will be removing from the early part of the presentation. That word allowance will be very useful in completing the edited version of your essay.

Writing Feedback / Cbest essay topic - Is individual effort necessary to combat pollution and global warming? [2]

Anita, I am afraid that you will not like the feedback I am about to give you. The score for this essay will be a 1 because you failed to focus and discuss the prompt materials. You have shown that you lack an understanding of the assignment task so your discussion is not on track with the target audience and discussion purpose. Here is an outline of the mistake that you made:

Discussion instruction: Discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with this opinion. Support your opinion with specific reasons.
Your Task Response: I believe that it is important to improve our environment and protect our planet from global warming. Individual effort is necessary to combat these problems which are harmful for our planet

Based on the above outline, I am sure that you can see what caused the error in your presentation and why your total discussion of the essay was not on the mark when it came to addressing the prompt. You should only discuss what is being required. You should never create your own discussion topic as that will cause the automatic failure of your whole essay test.

You failed to discuss the statement as it was provided. You misunderstood the instructions and you did not present any information that will help you explain a response to the original prompt. What you did was offer suggestions as to how individuals can help save the environment. That was not the point of the discussion. It was this prompt deviation that highlighted how little you understood, no, let me correct that, how you did not understand the prompt at all and still continued to discuss the topic based on an idea you wanted to discuss even if it ran counter to the original prompt.

In addition to that, your 2nd sentence in the first paragraph is practically a cut and paste of the original prompt presentation. You need to change that presentation in such a manner that no keywords from the original essay are used . You actually need restate the prompt correctly, using your own words. This cut and paste method of paraphrasing is also another clue for me, as the examiner that highlights how you do not have a good enough grasp of the English language to be able to express your own understanding of a given topic. You understand what it means, but you cannot explain it in your own way. You lack the English vocabulary to express yourself in an original manner based on a given discussion topic.

These problems are not very easy to overcome because these are English comprehension / English understanding problems that cannot be corrected by simply practicing to write the essays. You need to first, be able to understand English words in the sense of the instructions, something that can only be done if you are willing to ask others to explain the prompt to you and how to approach it. Have the question or instructions translated to your native tongue for now in order to help you understand the point of the exercise. From that point, you should be able to slowly start understanding the English versions of the exam prompts.

Scholarship / Endeavour Scholarship / Proposed Program: Sustainable Design [4]

Carolina, you are supposed to write an essay that is understandable to a person who does not have a background in architecture. However, the while essay that you wrote uses so much technical jargon related to architecture and environmental architecture that a simple person who does not understand these areas of building will not easily be able to understand what you are trying to explain. Use simple terms. How would you explain this to your friend who has a different college major? How can you explain what this course is all about without the use of technical words? That is how the essay should be revised.

Additionally, you failed to provide the following information in your essay:
1. What your proposed program is intended to achieve
2. Details, including proposed dates and locations of any proposed fieldwork and/or internships.

You need to provide no more than 50-75 words per prompt response as there are 4 sets of information that you need to provide. So the shorter, more relevant, and more concise your explanation for each requirement, the better chances you have of meeting the word requirement of the essay in a relevant manner.

Writing Feedback / The reality of Traffic jams in my city [4]

Nguyen, since you did not tell us what this writing assignment is all about, it is really hard for me to analyze your essay. Save for the language problems that have already been pointed out to you, I feel like the essay has not developed content wise. You are telling us about the traffic situation in your country but you are not telling us what solutions the government has tried to place to ease the traffic situation. You are not even making suggestions as how you think the problem can be addressed in order to lighten the traffic situation. Of course my thoughts are based on some observations that may or may not be a requirement for your assignment.

At this point, aside from grammar corrections, I don't really see how we can help you improve your essay further. Please remember to include your assignment instructions next time you post your work for review here so that you can get the best help possible from us.

Writing Feedback / With the higher use of TV and computers we are under some threats posed by a range of violent scenes [2]

@annyht the last sentence in your closing statement should have been the thesis statement for your opening paraphrase. That is because your opinion is clearer in that sentence than in the final presentation of your opening presentation. This is the most appropriate thesis statement to present:


- The whole sentence would have made for a highly authoritative and strong thesis statement of your opinion. It's too bad that you chose to use it at the end of the essay instead. Both the opening and closing statements need to be on strong notes.

Most of your problems in this presentation have to do with word usage. For example, one cannot "put" a detrimental effect on children. However exposure to violence in media may "have" a detrimental effect on them. When it comes to censorship, violent or unsuitable scenes will not be considered. These scenes will be censored/removed instead. You cannot say "which punishing blows of life" but you can say "that punishing blows of life..."

Overall, the discussion is acceptable except in some instances when you only wrote 2 sentences per paragraph when the ideal is 3 sentences as a minimum sentence presentation for an increased C&C scoring possibility.

Writing 307 words will not be possible during the actual test due to time limitations. Aim for 250-275 words instead so you can edit your work before submission.. It appears that because you wrote too many words, you were not able to properly assess your essay prior to submitting it for a grade. Which is what caused the LR problems in your presentation.

Writing Feedback / Essay : some people think international car-free days are an effective way of reducing air pollution [2]

@langtieubich your work cannot be scored due to the missing prompt requirement. The instructions for the discussion are required as part of your work assessment. Without it, proper scoring is impossible. However, a general review of your essay may be provided.

You must be careful when it comes to punctuation use as the lack of it could have negative effects on your GRA score which uses your grammar and punctuation as its basis for scoring. Your last sentence in the opening paraphrase should have a period at the end of it. The period is currently missing.

LR scoring for your essay will be affected by your lack of proper knowledge when it comes to word meaning and usage, which will also have a direct GRA score as part of the grammar consideration. Some of your mistakes include:


- Correct term: Introduction of public transport.
- Instructions means to direct people to use public transport lanes while introduction means to create and instruct. You mean the latter.


- I can't even guess what you are trying to say in this sentence.
- Moree - More (wring spelling on your part)
- The sentence lacks a proper verb to describe the topic / subject of air deterioration.

Scholarship / Study in UK - Chevening Essay - The Importance of Visual Design in Museums. [4]

Jelita, you need to pick 3 universities with 3 courses. While you have the option to pick 3 courses at one university, the reality of the matter is that if you are refused for the university for one course, then it is most likely that you will not be approved for the other 2 courses as well. In order to ensure that you will end up being approved for a university and course, it is best to spread out your choices. However, if you really want to keep 2 courses in one university then you can do that.

Now your course choices should not be based on what your course thesis will be. Neither should it be based upon what you have not learned during your university studies. Rather, it must be based on your current skills and how a particular course can improve your job performance. Or, you should consider how a particular area of study is a continuation of your college studies which, in the end, will help you become a better trained professional in the field. Your second paragraph is not clear about these requirements. By the way, present it as one university per paragraph instead of 3 universities in one paragraph. It is difficult to read and you are not fully explaining your reasons within the paragraph, making it more difficult for the reviewer to get to know your mindset with regards to your university and course choices. You must create an impression of how your college studies gave you the foundation or background to succeed as a student in a particular course. Since this is a masters course you are applying to, it is understood that you are going to be doing continuing education so you have to show that there is a logical progression to yoru academic and professional career through the completion of your studies in each course.

Your second and third course choices are very little explained and not properly shedding light as to how the studies corelate to your profession. So what, if a certain professor is giving the lecture? Of what importance is it to your current profession? The essay is all about you, not the people visiting the museum. They are not the ones applying for the scholarship, you are.

Writing Feedback / In the days and ages, the world has been witched by the explosion of migration in big cities [2]

@nhiphuong since this is a direct question essay, you should be presenting at least one difficulty in the prompt paraphrase that includes a reference to a possible solution to the problem if living in the city. By the way, your first sentence is unclear. What exactly do you mean by the reference to "witched"? The root word of this term is "witch" which is defined as " A person, especially a woman, claiming or popularly believed to possess magical powers and practice sorcery". Now based on the definition of the root word, it is obvious that this is not the proper term to use in the sentence. Using such misinformed words repeatedly in your essay will result in point deductions for the LR score. Do not use words that you are uncertain about when it comes to the meaning of it. Do not use words that you think means what you think. Use only words that you understand the meaning of, even if those are only simple English words in order to prevent points deductions in relevant sections such as the LR and GRA sections.

Now, you failed to explain the difficulties of living in the city. All you did that list reasons why living in the city could be difficult. Since the essay requires you to explain reasons. You should pick 2 related reasons such as the expensive cost of rent and living expenses and the difficulty of finding a job in the city. Discussing both in a related manner that creates a proper explanation as to why these difficulties are important to note.

Your solution is not well thought out nor explained. It lacks in terms of paragraph development in relation to your C&C scoring. Overall the essay you wrote is not very convincing and lacks proper discussion development throughout. This can be improved by a more selective presentation of the discussion topics and a more relevant use of English vocabulary.

I would like to focus on these two problems of your presentation for now as these are the ones that had the most points deducted for it in this essay. I fear that if you do not improve in these sections, you will not be able to increase your scoring potential. Take note of my observations and try to correct your mistakes with your next essay. I look forward to reading your improved work.

Writing Feedback / IELTS task 2 - THE AGE AT WHICH PEOPLE RETIRE FROM WORK SHOULD BE RAISED CONSIDERABLY. TRUE OR NOT? [3]

Danka, excellent work. You stayed on track from beginning to end with the strongest justifications for your point of view. That is exactly what this kind of essay requires you to portray in your presentation. It is only at the end, in the concluding paragraph when you dropped the ball a bit by continuing to discuss reasons, without proper development when what you should have been doing is closing the discussion by presenting a wrap up of the reasons you presented. What you accidentally created was an open ended essay since you did not really close the discussion properly.

Another point for improvement on your part has to do with your vocabulary usage. Consequence means something bad resulted from a previous action. In this case, retiring at the age of 60 is a reward. A reward is a prize for doing something well. Retiring at the age of 60 is a reward for the hard work the worker did during his professional life.

Now, your sentence development is imperfect but allows the reader to still understand what you are trying to say. Therefore, you are still effective when it comes to your sentence presentation. However, that does not mean that you should not work at improving your grammar and sentence structure. The more fluent your English written language is and the smoother and more appropriate your sentence presentations, the higher your LR and GRA scores will be.

Graduate / Answering a question: why you are interested in the program and why you are a suitable candidate. [3]

Ge, there is no professional nor academic motivating factor clearly expressed in this essay. From the sounds of it, you only want to continue your studies into International Management because it is the expected next step in your educational process. None of your activities as an intern indicate a motivating factor career wise. Your undergraduate years did not really expose you to international management areas. So the foundation for your motivation is very unimpressive in this area.

You should consider your future career goals first and then think about how an international management degree fits into your future plans. That way you will develop a more believable professional motivation for your interest in the course. Once you know what your professional motivations are, you should be able to decipher what sort of academic theoretical and practical training you will need in order to achieve these goals. Then relate those goals to the reasons why you chose the institution to enroll in.

In order to create a stronger academic motivation, consider what programs the school offers and how it relates to your potential / future career. Indicate what specific classes and training programs directly relate to your learning interests and how it may be applied to your future career.

The keyword in the letter is motivation. That should be supported by an inspiration coming from your future plans. Therefore, your motivation letter should be focused on the future and have a little reference to looking back on your college education and your activities during that time. You are shifting gears from International Trade and Economics to International Management. You are actually doing this in reverse here so your motivating factors need to be connected somehow.

The best part of this essay that you should keep (while discarding the rest) is the part about your internship. That would be the best way to bridge the motivating factor gap between your undergraduate course and this new course you wish to complete. Your motivation could clearly come from the exposure to this international business field and the inter country dealings when it comes to closing a business deal. Consider using that as the foundation of your revised essay.

Undergraduate / How can society's standards shape one's schema? Biographical Essay about life influence [3]

Ammar, the very first thing that you need to correct with your essay is the overall presentation. You must divide the presentation into topic paragraphs so that it is easier for the reader to scan the paper and, should he have to stop reading it, more easily find the place where he left off. The current presentation that you have is extremely difficult to read as all the information is squished onto the page. Making it difficult to follow the line by line reading of the paper.

Next, there seems to be a conflict in the presentation you made. At first you said that you did not think yourself different from your peers and you were not treated any differently. So what would make you change your mind just because of the way Tony was treated? The only reason you should feel that way is if you were somehow treated differently by your peers. Adjust that part of your presentation.

The presentation of the information about MHS Talent is misplaced in this essay. It doesn't really help to close the essay on a notable sentence. As a part of your biography, you should develop that section more or, omit it since it doesn't really connect well with the first 2 parts of the essay. Mostly because it deals with a different topic that does not have enough development in the presentation.

The essay is good but needs adjustments to its content. That way the story you are telling will help deliver a better idea of who you are as a person at this very moment. You may want to close with a reflection on how everything you have learned so far in your life has helped shape who you have become and will still be in the future. Remember, you are not yet done developing as a person...

Scholarship / Leadership and influence at a tech startup - Chevening (Leadership & Influence essay) [2]

Gloria you are only summarizing your accomplishments as a project coordinator. A PC is a Personal Computer. Do not use confusing descriptions for your title. Call yourself a coordinator, not a PC. The discussions that you present all showcase how you can function alone instead of a team member in a leadership position. Mostly because you decided to summarize your leadership traits rather than offering an example of how you embody a leadership and influencing trait that has positive reception among your team members and results in their continued cooperation in the development of the project.

Pick one project for this essay. If you are extremely proud of your participation in the development of the research management too, then explain why that is so. If you only had one team member, then it probably won't showcase your effectiveness as a leader as you did not have to work with differing personalities that often clashed in the execution of the team objectives. However, if you feel that this is the time when your leadership and influencing abilities were at its finest, then go ahead and make that project the total focus of the essay.

Quit defining leadership and what traits you believe a leader should have in the essay. That is unnecessary and sounds like you are lecturing the reviewer. That is precisely the reason why you are asked to give a clear example of how you embody your idea of a good leader and his influencing abilities. As of now, the essay is interesting to read but short in justifications in terms of team leadership and influencing examples. Revise the essay or write a new one. Focus on only one clear leadership and influencing example and be definite about why and how you developed those traits all the way to the end result of your leadership and influencing abilities.

Writing Feedback / Physical education should be an vital part of the school curriculum [3]

Trinh, you have not written the essay as per the prompt requirements. Based on the instructions you were provided, this was to be a 5 paragraph essay covering the following aspects:

1. Proper prompt restatement
2. Public POV 1
3. Public POV 2
4. Personal Opinion
5. Concluding summary

Your prompt restatement only paraphrases one of the 2 points of view and then discusses your personal opinion as a run on sentence. Definitely not the right way to approach this essay. The prompt restatement must acknowledge the presence of 2 opinions along with the discussion instructions:

There is an ongoing discussion as to the relevance of sports in the education of children. Some people believe that sports must be taught as an important part of the educational development of children. While others believe that sports is not too important as a subject and the children should have the option not to take it as a class or subject. The analysis of both points of view shall be the basis for my personal opinion in this discussion.

One of the main reasons why this essay will fail is because your response is only partial in representation. Out of the 3 discussion instructions, you only discussed 2 themes in your essay. That of the non-supporting side and your personal opinion. So there was an error in the analysis of the discussion and its representation in the paragraphs.

Next, you are arguing your personal opinion when you should merely be discussing it. Word choice is important. You need to know what to argue and when to discuss. The essay prompt actually supplies you with the instructions for that if you read it carefully. Your paragraphs show simple sentences that support your explanation. However, your explanation is lacking in development and often shows that each idea you present is not really fully discussed or explained in the paragraph. This will lower the C&C as well as GRA scores for your presentation. Don't keep jumping around between several reasons. Focus on developing 2 related reasons at the most in every paragraph.

Now, your essay does not have a concluding paragraph so this will be considered to be an open ended essay and result in a low TA and GRA score. You need to make sure that all the requirements of the TA are met, specially the concluding summary at the end in order to properly end the essay and supply you with a proper concluding paragraph.

This is not a very good Task 2 essay. It has several problems in it that will result in a less than passing score. I hope that you will be able to improve, using the above suggestions, in your next practice test. Don't give up. With our help, you can only get better from hereon :-)

Scholarship / Biomedical engineer - Personal statement - I'm interested to apply for KGSP scholarship [4]

Airam, the essay needs to be better written with a focus not only on your family background, but also on your academic accomplishments in fields related to the course you are applying to. Do not focus on unnecessary information such as being a stand out orchestra member because that is not related to the course you hope to be granted a scholarship for. Nor do you explain any stand out references to your academic background. Your academic background, which is of interest to the reviewer is actually not mentioned at all in your essay except in reference to your interest in the medical field. You must prove that you have the grades to survive studying this degree in a country that will not be teaching you in English nor your native tongue.

This essay is more focused on your extra curricular activities where you do not really stand out. Your tutoring others in Math, Physics, and Chemistry is more relevant to the application and yet you chose to ignore the importance of that in your presentation. Your motivation to become a biomedical engineer is too weak. Simply reading a research paper is not persuasive enough to prove that you have a calling for this field. It sounds more like you just chose the course for the sake of choosing a course in the sciences. There is nothing in your background that proves a motivation for this choice or college major.

Your reference to Korean culture is even worse because you are not showcasing any understanding of the Korean educational system nor its culture as a society that would have drawn you towards wishing to live with and experience not only a Korean education, but a Korean lifestyle. The reference about your being self taught is not relevant to the personal statement and should be removed. That is information that should be placed in the language improvement essay.

Overall, this essay needs a lot of work in terms of revisions. It would be better if you just write a new essay instead of trying to fix this one. That way you will have more freedom to develop a more appropriate personal statement. One that is actually based on proving that you embody all of the prompt requirements listed in the application form.

Writing Feedback / IELTS essay question about vegetarian issue [2]

Alex, this is an acceptable dual point of view discussion essay. You have a pretty clear presentation in terms of paraphrasing the original content except that your personal opinion presentation is a bit mechanical in presentation. A better presentation for that part would have been:

Based upon the public opinion regarding protein abstinence, this essay will discuss the merits of that eating practice and then compare it to my opposing point of view.

Based in the above presentation you would have accomplished 2 things:
1. Indicated what the discussion proper will be for the essay
2. Explain your point of view without requiring a full discussion in the paragraph.

For the body of paragraphs dealing with the given point of view, by saying that : "It cannot be denied..." that shows that you are discussing a personal point of view about the topic rather than the public point of view in support of it. Your reasoning in this paragraph is correct so you can retain that discussion. However, the topic sentence / opening sentence should have been clearer about the public point of view discussion. Opening with "The sector of the public that do not eat meat or fish do so because they believe that..." Thus showing that you do not support that opinion.

Then, in your personal opinion paragraph, the topic sentence should have been "I believe that abstaining from eating meat should be on a case to case basis..." That way you can show that your disagreement is due to the eating method not being applicable to all people due to health considerations.

Your concluding summary is a continuing discussion of the topic. You did not "sum up" the discussion at all. A "summed up" discussion, as required, presents the previous discussion in a similar manner to the opening paraphrase. This time though, it highlights the reasons for the discussion as per the body of paragraphs with a reminder of your personal opinion as the closing sentence. Your presentation was incorrect and cannot be considered a closing discussion for your essay.

Writing Feedback / Besides generate money, business also have duty on doing many activities which do wonder for society [3]

Trinh, you misunderstood how to approach the prompt question and succeeding discussion. Since this is only a simple agree or disagree essay, the response does not need to be an emotional "agree with it completely". A simple "I agree with it" would have been sufficient. Only the extent essays need the strong emotional description for your response. Unless the instruction clearly indicates "To what extent do you agree or disagree?", you don't have to use emotional descriptive responses.

Next, this is a single point of view essay. That means the next 2 succeeding body paragraphs should be presenting evidence only for the side that you support. The only time you have to do a comparative discussion is when the instruction indicates: "Discuss both points of view and your personal opinion". If you do not see that instruction then there is no need to do a comparative discussion in the essay. The simple agree/disagree instructions are only 4 paragraphs long while the comparative discussion is usually 5 paragraphs long. There lies the difference in discussion approach.

Your concluding paragraph is incomplete. You do not even have a punctuation mark at the end which means you either ran out of time while writing or you were just careless and neglected to review your paper for potential errors before submission. The concluding paragraph should be a summary of the preceding discussion so it should not be an incomplete presentation as you have it now. This should have at least 3 sentences explaining:

1. Discussion topic
2. Reason for the discussion
3. Supporting reason
4. Repeat of your personal opinion

This is a good attempt but there is a tremendous room for improvement in your work. The above advice is meant to help you get on track with correcting your format, writing, and sentence development mistakes. You should find yourself getting better with each practice test that we review here provided you follow the advice you are given.

Scholarship / I recognized my natural leadership abilities and I always endeavored to improve these skills [4]

Kom, what you have here is the basis of a networking essay. This is not a leadership essay because it mentions activities that requires you to network. You also showcase your abilities that fall more under an individual who knows how to handle other people in order to get what you need, without being a leader. As a follower in this essay, you definitely highlight your networking skills. Put a pin in this an use it as a jump off point for your networking essay.

That said, you need to develop a proper leadership and influencing essay by focusing on either a professional or community activity where you were appointed the leader of a group or team, maybe even an office department towards the completion of an important project or activity. Narrate how you led the team and diffused potentially problematic situations or team altercations. Most importantly, explain how the project was completed and why it benefited from your leadership and influencing skills.

Highlight your leadership skills through example instead of through definition or skills enumeration. This is an essay about showing and proving your abilities rather than claiming and listing what you think those abilities need to be. You have 500 words maximum to use in explaining yourself, use it to your advantage. Don't use shortcuts. Shortcuts in your story imply that you are glossing over something in your essay because it is a shortcoming on your part or you do not really qualify as a candidate and are hoping the reviewer will not notice it.

Writing Feedback / Language barrier is one of the major hurdles, which is usually encountered by people overseas [3]

Eram, your response to the given prompt statement is incorrect. Since this is an extent essay, you need to pick a side to support in the discussion. This is not a simple opinion essay, which is what you accidentally wrote. Let me outline this for you with a sample of the proper response to the prompt.

Question: To what extent you agree or disagree with the statement?
Response: In my view, communication in non-native language brings noticeable problems for foreigners but there must be possible solutions of these issues.
Correct Response: I firmly / totally / completely/ strongly agree with the given discussion based on several well known reasons.

You are offering a discussion of possible solutions rather than discussing the reasons why you strongly agree with the yes or no question being provided. The response I created shows you some of the synonyms that can be used to express a strong emotion in relation to the question. The strong emotional response is a requirement for this essay.

Now, the result of your action is what is known as a prompt deviation. That means you created a different topic for discussion which is counter to what you were being asked to discuss. In this case you chose to discuss solutions to the problem rather than the reasons why you agree with the statement. As such, your essay will be considered unresponsive to the given instructions and as such, receive a failing score.

Make sure you understand the question and how to respond to it before you begin to write your practice essays. It will be best if you familiarize yourself with the various IELTS questions and model responses just so you will have an idea of how to respond to certain task requirement. You need to increase your English comprehension skills so that you can properly respond to the questions provided. Practice simple question and answer responses whenever you can then check the answer guide for the comprehension test. That way you can improve that part of English know-how. It is imperative that you understand the question so that you can write the correct response for it.

Scholarship / Critical Analysis of the Essay with regard to statement and conditions under subject is required! [4]

Qamar, there is no need for you to define what leadership and influencing means to you. This essay is about proving that you have the leadership traits and influencing skills that Chevening is looking for in a candidate. It is not a definition of terms test or essay. So the first paragraph of your essay should be removed. It is not required and irrelevant to the discussion. It is irrelevant because your definition of leadership will not matter if you do not embody it through your actions. Begin instead with paragraph 3. The World Food bank experience.

The reason why I suggest using that paragraph to kick off your essay is because it highlights your leadership character. You show that you are able to command people to accomplish a task. However, the influencing part is not very strong because you only presented an enumeration of the work that needed to be completed, without explaining how influencing skills had to be used in order to get the team member interested in his work. Having a conflict that needed to be resolved in this instance would have worked very well to add substance to your explanation.

The speech at Punjab University is another superfluous presentation that merely diverts the attention of the reviewer. Avoid doing that because you want him to focus on only story that combines both explanations into a series of connected events. The speech story is too short, not well developed, and does not add anything of note to the essay. Therefore, it should be omitted in the final version of your essay.

Your closing paragraph is good. It ties the whole narrative together. It is usable. The only thing that worries me about this essay is that it is not related to a professional experience, which is what Chevening is all about. Most of the applicants who have successfully gotten into the program with my help usually have tremendously strong professional leadership and influencing abilities. They are normally people of notable professions and leadership positions in their country. I view your essay as a bit too amateur in presentation for the Chevening program. However, I can understand if you do not have any professional leadership experience to present yet, community leadership and influencing, provided it is done in present time or the not too distant past is also acceptable.

You mentioned the Go Green Project of the WWF at your office. It sounds to me like you led the project and had to manage (influence) a team right? If you can write an essay focusing on your leadership and influencing skills within that project, I think you will have a stronger chance of creating an essay that can stand up to professional comparison when compared to the other applicants. However, if you feel that your WFB experience is better and that is what you want to present, then so be it.

Undergraduate / Why do you want to study your chosen major at Georgia Tech? - GATech Supplement #1 [2]

Bill, your explanation still does not explain why you chose to enroll at GT. The why is not clear because there is a lack of reference to a professional goal after graduation. The how does not have a clear explanation because you did not focus on an explanation regarding how you will develop a personalized curriculum based on the Threads program. There are 2 avenues for study that you could choose from. Either the modeling and simulation or the theory program can fit into the description of your interests above.

You have to do more research about the Threads program. You obviously just read the front page of the site, but did not really go deeper into the offerings and training programs that each program under the curriculum offers its students. Explain what kind of study program you plan to implement for yourself and how this will have a future application in terms of your career plans. You can't leave your response essay to represent a non-existent to very shallow reasoning for your why and how responses.

The prompt is testing your interest in GT and your knowledge of its programs in relation to that interest. Right now, the reviewer will see that you are not familiar with the university and its programs. Nor do you have any plan for your time as a student there. This essay will not help your application. Write a new one that honestly responds to the questions being asked.

Scholarship / University leadership experience - engineering week [2]

Mohammed, these are not leadership examples. These are examples of how you are a good follower. In fact, the more I think about it, it appears that the first part of your essay, is more about networking than leadership. Looking at the presentation from that angle, then this paragraph should not be in a leadership and influencing essay.

Further review of your essay in relation to your training as a site engineer shows that you were not in a leadership roles during this time. Instead, you were in a rank and file assistant role. There was nothing in that paragraph presentation that would lead the reviewer to believe that you led or influenced anybody during this time. Why? The position you were in says it all "trainee". As with any trainee, you did not lead. Rather, you followed instructions and made recommendations. The final decision was not yours to make nor were the people yours to lead and influence.

That analysis of the content of this essay influenced my opinion that this is not a leadership and influencing essay. The 2 reasons are:
1. Experience doesn't count specially when your task performance is not related to the prompt topic.
2. You were a trainee in the company without any real leadership obligations.

Everyone applying for the Chevening scholarship will showcase either a professional or a socio-civic leadership ability. Aim to provide one of the two or both of the leadership experiences. Normally, using one effective leadership experience works better. Usually, it is the professional aspect of leadership that is used since Chevening is looking for future leaders and influencers and your essay needs to exemplify those skills. in a more recent and believable setting.

Consider your professional work experience. Think of a time you were in charge of a project. Discuss what leadership skills you developed during this time. As for influencing, think of the problems the project encountered and how you inspired the team to solve the issue. Inspiration can be identified as an influencing skill in this essay, Just replace the word "inspire" with "influence" and you will present a more appropriate response.

As of now, this essay doesn't deliver what it has to in order to make you a competitive candidate. Writing a new essay with a more recent professional or community leadership and influencing experience should to the trick. I hope my advice will inspire you to write a tremendously improved leadership and influencing essay.

Undergraduate / A letter to express my interest in the Radiology program at Kerman University of Medical Sciences [5]

Sammy, you are one of the lucky few who got special permission from the admin for me to come back and help you. I hope that you will be able to use the advice I will be giving you. I believe that the following suggestion is the best way for you to edit and revise this essay.

The problem with your writing is that you have given the background of the development of your interest in Radiology. That falls under the personal statement essay because that is the essay that allows you to describe the development factors with regards to your interest in the course. The motivating factor is what this essay lacks.

From the information you provided in your essay, the motivating factor that you can discuss should be based on the accident that your father had. Since this was the first time you were exposed to radiology, you can explain how your father's injuries have evolved over time to require more x-rays. Explain that your early motivation was simply to better understand what was happening to your father's foot.

Then use your part-time work where you were exposed to various patients who required the use of the imaging facility of the clinic. This will become your main motivating factor. To be able to help heal people of their injuries by learning what happened inside without having to do surgery or invasive procedures has helped you understand that medical science need not always be expensive nor major in procedure. A mindset of the realization as to why you want to become a radiologist should be the focus of your motivating factor in this presentation. Look for the reason why you want to become a radiologist in order to find your motivation.

As for your motivation for applying for this program at the university, you will need to consider your academic interests that will be addressed by the education of the university. Add to that an explanation as to how the university can help you become a better professional through its training program, internship partnerships, and other training that will equip you to be a consummate professional and you will have the motivating factor for choosing the university well covered.

You should not try to rehash or reuse this current essay because there isn't much in it in terms of information that will be usable in a motivation letter. You need to write a totally new essay based on the above suggestions.

Writing Feedback / CBEST: Mixed-gender schools vs. same-gender schools [2]

Jane, I do believe that you have written a level 3 essay here. While there are imperfections with your writing, it does not erase the fact that you created convincing discussions, based on popular reasoning, for the topic you were presented with. A word of advice though, you may want to avoid using special punctuation marks such as the "---" doesn't help in an academic discussion. That is mostly used to emphasize words or meaning in creative writing. Try to avoid using special markings that are usually used in other modes of essay presentation. Always be academic in tone for the CBEST essay.

Overall, the discussion is plausible. However, you could have better explained yourself in each paragraph. Your examples need to be justified in order to strengthen the implication of your reference. The same goes for your topic sentences. You need stronger explanations for your reasoning in order to make the paragraph work better.

As for your problem with an "empty brain", I believe that this happens to you because you are overthinking the topic. The best way to address this issue is to place yourself in the situation. For example, for this essay topic, you could have taken a specific point of view for the discussion such as the point of view of the parent or the point of view of the student. Remember that there are no right or wrong discussions or opinions in the CBEST essay. What matters is how well you are able to defend the opinions and reasoning you will be presenting. That is normally done better when you take an interest in the point of view for discussion.

Rather than dealing with a generic "supporter" point of view, I would have made them more realistic by taking on the discussion from the point of view of the 2 involved groups, the parents and the students themselves. That way, your opinion will be better supported with specific reasons based on the implied involved parties in the discussion. If you can discuss something as an outsider looking in, you should be able to come up with better reasons and opinions for your discussion.

Undergraduate / A letter to express my interest in the Radiology program at Kerman University of Medical Sciences [5]

Sammy, there are too many elements going on within this admission essay. At certain points, it seems to be a motivational letter. Sometimes, it's a statement of purpose, Other instances make is sound like a personal statement. This is a very confusing essay to read. You need to clarify what type of essay you are trying to write before you can receive proper advice regarding the content of your essay.

At this point, your essay too long, has a severe case of too much information, and doesn't really seem to have a presentation target or direction. Without knowing what type of essay you are being asked to write, I cannot help you edit this essay. I need to know the kind of essay or the prompt you are responding to so that I can figure out what works and what doesn't work in your essay.

I apologize for not being much help at the moment. Your essay is good and strong in content, but it is suffering from relevance issues and topic direction problems. Yes, there are the reasons why it is too long. It is also why I cannot better direct you towards proper essay development at the moment. If you can provide the prompt instructions or at least the type of essay you are trying to write, I might be able to come back and help you.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 2: taxes for the public education system promotion? [3]

Shao, your opening paragraph is a run-on sentence. Kindly remember that all the paragraphs should have a minimum of 3 sentences in order to qualify for a proper C&C and GRA consideration. Any less than that and you will get a lower score consideration because of the lack of clarity and proper sentence structure in your presentation. Writing up to 5 sentences will allow you to reach the maximum scoring potential of each paragraph.

Your second paragraph is composed of under developed sentences, reasoning, and explanations. This has a direct effect again, on your GRA and C&C scoring. One topic per paragraph, properly explained with:

1. Topic sentence
2. Reasoning for the sentence
3. Example
4. Relevance of the example with the topic
5. Transition sentence to the next paragraph topic

Due to the mixed discussions that you present in each paragraph, you fail to meet the above requirements that would normally help you to increase your C&C score. Speaking of the C&C score, your LR score will also see problems with scoring because of your improper vocabulary usage. One example of this error can be seen in the following sentence:


-What do you mean by "intact"? Did you mean to use the term "impact" instead?

Proof reading for clarity and scoring considerations towards the end of the exam time will always help increase your overall scoring. If you do not leave at least 5-10 minutes to review your work before submission, you leave these problems unattended without remembering that every mistake you make with your writing will have an impact on each scoring consideration. You could end up with an unexpected low score in the final scoring. Reviewing, editing, and revising your essay should become a standard part of your daily practice runs under a timed situation setting.

Writing Feedback / Some believe that taking a year off between school and college is a top-notch decision [5]

Alif, had it not been for the run on sentence in the first presentation of your prompt paraphrase, it would have gotten you an admirable score in terms of Task Accuracy considerations. Don't separate 2 ideas with a comma. Use a period. This is a test that wants to assess how well you can state facts individually rather than a confusing long sentence. A long sentence does not equal a complex sentence. Remember that.

Your second paragraph would have been stronger and clearer in presentation if you had omitted the little developed last sentence. The last sentence that you put in was a different discussion topic and needed more development in order to qualify for a better C&C score as part of the original paragraph discussion.

While you do present a personal opinion discussion, what your essay clearly lacks of the summary conclusion. That is the last paragraph that ties together the whole discussion based on the given reasons in the body of the paragraph. That is what you need to develop during your next practice test that uses a similar prompt requirement.

Research Papers / Early Intervention for Children dealing with abnormal Anxiety is an effective Treatment [2]

Deanna, you may want to revise the opening paragraph. As a thesis statement, you are not advised to immediately include a quotation in that part of the presentation. You should only be presenting an overview of the material you will be presenting along with the reasons for discussion. Including a quote at that point of the discussion is not logical because it does not help with the introduction of the topic for discussion. Just make sure that your thesis statement and reasons for discussion are clear, without the need to make a reference to a quotation that you may not be able to fully explain within that paragraph.

The rest of the essay requires only grammatical correction and sentence editing.

Writing Feedback / IELTS writing 2 - who should be awarded, good teacher or a good student? [4]

Smally, the first thing I want you to do is to stop agreeing with all the errors that are pointed out in your writing. Acknowledge the mistakes internally and try to stop making the same mistakes over and over again in your succeeding essays. The best way to acknowledge the advice is to have you show improvement in your writing. You do that by applying the corrections that are given to you. I hope I have myself clear about this. Acknowledging your mistakes, but then repeating the same errors, as you did in this essay, does nothing to help improve your writing skills.

Now, I am sure that I have already advised you that not all task 2 essays are arguments. In order to figure out what discussion reference to use, look for the keyword in the essay. For this essay, the keyword is "believe". So you cannot say "argue" since there is no debate being referenced in the original discussion. Rather than "argue" you could say "Some people think that...". Think then takes the place of "believe as a keyword. It is still related to the original prompt keyword.

With regards to your sentences per paragraph. Try to create connected sentences rather than extremely long sentences that try to connect 2 different thoughts into one sentence presentation. Use transitional phrases or sentences to connect the sentences and paragraphs. You are lowering your GRA scoring potential by using only 2 long sentences per paragraph when the requirement is 3-5 sentences per paragraph. Your opening paraphrase is severely lacking in the context of the original reference. A better presentation is:

There are folks who think that teachers play a critical role in the education of a child. Others have the impression that it is the student who should be self inspired to achieve academic accomplishments. I will be considering both points of view in this essay in relation to my personal opinion.

Finally, you need to work on your vocabulary in relation to your sentence structure. There are two glaring errors in your presentation that I cannot omit mentioning in my review. The first has to do with the following:


- I am sure this makes sense in your native language but the way you have this sentence structured in English doesn't make sense. What is the point of this phrase? What are you referring to? How you refer to the subject of the sentence is just as important as the subject itself. Without that clarity, the sentence becomes really confusing to the reader.


- This is grammatically wrong. You are offering the reader a choice in this sentence so the proper structure is "success OR failure of ..." Or being the keyword in a sentence offering the reader a choice.

Now, I do not want you to say "I agree that..." in a response statement coming from you. That is tantamount to constantly apologizing for yourself and you have to stop with that defeatist attitude. It will not help you get any better with your writing skills. Just show me that you will not make the same mistakes in your future work. That is the best acknowledgement of mistakes and appreciation for the advice given that I and the others who will be advising you in this thread can receive from you :-)

Writing Feedback / Many people try to look younger than they really are. What are the reasons for that? [2]

Le, while your approach to the essay is acceptable, your opening paragraph is not accurate paraphrase of the original prompt, your paragraphs are not fully developed, and your concluding paragraph is not a proper summary of the preceding discussion. After that listing, I now want to individually discuss the mistakes that you made. That way you will be very clear about the error in your writing and be able to correct in the future.

The opening paraphrase and the concluding summary must be comprised of at least 3 sentences in order to gain proper GRA and C&C scoring considerations. Writing long sentences may seem proper to you but in terms of scoring, you lose points because all you did was write run-on sentences. Overly long sentences, that are separated by commas when periods should have been used shows a lack of punctuation knowledge and little developed sentence structuring skills. Always use the 3-5 sentence paragraph presentation and refrain from using commas when periods are more applicable. These are writing methods that are guaranteed to increase your GRA and C&C scores.

Try to limit your discussion per paragraph to only one topic. You see, when you present more than one topic per paragraph, you don't really get to explain your reasons for saying such a thing. Instead, you only present so-called "Talking Points" which means you only provide possible reasons but no supporting evidence for your claims. This weakens the C&C presentation even further and lessens the overall scoring potential of your presentation.

Now, for the closing paragraph, never present additional reasoning in this paragraph because this is called a summary conclusion for a reason. A summary conclusion takes the shortened version of the body paragraphs , the reasons you provided, then presents it as a reminder to the reader. Then a closing sentence is made by repeating your opinion of the topic. That is why a summary conclusion should never include a new or additional information for discussion. You only have 5 paragraphs for this type of essay writing and each paragraph has a specific function, as you know for sure, that is used to present your discussion of the topic.

Should you decide to apply the corrections to your writing that I suggest, I believe that you will see a marked improvement not only in your writing skills, but also you overall score.

Scholarship / I'll be able to make things happen; Motivations with which you apply for the KGSP [3]

Rannie, the language you use is overly dramatic to the point of exaggeration. I strongly suggest that you forgo your flair for the dramatics and review the actual prompt requirements, adjusting your content to be more formal and academic in tone. Right now, this essay sounds like you are delivering an emotional speech instead of having a formal interview.

Next, even though your family is impoverished, that should not be the only reason for your scholarship application. Yes, it is admirable that you wish to alleviate your family's dire financial situation. However, you are applying for an international scholarship which is looking to sponsor students whose future career is not in a tunnel vision with regards to financial success. Of what use do you hope to be to the community upon your return? Include a nationalistic aspect as part of your motivation to study in Korea in order to improve that part of the essay.

You did not really touch on your academic background and successes as the prompt requires. Discuss any notable achievements you may have had. Remember, the reviewer is looking for accomplished students to sponsor, not just the needy. In order to convince the reviewer that you are a qualified candidate, you need to prove academic achievements as well. Financial need and a desire to have a sponsor for overseas studies are not enough for a reason to qualify a candidate for this program.

Be more specific with your community organization discussion. Do not use the term "we" but instead, use "I". What did you do as a member of this program? What lessons did you learn that could help improve the Korean educational experience for everyone else who is part of the program? How can you use your community experience to become a stand out scholar in terms of social and community participation?

As for the Korean connection, You are not really saying anything remarkable about the educational system of the country. You are not telling the reviewer anything that he doesn't know about the educational system of the country. In this part, you should mention what course you plan to study and then explain why you believe that a Korean education would best suit your academic goals. What can Korea teach you about your chosen major that you cannot learn in your country? Why is that important to you? Only then will you be able to convince the reviewer that you might qualify for a chance to be a sponsored student in their country.

I guess what I am trying to say is this. The essay you wrote is dramatic and heart wrenching but isn't convincing enough to win you the scholarship. You need to write a totally new essay, one that actually delivers the required information for proper consideration. Trust me, I've helped enough students from your country qualify for this scholarship. I know how to get you into the door.

Scholarship / Motivation letter for applying Scholarship in Netherlands [3]

Farrasati, the most that you need to do with this essay is rearrange the paragraphs for a more interesting presentation. I would arrange the existing paragraphs in the following manner: 2,1,3, with a new concluding paragraph presented that reiterates how your qualifications make you a good candidate for the scholarship without bragging as your closing sentence does now. You should also add an idea as to how you plan to resolve the existing peat problem in your country as part of your motivation for advanced studies.

Reformat the presentation of the university advantages that you have in the current essay. Rather than simply enumerating the programs, explain how each program is related to your ambition / problem solution. That way the motivation in relation to the course and university choice becomes clearer to the reviewer. Also, you should look into the objectives of the scholarship and note which aspects you can refer to in relation to your motivations. That will help to hook the reviewer and also, show a relationship between your academic / professional goals and the scholarship support you are looking for.

Your essay is good but can be better, clearer, and more motivational in tone. I believe that the adjustments I made above should help you get closer to the ideal motivational letter for your application.

Writing Feedback / Our eating habits greatly affect our lifestyle; for a healthy life eating a balanced food is crucial [6]

Eram, it is with the permission of the admin of this forum that I will now share with you several variations on the statement that you provided. There are a number of ways to interpret or restate the prompt requirement. Some of these include the following:

1. I completely agree that a healthy diet plays a valuable role in a person's life.
2. I am in total agreement that a well rounded eating plan is imperative for the healthy life of a person.
3. I fully support the statement that healthy eating methods create an illness free lifestyle.

As for your chosen statement, I would state this as follows:
1. My opinion is that when a person does not pay attention to his eating habits, illness eventually sets into his life.
2. Personally, I believe that negative eating practices lead to the development of health complications in the life of people.
3. Based on personal experience, I believe that unhealthy eating habits tend to create health problems and diseases that alter the lifestyle of a person.

These are but a few of the methods by which you could have stated your response to the question or presented your personal opinion. Now, there are other ways to present these statements. The above samples refer only to my way of writing these statements.

Scholarship / One of my cardinal principles is influencing my immediate environment and my country at large [4]

Mayor, these are nice references for your academic leadership and influencing skills. These are however, not competitive when it comes to the Chevening scholarship program. You offer no actual practice of leadership and influence in a professional setting nor an applicable community service setting. The year references make these too old for consideration in terms of your application. This is not an essay that will make it past the first round of considerations due to the professional competitive nature of the scholarship.

You will need to refer to your current career in this essay. Reference a role of leadership and influence that you had to do recently. Not more than 2 years ago if possible so that the validity of the action can be considered fresh and applicable to your application. The only problem you will have is if you do not have any professional leadership and influencing skills. In which case you will need to fall back on any community or civic leadership and influencing activity that you may recently have participated in.

Believe me when I tell you that I wish you could use this essay in your application but you just can't. Based upon my years of experience as a Chevening adviser and the high number of students accepted into the scholarship program based upon my tutelage, I know what the committee is looking for in its candidates and this is not it. Read the other samples of previous Chevening leadership and influencing essays at this forum. Learn how to write the essay based upon their work. Consider what experience you have that you can present in an impressive manner to the reviewer and develop that into a new essay for this topic.

Writing Feedback / Our eating habits greatly affect our lifestyle; for a healthy life eating a balanced food is crucial [6]

Eram, practice writing your essays in fluid paragraphs rather than splitting it up into paragraph counts. If you get used to writing that way, you may inadvertently also write that way during the test, which could result in scoring problems for you. Don't write in any other format except the way the essay should be written during the test.

Remember that these paragraphs need to have 3-5 sentences in them. These sentences need to be interconnected in the paragraph presentations using proper transition words, phrases, and sentences to complete the presentation. You don't really use this required format at the moment.

Finally, we come to the biggest problem of your essay, that is your task accuracy representation. Your essay doesn't respond properly to the question being asked. Have a look at the following:

Question: To what extent do you agree?
Response: In my view, negligence in eating can lead to health problems and diseases, which ultimately badly affects the lifestyle of people.

You are being asked to simply agree with the discussion so you cannot offer a discussion counter or in opposition to the given statement. Therefore, you created a prompt deviation because you went ahead and discussed a topic of your choosing / making, which is not related to the information provided in the original prompt. Due to this error, you will automatically get a failing score in the TA section, which means it will be difficult for you to try and pull up your score with the remaining scoring considerations due to the existing errors in relation to the scoring criteria that remains.

Writing Feedback / TASK1 : The percentage of households in owned and rented accommodation [3]

Trong, your essay will fail on GRA and C&C considerations due to your improper formatting. All of your paragraphs are composed of run-on sentences which are separated by commas instead of periods. This creates a confusing sentence presentation that makes it difficult for the reader to follow. The presentation of the information becomes a jumbled mess in this instance, which means your presentation is not well developed. These errors have a direct effect on your GRA and C&C considerations.

Your information presentation in the overview paragraph is incomplete. You missed out on presenting the type of measurement, which is in percentage format. Also, the years are presented "from 1918-2011" not "between". If you say "between" then that means that no measurements were made within a number of periods starting at 1918, which is clearly not the case here.

You need to further improve your analytical skills when reviewing the chart. Practice writing individualized topic sentences as well in order to avoid falling back on run-on sentences that do not help to increase any of your scores.

Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 1: 'hospital attendances' bar chart [4]

Shao, try to limit your writing to 200 words at the most. You are writing way too many words in your essays which will make it very difficult for you to perfect your essay during the actual test due to the time limitations. Say everything within 4 paragraphs of no less than 3 sentences, no more than 5. Practice doing this now while you still can so that you will be able to estimate how long it actually takes you to write a comprehensive analytical report essay. While you did write the essay per paragraph within sentence limitations, you presented more run-on sentences which created problems with clarity in your presentation. If you are spending too much time writing the paragraphs because you are too wordy, then you will make the quality of your work, based on the scoring criteria suffer.

You could have done a better job on the summary overview. Aside from presenting the type of chart and the chart coverage plus the trending statement, there are some other information you could have presented. Specifically, the type of measurement presented and the age range presented in the chart.

Don't get me wrong, you did a very good analysis presentation of the chart. It is just that you could have written it better by allowing yourself time for editing. For example, you would have realized that you accidentally started a sentence with a connecting word:


The correct sentence kick-off would have been, "An increase can be seen..." or something similar. Always remember that connecting words such as "and" are used to connect 2 separate ideas that share a common discussion denominator. The connecting word is used in the middle of the sentence, never at the beginning where there are no ideas to connect.

Writing Feedback / Some people think that the government should be responsible for solving the increasing pollution [3]

Priya, you just failed half this test so you will not get a passing score for it. How did you fail the test? You failed to properly respond to the task you were provided. You did not understand at all what the prompt task is all about so you did not offer a response to the prompt as required. The prompt instructed you to discuss the following:

Question: To what extent do you agree?
Response: In my opinion, while I believe that the government has a bigger role to play in alleviating this problem, the joint efforts of the citizens of a country are also required.

You can clearly see where you made the mistake that caused the failing mark for this essay in the outline above. You totally changed the prompt topic for discussion and the discussion method. As you most likely have been told, once you make a mistake with the TA response, you lose half the scoring marks for the essay. Add to that the problems with your work with regards to the other scoring considerations and there is absolutely no way that you will have an essay that can pass the test.

The question is answerable by:

I totally agree/disagree
I partially agree./disagree
I an in full agreement/disagreement

along with other variations thereof. Since your response is nowhere near the expected response, you cannot expect to pass the test. Even though your reasoning is along the acceptable reasons, your marks were severely affected by the TA, C&C, as well as GRA mistakes in your presentation. So I cannot consider this to be a good attempt at writing a Task 2 essay.