Undergraduate / How would your family, friends, and/or members of your community describe you? [2]

Elizabeth, you missed out on the description of how your community might describe you in the essay. You can probably incorporate that description in the second paragraph since the reference that you made to being a people watcher could apply to the community that you live in. You just have to develop it more to include that reference. Also, it would be nice if you could add the information about your mom staring at you. How would your mom define who you are as a daughter? I don't get a clear description of that in the paragraph. Don't try to write a collective description of all aspects required by the prompt (with some parts still missing) in the 3rd paragraph. Since the prompt indicates each aspect individually, your response should also be on an individual paragraph basis. You still have room to expand the essay and I strongly suggest you do that because, as per my analysis, you still have room to revise and grow the essay into a more relevant and prompt responsive piece of writing.

Scholarship / Scholarship question about networking. Is it right to put a professional and social network? [2]

Arthur, your presentation is a bit overwhelming. You seem to be rushing your presentation without giving any thought to the fact that there is also such a thing as reader fatigue when too much information is offered in the essay statement. The presentation is still strong but hard to keep track of. You may want to rethink your presentation to be less of telling and more of showing how these networks have worked for you so far. You have insinuated that you have international contacts, even before you attend your masters classes as a Chevening scholar, but you are not offering any evidence as to how you have used these networks to your professional benefit. That is what the reviewer needs to know about. If you claim these networks will be of benefit to Chevening in the future, then you need to back up those claims with evidence. In fact, if you can lay claim to a series of networks that you created that are UK based, the essay will be even better and more solid. It sounds to me like you might have one or two of those sorts of contacts up your sleeve. You can mention the name of the organization if you know the name so that the reviewer can be even more impressed or look it up to confirm your connection with them.

The way that you divided your network is acceptable. It just tends to run overly long and becomes uninteresting because of the lack of actual examples of your networking skills in action. So you have to present something like this whenever you can in the edited version:

Problem + Network = Problem Resolution

Do that for each of the paragraphs. Right now, the essay sounds more like you are just bragging about your network, but not really offering solid information as to its proper use in your career. For example, when you say "The Secretary of State asked me point out a replacement", you need to give the name of the secretary of state because that claim will be verified as part of the vetting of your application information. Each time you mention a position of political power and a politically connected person that you worked with, you have to name names. Otherwise, you will be deemed to be making hyperbolic claims only. Yes, you will have to mention your wife's name and the company or government agency she works for along with her current position.

Don't forget to proofread your essay after you revise it. You have a number of capitalization and punctuation problems that I will not point out at this point because you will be revising the essay so correcting those mistakes may not be needed as the overall essay is expected to change in content and punctuation.

Scholarship / Every individual has their own leadership potential. Chevening Essay about Leadership and Influence [2]

Dhea, this essay has the potential to be a stand out leadership and influencing essay if you are willing to do the necessary revisions to make it so. What I would like you to do is remove paragraphs 1 and 2 from the essay then revise the current paragraph 3 to become your opening statement instead. Why is that? Because being a teacher, you are in a unique leadership position. You lead your students towards achieving their full potential and you inspire them to become a success in a way that only a teacher can accomplish. I would like you to concentrate all your efforts on depicting this in your essay. Think of what makes you stand out as a teacher to your students. Why would you consider yourself an effective leader as a teacher to your students? What methods of leading them, in a manner that they understand, do you use? How do you think you can apply that leadership skill in a different scenario of say, leading adults? How do you inspire their interest in learning beyond the normal requirements of class reading materials, projects, quizzes and class discussions? If you can provide an animated essay that responds to these questions, while inserting your own information as you deem important to the discussion, then you will end up with a unique, and possible, quite memorable essay for the reviewer to assess. That just might work positively towards your interests in terms of the application.

Undergraduate / I am attracted by the faculty and Co-op program, fascinated by the school spirit in Georgia Tech [2]

Zhenghang, I am not sure what you mean by "high cost performance". Do you mean you want to attend this university because their tuition fee is cheap? If that is what you mean, then don't say that. Focus your discussion instead on the academic development that you can achieve at Georgia Tech. Consider the learning environment and it can support your interests. Talk about some lab that you look forward to using to further your academic interests. Discuss the mentoring programs the professors offer. Or consider the internship and training opportunities that you can participate in. Use an academic point of view. This version sounds more like you are looking forward to attending a summer camp or some sort of long term party university, which Georgia Tech is not. Don't include social descriptions unless you are referring to varsity games and team spirit. It shouldn't be about social discrimination or the lack of it, as implied in your essay. That is not what attending college, specially at this university, is all about.

Letters / ADMISSION LETTER TO UNIVERSITY PART TIME PROGRAM [3]

Tran, whatever you do, do not brag about your non-existent English language skills. I hate to say this but if they test you, you will fail. So remove the reference to that in the whole essay. If the reviewer is to base your language skills on this letter alone, he may just send you back to English grammar school. Do not do it. Remove that reference. You will see the reasons why you have to do that as I continue with my review of your letter.

Your first paragraph alone does not make any sense. It does not clearly indicate a purpose, objective and reason for your studies. It is confusing to read and causes a tremendous amount of English comprehension difficulties for the reader. You even use wrong English vocabulary in the paragraph. For example, and this is the worst part of that paragraph, you said:


There is a verb, there is an adjective, but there is no subject. Importance of knowledge in what? Also, the term is "I became aware of the importance..."


Duration of 3-4 years of what? Study? Internships? Developing work skills? What? You missed out on the subject again. Also you need thorough comprehension, not throughout. Those are 2 different terms. If you want to use somewhat complex English words, then make sure you at least know the meaning of the term so you can use it properly. Also, your present tense formatting when using verb. You should have said "taking the initiative..." and "doing volunteer..."

These are but some of the reasons why you should not dare the university to test your English language skills. Believe me, you will fail if they do that. The letter alone already tells them you are exaggerating your language skills so you should instead be telling them that you plan to work on your English language skills while you are a student there in order to help you cope with your lessons.

Scholarship / My life has always been characterized by strong skills of leadership and lots of academic awards [3]

Nicolas, a leadership and influencing essay for a Chevening scholarship application cannot be approached in such simplistic terms. This is an essay that requires its applicants to already be leaders in their field of work rather than having only academic, as well as rank and file participation in group work. What is your current profession? Are in in a position of leadership that requires you to handle subordinates or people of lower thank than you? If you answer yes to that question than you have to change your total essay. You must focus only on your current job, the demands of that job, the difficulties you face in leading your team, and then present the importance of your influence on the team in order to accomplish important tasks. A true leader is measured by his response to difficult situations and the successful results of his actions. Show how you function in a command responsibility scenario. You need to present only one leadership situation in the essay, but it has to be in a professional instead of academic or internship aspect. You also cannot be a mere member of the team, as in the government project, and try to pass that off as a leadership and influencing reference. If possible, try to present a situation closer to the year 2017 because a 2015 work experience will not hold as much weight, nor be able to compete in importance and leadership qualities as those who are applying with much newer work experiences.

Writing Feedback / IELTS writing task 1: Accommodations for holidaymakers [6]

Sarah, you did not include a proper summary overview in your essay. While it can be placed anywhere within the essay, which is why I read the whole essay before commenting on the lack of it, it is always best to place that summary at the start or opening paragraph because that is where it can gain you the highest possible TA score. If I were to write the opening statement for this essay it would have been presented as:

3 pie charts are provided covering the years 1965, 19885, and 2005 respectively. The percentages presented identify the types of accommodations for holiday tourists in one area for those specific years. The types of accommodations analyzed are staying with friends/relatives, hotel, camping, and caravans. this essay will present the main points of the chart and offer comparisons of similar information when required. Overall, the trend of the pie charts indicate that staying with friends/relatives was the most popular settlement for guests during holidays.

Aside from your first paragraph, all your other paragraphs are composed of run-on sentences. You need to learn to separate your topic presentations into topic sentences rather than connected sentence idea presentations. When you do that, your paragraph runs short of the minimum 3 sentence requirement. When that happens, you lower your C&C and GRA scores due to non paragraph compliant presentations. Also, you tend to get a better score if you present at least 4 paragraphs in the Task 1 essay.

Undergraduate / "Counting My Steps" - OCD Personal Narrative for a Formal Essay assignment [3]

Nicholas, when you type words written in a foreign language you must always include the English translation in a parenthesis because the reviewer needs to know what the words mean. In this case, the lyrics obviously mean something important otherwise you would not have included in the your presentation for that portion of the essay. Make sure you create a translation for it before you submit the essay.

Here is the thing about the personal narrative essay that you wrote. It is too one dimensional in approach. The point of view is always from your end, never showing how you interact with people, how people react to your OCD, and what you think when they tell you certain things. In any narrative, it is important that you learn how to use dialogue to move the story along instead of just using the first person point of view. An interesting narrative is one that engages the reader by create scenes, interactions between characters, and repartee that helps to remove the sense of boredom that constantly telling a reader tends to create.

You can still use the first person point of view for this presentation. Only this time, add some other characters that help to depict your OCD experience over a period of time. Maybe involve just your parents or include your siblings. Add characters that can help you to better illustrate your narrative through action rather than just words. That creates a more interesting, engaging, and reflective presentation for your narrative.

By the way, place the OCD diagnosis at the top of the essay. The definition should be first because it is what sets up the whole narrative that is to follow. Make the thought that enter your head in the morning the second paragraph instead as well it should be.

Graduate / Formal training in MIS from the Northern Illinois - a personal statement in less than 500 words [4]

Revanth, since you are applying to graduate school, you need to update your personal statement to reflect less of your past and more of your present and future. You can start editing the content of this essay by removing paragraphs 1thru 5 since these deal mostly with your idealism and college education. Your personal statement should now center on the discussion of how your professional participation has led you towards a deeper understanding of this line of work and the kind of work that you can do in the future. Try to think of how you have evolved from your entry level position in the company, and how those steps led to the kind of professional you are today. Talk about your work ethic and how working in the field of MIS had helped you learn more about yourself and the world we live in. A personal statement should first and foremost, reflect the development of your interest in this field and then, imply your future plans. Then, it should explain why you chose this particular university to enroll in. Do an overview of the reasons because you will be discussing that in greater detail in the SOP.

Scholarship / As a Chevening scholar I will further improve my leadership and influencing skills [2]

Ediru, unless you have some leadership and influencing experience that relates to your profession and professional setting, then you cannot apply for the Chevening scholarship. The experiences that you relate in this essay for both criteria are only good for college level narrative essays, not applications. These cannot be used as valid experiences for any major, international scholarships. What you need is just one impressive work related work experience that clearly depicts how you handle crisis management in the workplace. That said, if you are a mere rank and file employee with uverifiable work experience in relation to the prompt requirements, I don't see how you can write an essay that will qualify you for consideration for such a prestigious scholarship grant. This essay cannot be used for Chevening application purposes. You need to reflect on your work experience first. Discover how it turned you into a capable team head and then narrate thst development. Use the singular, pivotal experience that you can think of. Draft an essay based on that and you should be on your way towards writing a far more related experience for your application.

Writing Feedback / Some people embrace the concept that each type of crime should carry a fixed penalty [task2] [3]

I believe that you can score between a 7 and a 7.5 with this essay depending upon the other considerations that the examiner will base the final scoring considerations upon. You are inching your way closer to the 8 band score with every essay that you write. The way that you learned to effectively use transition sentences between paragraphs shows a writing advancement that will definitely increase your GRA score. Between an accurate paraphrasing, which gets you a high TA score, and the improvement in your writing (the addition of the transition sentences) you will definitely be getting an 8 soon enough. I would however, like to point out that the bread story is one that could be considered plagiarism because that is the most commonly used example in this essay prompt. In every instance when you need to provide an example to support a claim, use a modern or newer example that people can better identify with. Nobody steals bread anymore these days. That will be impossible to do with today's security measures. A more appropriate example would have been skimming a credit card as opposed to actually stealing the card and then using it. Another advice I would like to give you is to use the same transition keyword at the start of the new paragraph. When you say "concerns", that is different from "object". If people are concerned, they do not necessarily object. So either use the word "object" twice or use "concerns" twice. For example, you could have said;

Other people are concerned that suspects...

Do you see how the flow of logic and emotion smoothly opens up the new paragraph when you compare it with your use of the word "object"? That is how you score even better in the GRA. This sort of transition and opening signifies a higher degree of control in terms of paragraph development and sentence structure / development.

I admire the conclusion that you created. Most of the work that you did in this essay shows a marked improvement over the previous problematic presentations. You have redeemed yourself ten times over with this essay. Good job! Keep writing. I believe in you and your capacity to perhaps gain a perfect score by the time you finally decide to take the test.

Writing Feedback / Teaching foreign languages would be better for primary student than high school student [2]

Fiza, the score for this essay will automatically be a 1 because you are not discussing the correct prompt requirement. The essay is asking for comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the issue. You are discussing the positive and negative effect. This is a clear mistake in your prompt understanding and as such, resulted in the wrong facts of the topic being discussed. I might have been persuaded to score you at least a 2 in this presentation if your actual body of paragraphs showed that you just made a mistake in the prompt paraphrasing and you were still on track with the advantage and disadvantage discussion. Unfortunately, that is not what happened so the score of 1 stands. The correct format for this discussion in the body paragraphs would have been:

Body 1: Disadvantage presentation
Body 2: Advantage 1 presentation
Body 3: Additional supporting evidence (optional)

There are instances when a 4 paragraph presentation is acceptable for the essay. This is one of those instances because a personal opinion was not required. As such, the 4 paragraph presentation covering the paraphrase, bodies of paragraph and conclusion will be the most acceptable format for this type of discussion.

I have one concern regarding the original prompt. I cannot help but think that you did not offer the complete original prompt for our consideration because in this portion:

DO THE ADVANTAGES OF THIS OUTWEIGH THE DISADVANTAGES?

My question is "The advantages of what?" There are two opinions presented in the prompt, but the portion that addresses the advantage part is missing. There is no subject in that sentence so there is a lack of clarity in the discussion topic in relation to the instruction.

Scholarship / It would be a great and amazing opportunity to study in The Federal Republic of Korea [3]

Ollorunniyi, first things first. Do not assign a gender to the educational system of Korea. Simply address it at "the educational system" instead of "her educational system". Education is gender-less and as such, must be addressed in the proper manner. Do not use the full name of the country to fill the word requirement. simply call it "Korea" as it is more commonly known. Fill the space with relevant material to the prompt requirements instead.

Your motivations for wishing to study in Korea are sound. It is acceptable and believable. However, you should also show a greater concern for Nigeria by making it clear that helping to improve the current state of technology and way of life in Nigeria is one of the personal motivating factors that you have for wishing to study abroad. These days, you always need to make it clear that you plan to go back to your home country upon graduation or as soon as you are allowed to do so by your scholarship agreement.

Be more detailed about your family background. Discuss something about your parents and their line of work. Highlight the parent who serves as your role model or inspiration in life by explaining your close personal relationship with that parent. The same goes for your siblings. Who among them are you closest to and why? Make sure the description of your sibling relationship further drives home the point that the family is one of your reasons for wishing to study abroad.

Your academic accomplishments are too vague to make an impressive mark on the reviewer. There are no national or inter school competitions in your statement that can indicate that you are a true (over) achiever in school with the potential to overcome any potential cultural or social barriers while in Korea.

The person that you chose for your inspirational influence is wrong. You cannot choose another scholar in a different country for that portion. You need to choose someone whose name has recall in the field of IT or academics, or some other profession. You need to explain a deeper relationship between that person who influenced you and why. You can choose one of your teachers for this portion. Maybe the one who told you that with your grades, you can achieve anything you want. That sounds just about right for that section.

The awards that you receive sound like they are merely in-class instead of year level recognition. In order to make your awards more believable, you could try explaining your study ethics or the kind of student that you are. The same goes for your extra curricular activities, you need to have notable accomplishments in that section and not just an insinuation that you have excellent extra curricular performances. Where is the proof of that?

Writing Feedback / IELTS task 2: The Duty to Educate Children [3]

Irene, there are 2 major problems with the essay that you wrote. The first, is that the prompt is not properly paraphrased in your essay. The second, is that you discussed only one of the two opinions and completely forgot to present your point of view. Both mistakes ended up lowering your overall score due to prompt deviations.

With regards to the first problem, the mistakes in your presentation are simple enough to correct. You have to avoid exaggerations and stick to only the original information provided. Overstatements such as "much controversy" when that is not indicated in the essay tends to change the original prompt indications and as such, create a lie in the delivery of information to the reader. Always be truthful by sticking to the original sentiments of the topic provided and its instructions. Here's a sample:

There is a discussion as to who is truly responsible for the education of children when it comes to making them good members of society. A group of people believe that it is the school that should be in charge of this task. Others, explain that it is the duty of the schools to teach the kids about good manners and right conduct when in a social setting. This essay will discuss both points of view prior to my offering of my personal opinion on the matter.

You need to only clearly explain what the original prompt is all about, the discussion points, and the method of presentation in order to create a proper opening statement. You need not exaggerate the presentation and you do not need to indicate your opinion at the very start since you cannot complete your opinion discussion in the opening paragraph due to sentence maximum issues.

Your point of view is always the last presentation of the 3 body paragraphs. Don't forget that. It cannot be presented as an "I think" sentence in the conclusion because you are expected to fully explain yourself in relation to your opinion before you conclude the essay. Therefore, you have an open ended instead of a closed essay presentation. You always need the closed essay presentation in order to get a good score.

Writing Feedback / Issue Essay for GRE AWA section - Teaching using the positive actions method, skip the negatives [2]

Malik, this essay is not well developed. It has logic and reasoning presentation problems, grammar structure issues, and coherence and cohesiveness shortcomings. This is not a professional level essay at this point. It is only at the level of a college application essay or an IELTS / TOEFL exam. This is not a high intellect level discussion as expected from a GRE exam candidate. You need to develop more analytical skills on a masters degree level of writing. Your presentations are not really connected and oftentimes, end up being confusing for the reader.

In order to overcome this problem, you need to learn how to develop a proper outline for your essay. that way you can more easily address the task on hand. Analyze the requirements of the essay and deliver on them. For example, an outline that would work for this essay is:

Thesis: The best way to teach is to praise positive actions and ignore negative ones.

Introduction of the topic: Give an overview of the topic plus the two points of view end with a thesis statement.

Paragraph one: Why ignoring the negative results of teaching is a bad thing.

Paragraph 2: What is positive reinforcement?

Paragraph 3: How does one apply positive reinforcement?

Paragraph 4: Why does positive enforcement work as a teaching method?

Paragraph 5: Conclusion

If you do not have a proper outline for your discussion, you end up with a scatter brained and little explained essay presentation such as the one you have now. At this point, you are far from a passing level exam taker. You are stuck at square one, learning to outline your discussion. You are not ready for step 2 yet which is drafting your essay.

Writing Feedback / [Task 2] In many countries, children are spending several hours each evening doing homework. [3]

@happyfunny Since this is your first attempt at writing this essay, it is alright if I tell you that your attempt garnered a score of 1. The score is the result of your discussion which did not appropriately respond to the given task. Along with that, your presentation does not follow the format requirements for a Task 2 essay. Let's break down these problem points in order to help you better understand what you did wrong.

First of all, your opening paragraph does not make any sense as a representation of the original prompt. The opening paragraph should present your English comprehension skills to the reviewer by presenting the following:

1. An explanation of the topic for discussion in your own words.
2. Reasons why this topic is important.
3. Discussion instructions representative of the thesis statement in the original prompt.

Your opening statement offers sentences that are too close to the original. You must distance from the original presentation as much as possible the major similarities in the presentation constitute plagiarism and will lower your TA score. So your presentation should have been:

Across the globe, students are finding themselves spending more than a few hours doing their school assignments every night. This has led to the question as to whether students need to be given school related work to do at home. In this essay, I will discuss my opinion of this statement and offer explanations as to why that is so.

You need to learn how to focus on explaining only one reason per paragraph. That makes a total of no more than 3 reasons that present the following per paragraph:

1. Topic sentence at the start of the paragraph.
2. Supporting evidence
3. Detailed explanation or personal opinion / experience

The concluding statement that you wrote is also faulty as it doesn't properly paraphrase the preceding discussion in the correct manner:
1. Restate the discussion topic
2. Summarize the facts
3. Close the discussion

If you follow these outlines for your next essay, there should be an immediate improvement in your work and final score.

Scholarship / My vision into the reality. Chevening: leadership and influence essay [6]

Taha, I am not sure if you fully understand what the Chevening leadership and influencing essay is all about. The scholarship program is highly specific and selective about their applicants having the capacity to create a change in their country. This is the reason why they require the scholarship applicants to display their leadership and influencing skills within their profession. After all, the future professional, business, and political leaders of a country start within their field of expertise of line of work. It is a highly technical requirement that pushes the applicants to display their best leadership and influencing abilities on a professional scale. That is why I am saddened by the fact that your essay does not fall within the professional requirements and considerations of the scholarship. While the content of the essay is admirable, the fact that you did not manage to present this on a professional level is what makes the presentation lackluster and inadequate as part of your application documents.

It would be in your best interest to create a more appropriate leadership and influencing essay that is based more upon your professional background and experiences. If you are unsure about how to proceed with the revision or the writing of a new essay, all you have to do is look at the numerous examples of this scholarship essay within this forum. The examples you will be seeing will surely inspire you to revise your essay in a more appropriate manner.

Writing Feedback / ielts task 2 : - People should work a fixed number of hours per week [5]

Vipy, I do not believe that you can score higher than a 5 with this essay. There are a number of presentation and discussion issues that led me to decide upon that score for you. Most of the reasons for the low score are easy to fix, provided you can remember to do it in your succeeding essays.

First, you must always remember to present the prompt restatement in the first paragraph. You are never to discuss the facts of the topic without first presenting your understanding of the prompt requirements. Without that representation, your TA score, as in this instance was a 5. That is a lenient score considering that you did not even come close to a prompt representation. This is the example of what you have to present:

It is believed that people must only work for a specific number of days and time during the week. Employers must not take advantage of their workers by asking them to work overtime. In this essay, I shall present an explanation as to why this must be based upon my understanding and experience in the workplace.

After that prompt restatement, you could have used the paragraph starting with "First of all..." as the first body paragraph for your essay. The body paragraphs of your essay are also what provides the second problem with your essay. You do not really discuss the reasons you gave, which is required as a part of the paragraph information. Instead, you only offer sound bites for every reason in every paragraph. This results in an improperly developed paragraph that does not create a coherent or cohesive paragraph. This is a problem that is found throughout your body paragraph presentations.

Finally, the concluding statement does not close the essay. Rather it continues the discussion. This is also a violation of the essay format as the concluding paragraph cannot discuss new information due to the 5 paragraph rule. The last paragraph is always used only for the summation of the discussion and nothing more. It is because of these reasons that I feel justified in giving you that overall score.

Scholarship / Chevening Essay, Post graduation plan for incredible achievements to my country in the future [4]

Sebghatulla, of all the plans that you wrote for this essay, the one that you should have threshed out more was the participation that you will be having in the DFID in Afghanistan. What do you know about how they function in your country? Will the course that you studied help you to become a notable member of that UK organization? Your essay will be in the best position for consideration if your expand your discussion for your post study plans in relation to your membership in the DFID. Remember, the post study plan is very specific about its requirements. It indicates:

Chevening is looking for individuals who have a clear post-study career plan. Outline your immediate plans upon returning home and your longer term career goals, considering how these relate to UK priorities in your country.

Based on that prompt, it is tremendously obvious that you need to use at least 300 words to explain your DFID participation and plans as opposed to the other long term plans you indicated in the essay. The UK connection is more important because as a Chevening scholar, you will be expected to work with other alumna from the program for a period of time. Consider it payback for the scholarship. Therefore, the longer you plan to work with the UK based organization, the better it will be for your application.

Graduate / What is professionalism as a student in a doctor of physical therapist degree program [3]

Richa, first of all, if the book that you mentioned truly exists, as does the author, then you are required to share the title of the book and the name of the author. You must also offer an explanation as to how you gained the opportunity to shadow such an important person. Now, here is the catch, if this person is not going to give you a letter of recommendation for the course, then you should not mention the name at all. The reason you should not reference the author and mentor anymore is because the reviewer will not be able to call the hospital or publisher connected with the person for verification of your claims.

Next, your essay deviates from the purpose of the prompt. You must discuss all of your traits as a professional in relation to the Physical Therapy Doctorate program. Your references are all over the place and not of interest to the reviewer. You must focus solely on the professional aspect of Physical therapy and remove the references to being a summer camp guidance counselor, practicing Indian Classical music, and other irrelevant references. Sure these helped you to meet the word requirement. However, it failed to connect your professional beliefs with your future profession, which is the point of the whole essay.

Undergraduate / My goal is to continue to volunteer with JAAC. US - Jamaican connection [2]

Logan, how I wish that you had given me some inkling as to what this personal statement is all about. It seems to me that you are asking to be allowed to volunteer again with JAAC right? If that is so then I do not think this essay is well balanced. While you should highlight the fact that you are Jamaican and that you legally migrated to the US and even served in the Army, I feel that you have discussed too little about your JAAC experience and your personal motivation and objectives for wishing to continue your relationship with them. Maybe you can lessen the talk about your time in the army and your after college career in favor or a lengthier discussion of your desire to renew your participation in the JAAC. That portion of the discussion is too short in my opinion because you do speak of how you hope to make a contribution to the cause. What kind of positive change do you wish to contribute that will help to enhance the program for both the volunteers and the Jamaicans? Are there any specific situations you wish to address? What kind of solutions would you like to offer? You should impress the reviewer with your ideas regarding your potential participation in the program. Make it appear that your continued involvement will produce a better grassroots campaign for the cause.

Writing Feedback / International sports events like Football World Cup help in world peace. Do you agree or disagree? [2]

Hardeep, your opening paragraph is a run-on sentence that does not display a correct interpretation of the original prompt. You are giving a personal opinion with information being discussed instead of responding to the prompt with a proper thesis statement at the end of the first paragraph. Here is an example of a proper paraphrase for this topic:

Sporting events have long been considered to be a good way of promoting world peace. Events like the Football World Cup have long been promoted as a unifying force in the world. I disagree with this belief for a number of reasons.

To begin with...

Notice how you did not respond to the question posed by the prompt requirement in the version that you wrote? While this is an opinion paper, it must present a response to the discussion instruction before any actual discussion of the facts can take place in the second paragraph. The discussion for this essay must be in the single opinion format as you are not being asked to discuss both points of view in this essay. You need to take ownership of the opinions being presented by indicating a personal belief through the use of first person pronouns.

Additionally, the best representation of your opinion in this essay would have been better represented if you had indicated the personal opinion that you presented at the end of the opening statement. I refer to the sentence that indicates:

I believe that efforts at a much larger scale must be made and they should not be confined to any particular, short-term sports event.

That could have been better developed as the sole reason for your disagreement within 3 body paragraphs. I believe the essay would have been stronger and better focused in terms of discussion if you concentrated on presenting supporting facts for the aforementioned line of reasoning instead.

You concluding paragraph is faulty. It does not represent an accurate summary of the discussion within 3 sentences. This is another run-on sentence and therefore, does not suit the C&C requirements in terms of paragraph presentation.

Undergraduate / Write on a topic that is of importance to you and reflects who you are. Maximum 500 words [3]

Elizabeth, you are in violation of the forum rules. You can only post one complete essay per thread. Posting 2 essays in a single thread is not only frowned upon, it is an offense for which you can be suspended. I urge you to delete the second essay in order to avoid that problem. In the meantime, I will advice you only on the first essay as that is all that is allowed per thread. You will need to post the second essay as a separate and new thread instead.

The topic that you chose to discuss is important but does not really show me a reflection of who you are. What you wrote is an opinion paper based on facts. What you should have written, is a personal analysis of who you are. For example, if you consider education important to you, then discuss why that is without involving your mother's customer or your brother's point of view. Focus only on the reason why your concern about education reflects who you are. In this essay, I get the sense that you are more concerned about the overall negative effects of people being disheartened by the lack of opportunity to complete their education. That is a general discussion. You need to be focused only on yourself and try to reflect a character of yours in relation to education.

In my opinion, the essay that you wrote doesn't work for the prompt requirement. I would be best if you simply replaced the whole essay with one that better reflects the prompt instructions rather than trying to make this presentation work. It will be extremely difficult to do. In such instances, simply changing the essay would be a lot easier to accomplish since you can write a totally new essay that will have you focusing on a fresh perspective in response to the prompt.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL : Education is a necessity / Marriage is one of the most important decisions of life [3]

Neither introduction paragraphs are correct because you did not properly paraphrase the original prompt requirements. You deviated so much from the original discussions that you somehow managed to create your own discussion instruction for the prompts that were provided. You were not focusing on properly representing the original prompt. You just wanted to keep writing in a manner that you felt comfortable in so you did not even bother to double check the accuracy of your prompt paraphrasing.

In the first essay, your prompt presentation is way off base from the original. In the second essay, you are discussing the wrong requirement. You should only talk about the advantages of marrying at a young age. That is, unless you provided the wrong original prompts in both instances.

By the way, I need to warn you about the way you are preparing for your test. This is a complete waste of time. You cannot prepare for the test by practicing in sections. You won't be writing in sections at the exam center. Instead, you should always practice the full essays in a timed format similar to the set up at the exam center. If you don't do that during your practice, you are going to fumble and fail on the actual exam day because you won't be allowed to write only a section of the essay at a time. Always write a full essay so that you can develop all of your writing points in relation to the scoring requirements. This has to be done collectively at all times otherwise, you will never know if you are actually improving your skills or not.

Writing Feedback / The role of eco-tourism in society is educating for both traveller and local communities. [2]

I am not sure what kind of review you want for this paragraph. All I can tell is that it has a tendency to be redundant as you use the term "The role of Eco-tourism in society is educating / educated..." Don't use the same sentence structure successively in your presentation as this tends to confuse the reader who may think that you have accidentally repeated yourself in the essay. I am not sure what the colon indicated phrases mean either. I wish you had given us an explanation of what you are trying to do before you left the essay for review. It is impossible to review the rest of your essay because you did not give us the prompt parameters for our assistance. I think you should be presenting the SP and SD sections in an outline format so that it will be easier for the reader to keep track of your discussion outline in relation to your actual paragraph discussion. As a thesis statement, this presentation is not effective at all. You need to develop your thesis statement presentation skills in order come up with a more interesting discussion presentation for your essay.

Writing Feedback / [Task 2] Many governments think that the financial growth is a crucial factor for company existence [4]

Gang, there is a possibility that you could get a score of 6 with this essay. That score is based upon some confusing sentence development presentations on your part in specific paragraphs. In your second paragraph, you discussed 2 topics instead of 1. This created a less than memorable discussion for this particular point of view because you were not able to pinpoint the actual opinion for this particular stance. The one topic per paragraph approach is always best in this instance. This is the same response that I am giving you for your first question. If you try to discuss too many examples in the body of paragraphs, your essay will suffer the same fate in relation to the clarity of the discussion.

For the second question, your concluding paragraph is a bit confusing. I know that is stayed on point with the original prompt but you seem to have struggled to create the discussion paragraph. I am wondering if this is because you are trying to use more advanced English words and sentence presentations while you are still nervous and unsure about how to do it. If you are not confident in a particular presentation format because of the words that you use, nothing is stopping you from using simple sentence formats if you wish to. That will allow you to get a higher score as well.

As for your last question, the more words that you write, the better. Just make sure that you avoid run - on sentences and confusing presentations as that is the normal tendency for exam takers during the review process. Doing so will lower the GRA and C&C scores. Be very careful in that respect. There is only a word minimum in the IELTS test. There is no maximum so you need to check yourself before you submit the essay test.

Scholarship / Essay on leadership and influencers, explaining how i meet these requirements. [2]

Vincent, is this for the Chevening Scholarship? If it is, then let me tell you right off the bat that if you pass this essay to the reviewer, he is going to reject your application. You are only talking of an idea of leadership in this essay. Your narration does not show how you embody the role of leadership in your profession. There is no clear example of your leadership and influencing skills in the right context as being a simple volunteer does not count as a professional experience. You are not mentioning anything regarding a leadership role that you portrayed. The prompt demands that you showcase your leadership skills within your line of work because that ties in directly to the other essay prompts that you are going to be writing. Read the leadership and influencing examples here. Figure out how you can prove your professional leadership skills in a similar vein. The quote about Steve Jobs doesn't help your essay at all because he is speaking of his idea of leadership but it doesn't translate into something that relates to your professional experience. Therefore, the quote doesn't help your essay along and should not be used in this essay. This is not the kind of leadership and influencing essay that will have the reviewer thinking that you could actually be some sort of professional leader in your country. The essay that you wrote doesn't represent the correct prompt requirements.

Writing Feedback / Contrast high schools and universities - Contrast Essay [6]

Hue, when you write a comparison essay, it is always best to limit the discussion to one common topic. That makes it easier for you to create a 3 paragraph discussion that will keep the reader focused on your supporting facts rather than jumping around from topic to topic as you did in this essay. Your reader will be forced to keep track of all of your discussions, which do not flow smoothly as you do not have transition sentences in between paragraphs. That makes it difficult to actually consider all of the discussion points as you set them out in the essay. Since this is to be written as a compare and contrast essay (you cannot contrast without comparing) the paragraph body should be represented as:

1. Comparison statement
2. Contrasting statement

Basically, an essay such as this one can be completed within 4 paragraphs if written in a manner that best represents the clearest discussion for the prompt. I wish you had included the original instructions instead of just giving me the essay to read. I would have been able to offer a more target set of advice if you had done that.

Writing Feedback / Humanistic Approach to Apply Law for Human - IELTS Writing Task 2 [3]

Aulia, there is an improvement to your paraphrasing, but you still made a mistake in representing the discussion instruction. This forced an error on your part in the actual discussion of your essay. The thesis statement for your presentation should have indicated your own words that describe; "Discuss both points of view and give your own opinion." For instance, you could have said;

...fixed law. This essay will analyze this subject matter by analyzing both points of view before I offer my own point of view towards the end of the essay.

First point of view has valid points such as...

While the second point of view indicates...

My opinion, is that...

Your content is good but not properly presented. So you are slowly improving your work. The problem points remain the same when it comes to the discussion instruction. So focus on your English comprehension skills with regards to that area of the prompt requirements. Make the extra effort to get an explanation of how you should discuss the essay so that you can finally, improve to the point where you can finally focus on just improving your content in the presentation.

Scholarship / 'I grew up, professionally and personally'; Networking skills references for Chevening scholarship [2]

Jacquiline, you need to revise the paragraph about your Zumba-mates. It sounds a little too casual for a formal essay presentation. Perhaps you can increase the formality in that paragraph by offering examples of their actual professions. You can elaborate further on the profession of those close to you by indicating that they were your "go to" people for your cataract campaign. In this sort of essay, you need to utilize examples and descriptions because that will help to serve as an example of your networking capacity. While you are good at describing who they are, the field they are involved in and why you chose to contact that person for your campaign helps to better support your "Sweatworking" claims.

Additionally, give examples of the types of network that you created by attending meetings and conferences. Describe the capacity that these networks have helped you advance your career. Explain the importance of such networks for someone in your line of work. By the way, unless your mentor is giving you a letter of recommendation to accompany this application, it may be best to not mention his name as he might be required to support the reference later on. As for the journal editor, you need to mention his name and be sure that he will be providing you with a recommendation letter for the same reasons. Add the publication date and volume / issue of the journal you were published in. Include the article title, just in case. Remember, all of your claims will be verified so you need to support all claims with verifiable evidence.

Writing Feedback / All teenagers should be required to do unpaid work in their free time to help the local community [4]

Tran, your essay does not properly represent the prompt for discussion because you immediately discussed the topic in the opening paragraph, with the assumption that the reader is familiar with the topic being discussed. You must always consider that the examiner may or may not have access to the original prompt. That is why the opening paragraph is always allotted for your topic presentation and instruction discussion representation. That is all part of the Task Accuracy requirement and you are scored in a major manner on your ability to deliver the TA requirements. The proper presentation for this would have been:

Compulsory community service for the youth during their spare time is something that people and schools believe to be beneficial to the youngster. That is because there is a belief that young adults will gain major benefits from such a practice. I disagree with this practice and in this essay, I will explain why.

Based upon the proper prompt presentation, you will see that this is not a "2 points of view" discussion essay but rather, a single opinion justification essay. Therefore, your essay should not be discussing two points of view. Rather, you should be discussing the 3 body paragraphs to provide reasons, evidence, and justifications for your point of view. That is how you present, discuss, and defend your point of view in the proper manner.

Your conclusion does not work well in terms of increasing your score. You need to divide the presentation into 3-5 sentences in order to gain the maximum possible GRA and C&C scores for your work.

Writing Feedback / IELTS: - Some people believe that studying in a college or university is the best place for students [2]

Vipy, your total approach to the essay is wrong. There is no clear paraphrasing and the discussion that you provided in the body paragraphs do not discuss each point of view and then your personal opinion. The presentation you made shows that you decided to discuss the topic based upon your personal choices for discussion rather than discussing it in the required outline. The proper outline for your essay is as follows:

When it comes to the preparation of students for their careers, their parents believe in 2 different things. There are a set of parents who believe that their children should attend college or university in order to properly train themselves for their upcoming professions. Other parents believe that it would be best for their children to go to work as soon as they can because practical experience is important to their work qualifications. This essay will discuss both points of views after which I shall present my personal opinion regarding the discussion.

In regards to the first point of view about the need for a college education...

Now, as far as the practical learning aspect is concerned...

In my opinion...

In the end...

The above is an example of the proper and full format for this sort of discussion. Remember, all of your paragraphs must have at least 3 sentences in them, maximum of 5 in order to meet the highest possible C&C score. Please use this as your reference next time you come across a similar discussion instruction.

Scholarship / Study plans for greater language skills (Korean, English) required for taking a bachelor's degree [3]

John, this is a good plan, but your presentation is wanting. You need to present these in actual paragraph format, expanding in most areas that fall short of a proper explanation of your plans. Those are the plans that only have 2 sentences in them. The method by which you will accomplish these are too short. Almost as if you are unsure about how you plan to really implement this so you are saying little by way of explanation in an effort to cover the fact that you really don't have an adequate plan for that action. Your "Before" plans should indicate that your plans are ongoing and not "about to happen". The before aspect requires that you already have some sort of language background in Hangul and you will just be continuing upon that education once you get to Korea. Your number of months indicated for the before study plan is inadequate and you will not even have a total basic grasp of such a complicated language structure by then. Just indicate that your language lessons are ongoing in order to better indicate your current Hangul capacity. If you need to cover your tracks, as you do here, then you best do it in a believable manner. The after plan needs to be better developed and should include a social growth aspect to your language learning. The way you present your plans makes you seem like you think yourself better than the other Koreans or students studying Hangul. Try to be more open instead of solitary in your language lessons. Remember, you need those friends more than they need you in order to improve your language skills.

Scholarship / Internet invention marked an important milestone of mordern life [4]

Minh, your approach to the essay should be improved upon as you are just spinning your wheels and not going anywhere with your declarations. Your paragraphs are not properly attuned to the prompt requirements because you just keep on throwing out information without really having a purpose. There is no outline for your essay which is why your essay doesn't make a valid point. This could very well conclude your scholarship application. It is not the kind of essay that a reviewer will actually take the bother to finish reading. You must write a totally new essay based on the internet topic based upon my suggested outline:

1. Past - What was life like before the internet? What difficulties in communication, information exchange, and entertainment existed? (200 words)
2. The Emergence of the Internet - When the internet first emerge and what was its purpose? How did its primarily military purpose slowly evolve into a commercial objective? (300 words)

3. The Modern World of the Internet - What is life like now that indicates the influence of the internet? Why do you consider this a good thing? (200 words)

4. The Future Internet World - Why do you think the internet will continue to be important in the future? What do you think the next evolution of the internet will be in say 20 years from now? (100 words).

Outlining your discussion points, organizing your thoughts, and actually being able to hazard a word count requirement per topic outline is imperative in this sort of essay. If necessary, you may adjust the word count to suit your needs. The point is, every word that you type, sentence that you complete, and paragraph that you present to the reviewer must carry relevant information and offer an insight into your manner of thinking and analysis.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL; We're making choice in every second of life - planning and organizing skills among youngsters [4]

Chiu, please make it a point to post the complete original prompt as it was given to you by your instructor next time as there are some variations that are sometimes applied to the instruction line. Having said that, I will assume that the discussion is all about whether you agree or disagree that it is crucial for young people to have the ability to organize and plan. Did I guess right? Is that the actual prompt you were responding to? If so, then my opinion of your work will be based on that instruction line.

You will get a score of 1 with this essay mostly because you did not discuss the correct prompt in the essay. The correct prompt is:

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Because modern life is very complex, it is essential for young people to have the ability to plan and organize.

Therefore, your opening paraphrase is incorrect as it openly discussed a topic that is not related to the original requirement which should have been:

Due to the complexities of life, it has become important that young adults develop the ability to plan and organize their lives. I agree with this statement and will explain why in the following paragraphs.

Your vocabulary is faulty because you use certain terms such as "mature adult" when the correct term is "young adult" or "adolescent, juvenile, youngster" to name few variations on the term which would have applied better throughout the essay. You basically have a strong argument in the essay that supports your claim. It is just that your wording in some instances is mostly off. Good work though. I know you can still improve in the future.

Writing Feedback / Young people struggle to join the workforce, how to solve the problem? [4]

Chuyunana. your essay is going to fail in an actual test setting for one reason alone, you did not develop it in the proper, accurate, and expected format. The standard format for these essays are 4-5 paragraphs with 5 sentences per paragraph covering the following presentations:

1. Opening paraphrase and thesis statement
2. Reason 1 with supporting facts
3. Reason 2 with evidence to prove the point
4. Personal opinion(if required)
5. Concluding statement with a summary of the discussion points

The minimum paragraph requirement that you can get a decent enough score on based on all 4 requirements will be a 4 paragraph presentation. With your presentation, which is 2 paragraphs that combines the elements I mentioned above, you will get a failing score due to an inappropriate TA presentation, lack of proper paragraph development, and improper formatting. This is not a passing score type of presentation.

Scholarship / One woman's path to academic empowerment: Studying in the UK Question - Scholarship Essay [6]

Denize, while you did successfully outline your general responses to the prompts, it doesn't erase the fact that you still chose 3 different universities, as per your own words, to apply for admission to. There are varying reasons as to why you chose each university that ties in directly with specific plans that you have for your career and country. As well as your profession specific skills. That is why you still have to discuss each university and course separately in the context of the prompt.

If you will take the time to review the other Chevening Study in the UK essays here, you will see a clear examples as to why your format will not work. The reviewer will base the university choice for your scholarship on individual considerations even if you have already indicated acceptance into a specific university. It is a matter of them accurately matching you with a university as opposed to you choosing one university or three, thinking you successfully matched yourself with one. There is a big difference.

As to the explanation regarding one university and 3 courses. You would still need to justify the differences in the courses in relation to their applicability in your line of work and your professional skills and background. They need to know that you are not a car mechanic wanting to treat human patients as a doctor, so to speak. Don't be so literal in interpretation. Always seek out example essays as provided here before you draft your own essay.

As per the successful Chevening applicants, of which there are many that I have assisted here over time, the individual university considerations came up and were used to match certain scholarship interests with the student and university choices. Hence my suggestion that you discuss each separately. We are not talking general skills here but rather specialized interests and skills that are relevant to your scholarship program. This essay needs to be precise because it leads directly into the post study plan prompt which, if you mess this essay up, will be difficult for you to accomplish. Your idea about future development plans is misplaced as the indepth discussion of that is presented in the post study plan essay.

Indeed we have 2 different interpretations of the prompt. My interpretation has led to successful scholarship grantees and final interview candidates at the very least. Evidence of that can be found in their thanks to me in this forum. However, I am not here to convince you of my way and i will not to force my suggestions upon you. In the end, this is your application so you should follow what feels right for you. In other words, you can go with your gut feeling and see what happens then. Good luck with your application.

Undergraduate / Having access to the modern methods and advanced technology of producing agriculture in Australia [3]

Nguyen, you need to revise the last part of the essay to better indicate a connection between your studies (that is required), your profession, and how you hope to increase your knowledge and skills by coming to Australia as a student of (what course?). There is a lack of clarity in your essay in terms of your motivation for studying this course. The reasons that you state for coming to Australia to study is not very convincing. It is shallow at best and does not indicate what you hope to achieve at the end of your study period in the country and university. You need to better develop that part because if the reviewer cannot understand what motivated you to choose Australia and this university in particular, he may not consider your application to be serious enough. I strongly suggest that you review the essay for grammar accuracy. There are online programs that can help you do that for free or, you can hire a professional editor to do that for you. That person can clean up your grammar mistakes, tighten the essay, and make it more relevant to your application needs. You can check out our services above and consider whether you want professional help in fixing your essay.

Scholarship / [CHEVENING LEADERSHIP AND INFLUENCER] GREAT LEADER IS THE ONLY SOLUTION TO UNDERDEVELOPMENT [3]

Nat, you have too much telling and not enough showing in the essay. You merely imply certain leadership actions but you do not actually explain the motivation, objective, or purpose of the plan. You cannot infer leadership, specially since you claim that you are not really a leader but rather a subordinate with some leadership responsibilities. If you review the other essays here regarding this topic, you will find that they actually thresh out a detailed explanation of a work related problem that required them to step up to the plate as a leader and influencer. I don't get any idea of that in your essay. I suggest that you be more specific in your presentation. That means, you can use 2 different experiences to present the leadership (first) then the influencing (second). That normally helps to better address the prompt requirements and normally allows you to also strengthen your claims in the presentation. At the moment, the essay is weak as it lacks a true and essential background that would indicate an example of the prompt requirements in relation to your skills. Remember, the skill has to impressive enough to indicate that, with proper development, you will end up being a future leader in your field of work in your country in the future.

Scholarship / "Book is a window to the world" A study plan in applying for Chinese scholarship [4]

Adventria, since this is a study plan, it should follow a specific requirement regarding your proposed thesis towards the end of the course. I am not sure what the requirements are for your scholarship study plan but, based upon my experience, you need to focus more on the motivation that you have for your line of study. Think about what it is about literature that drew you to it. Whether it be a specific author or a memorable story, these should be able to help you consider what kind of thesis you wish to undertake as a student. What is it about literature that first drew you to it? Do you believe that the research in that field has been completed? If not, what other avenue of study or information do you think you can still pursue and why? Create your study plan around that idea. Don't worry about actually being able to complete this thesis as a student. This is just a proposal that you may or may not pursue at the appropriate time. Right now, the reviewer just wants to be sure that you truly understand what the course requirements are and that you are a truly motivated student who will complete the course and not quit midstream.