Writing Feedback / Mistakes make success--GRE Issue [5]

"Only through mistakes can there be discovery or progress."

German poet Johan Wolfgang Goethe ever said "Man errs so long as he strives". While someone believes that mistakes are the only way to progress and discovery, I don't agree with them. Indeed, by mistakes, we can learn essential experience. However, the claim is kind of absoluteness.

By making mistakes, we could gain useful experiences that how we errs so that try to avoid it next time. When we sweep out the obstacles on the way to success, we are more likely to achieve the goal. For instance, American inventor Thomas Edison finally found the suitable filament for bulbs after nearly 1000 times experiment. Since when he failed this time a kind of metal material was phased out in his list, the more mistakes the closer to the success.

Moreover, making mistakes can be seen as chances to develop our sense of never giving up, thereby making us stronger and unstoppable. Every mistake might stimulate our nerves and lighten the internal ambition of human to overcome it. Swedish physicist Nobel, for instance, did the experiment of making booms for about 400 times. Every time he failed, he became more eager to get success. Successive mistakes contributed to his strong character and finally help him attain achievements.

Someone might argue: now that mistakes can make the progress easier for us, so we should make more mistakes to gain success. However, this view point is unpersuasive. Through learning other's experience could help us to avoid some mistakes and arrive at the top as well. Sir Isaac Newton ever said If I can see a bit longer than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants (and I paraphrase). This sentence means that we could absorb the essence of the prominent ones leading us to the final goal without making unnecessary mistakes.

What' more, sometimes the cost mistakes would be too heavy to accept, so that within long time, we could keep struggling without the light of success. Consider Toshiba, a computer manufacturer of Japan. In 1990s, a great amount of batteries in Toshiba laptop was malfunction ones. Even though Toshiba made its best to refund to the North American costumers, Chinese costumers didn't get the refund. As a result, Toshiba lost its marker share in China and its selling record sharply dropped down. Sometimes, we cannot make mistakes because the outcome might be too heavy for us.

In conclusion, mistakes can help us, and can also be disasters sometimes. The key point is how we face them. When we walk on a smooth road, we should move forward confidently. However, when we meet obstacles, we should never lose ambition, then study it and overcome it. Success is in front of us.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL ESSAY--- The most important characteristic a friend should have [2]

Appreciate your time and advice.
For a multitude of people, including me, friends may act as the most important person in life. What attribute should a friend have? Nothing is more important than smart in my opinion.

With a friend of intelligence, I can figure out various problems and get rid of troubles successfully. In everyday life, almost everyone would meet various kinds of problems which can hardly be solved in our own hands. If, however, you have a helpful friend who is much smart, he can use his knowledge, coming up with some advisable approaches to let you get out of the troubles. For instance, I once was struggling with my math assignment in which there were some hard questions when I was in middle school. After three day's effort, I nearly did nothing constructively to solve them. At last, when I was going to give up, a friend of mine, the best student in study performance in my grade, came to see me and found that I was helpless. To my surprise, he handled those problems in the easiest way. Thanks to his help, I finally make the assignment completed. At the moment, I found how lucky I was that I had such an intelligent friend.

On top of that, a clever friend can be a good teacher. I could learn so much from a clever friend, thereby making myself more intelligent. As our times progress, this world has became more complex than before whereby we have to be an intelligent person to face difficulties and to make life easier. How can we be competent to that "intelligent person"? A friend with knowledge, experience and critical thoughts can make it. We may admire them at first, emulate them then and if competently, surpass them at last. Still think of my friend mentioned in last paragraph. I was learning from him for all my middle school years. After we graduated, I still kept in touch with him, reasoning not only that we are friends but also he is such an intelligent man who is really deserved for me to learn from. By doing this, I have grew up from an innocent and futile boy to a thoughtful and competent adult who can handle things well. I have to say that, sometimes, I feel I have gained more from my friend that my parents even.

In a nutshell, we can not only gain valuable help but also absorb essence from an intelligent friend, which makes life easier and contributes to let us be of intelligence.