Posts by mohammmo

mohammmo

Sep 2, 2012

Writing Feedback / Essay about National education in Hong Kong [3]

Not sure how to help but i'' provide you with my personal suggestions on some phrases. They are only recommendations rather than professional feedback.

National education, which is perceived as a 'brainwashing' tool by many citizens, seems to be introduced in a harsh way, and it is not likely to be stoppedeven if the earth exposes . However, the resistance for the curriculum is still noticeable. Pressures from protesting, newspapers and the internet accumulate, and now even students take part in the battle.

Think of the following related terms for your topic: authoritarian, conformity, homogenous, freedom of expression or speech, etc.

There are many criticisms that the syllabus given by the government was biased . It fails to adress the dark side of our country, it contradicts with the iron law of learning and thinking, which emphasizes the shape of opinions and opinions supported with solid facts. Thus, we conclude that the syllabus is immature, and it isn't ready for launching now.

It is strange that our government was doing so hard for achieving their goal, there are an advisory body for it, three years of preparation periods for it, as well as they will introduce it in governmental schools next month before asking for further feedback. Is it really worth doing? People may doubt that all those actions of the government is driven by specific political reasons, say to strengthen the nationalistic ideology of Hong Kong citizens as a "response" to the "order" of Central government, this results in fear of "brainwashing" which locks people away from the truth and freedom.

There are a lot of examples of national education in other countries. Many of them are successful and logical. For now, I firmly believe that the curriculum needs a pause for further consideration before it is thrown out.

you can elaborate more on the subject, work on your vocabulary, you can say how the government conforms its students for certain "agendas" that ignores the purpose of education. such form of education curtails many information from students such as the history of (you can elaborate on the ""dark side)". Such pieces of history are crucial to our culture as they help us understand the moral lessons in them (for example)

there endless way to approach the topic. don't focus on the "political agendas", you can say that such conformity denies the deiversity in students abilities and assumes they can comprehend the same material... etc

Hope it helps and again work on your vocabulary, increase your English reading habits,

mohammmo

Sep 2, 2012

Writing Feedback / Plan to build a new restaurant - do you support or oppose essay [2]

please se the attached file,

you dedicated a large portion of the essay for strictly "personal" reasons. I would expand the reasons to a broder scope such as the third paragraph.

instead of saying you'll have a closer restaurant, etc, you could say that the restaurant would add more choices for the locals to dine.

you could say that the disadvantages would be that the quit calm nature of the neighborhood might be compromised because of the ... (possibly drunk people, crowdedness, etc)

If this is for a toefl or any other standardized tests, try avoid personal as much as possible (unless you're asked to), try to be focused on a certain scope, (not way too broad),

You can also say that it depends on what kind of restaurant is it? if it's a family-owned restaurant, or a bar, etc,

SOME SUGGESTIONS:

I strongly support building a new restaurant in my neighborhood for many reasons. A new restaurant would bring a lot of benefits to the neighborhood despite the few disadvantages it may impose.

First of all, as a student with a part time job, I'm busy all the time. Lack of free time forces me to buy food from nearby restaurants. I simply drive my car to the restaurant of my choice and eat anything I want there. The thing is that there is only one restaurant in my neighborhood and they don't offer quality foods. Besides, I hate their food since they are insipid and I got food poisoning a few times I went there to satiate my hunger. Building a new restaurant in my neighborhood take these problems off my plate. Admittedly new restaurant make neighborhood dirty since restraurants' waste are improperly disposed in street cans, my neighborhood would be more crowded than before since a lot of customers form other neighborhoods will come to ours and finding parking space would be more difficult. But despite all of these minor problems, I think advantages of the plan outweigh its disadvantages.

Second of all, I have a 16 years old son that needs money. As father I always lessen his worries by telling him that every time he needed money he can turn to me. But despite my offers he thinks that he should be more independent and gain money himself. That's why he is waiter at a restaurant near city center, but he always complain about distance that he should travel every day to get to his job and the fact that he need time to study and do his homework. Building a new restaurant near our house would be a golden opportunity for my son and owner of the new restaurant will also receive benefit from the situation since his employee always get to work on time.

last but not least, building a new restaurant will encourage other investors to build new recreational places such as cinema, fast food restaurant, swimming pool and shopping centers. Since new restaurant will attract a lot of customers from other part of the city, after or before eating people can go shopping or see a movie. For the same reasons, city centers and places that are crowded are always surrounded by shopping centers and recreational place. In this way we can also benefit from using these places.

In summary, I support this new plan because of my personal reasons and because building a new restaurant can leads to construction of other useful places.

mohammmo

Sep 2, 2012

Writing Feedback / studying major cities only gives a glimpse on a society... [2]

To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position.

a nice concise feedback would be appreciated

The argument that undersrtanding the most important characteristics of a society is done by concentrating research on it major cities is short-sighted. While it seems logical to focus on major cities since they have the highest population, such apraoch reduces the entire society into those cities ignoring other smaller cities, rural areas, and towns. I argue against such aproach because it marginalizes other areas in favor of major cities. There are two crucial arguemtns against this approach. First, the assumption that concentrated cities are reflective of a society is incorrect. Hence, whenever research is done on major cities, any conclusions made only reflect those cities, which will ignore all the other variables at play to fully understand a society. Third, if a study is made to improve the socioeconomic status of the citizens, any improvements will only benefit those in the major cities, which may not be so for other smaller cities.

First, the concentration of people in a major city is not a valid argument to conclude the city's reflection of a society. Let's assume a country where 30 percent of its citizens are concentrated in a major city, and the rest of the 70 percent are scattered in rural areas and small towns. Let's say the country wants to conduct a study on citizen's accecibility to minimum services such as education and health care. If the country focuses on the major city with only 30 percent of the population, it ignores the majority of the population, which will make the study flawed and misguided.

continueing on my previous point, let's say the same study in an urban major city is intended to reach for solutions in case the study shows hard accesibility to citizens to minimum services. Solutions maybe building more schools or hospitals or establishing free public tranportation. However, these solutions are not necesarrily effective for rural areas where its citizens may have environmental concerns over establishing more public transportation.

Such approach indicates that only the needs of those who live in major cities are adressed, and the others are discrimiated, which which raises equality isssues. Both citizens in major cities and other areas contribute to the society through civil participation. therefore, they should be equally represented regardless of the geograpohic location.

In conclusion, studying Major cities only gives a glimpse on a society, but never truly represent it.

mohammmo

Sep 8, 2012

Graduate / graduate admission for electrical engineering [3]

I'm also applying to grad schools fro electrical engineering and currently working on my SOP, here is my opinion,

the committee dont really care whether you like electric stuff since you were young (they already assume so since you did your bachelors in EE, ECE, etc). therefore, i agree with the last comment about the first paragraph.

They pretty much want you to demonstrate your eligibility to conduct research, your long term goals, etc.

Try to elaborate on the last two paragraphs to demonstrate your specificity of your research area.

As mentioned in the last comment, the more recent work, the better, do you have any published (or not published) work/research? I don't know, i haven't finished mine yet but I'd include my senior project (which you did mention), my summer work in lab with a professor, teaching assistant, honor thesis, my career goal (to be a college professor), my passion for education (which is why i wanna be come a professor),.

It depends on what you have accomplished. recommendations are definitely strong application pushers.

Again elaborate and be more specific on embedded systems, demonstrate knowledge in this area.

fix some grammatical and spelling mistakes (i.e. learnt--> learned)

These are not words on stone as im not a professional (im just a student like you), but just some recommendations that i've read online while working on my statement of purpose.

mohammmo

Sep 8, 2012

Writing Feedback / GRE: students choose their fields on study based on their long-term career goals [2]

"Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed."
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons and/or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

Educational institutions can never accurately predict whether or not students can succeed in a specific field of study. Hence, they do not have the responsibility the dissuade students from these fields. They only have the responsibility to present their expectations of a qualified student for each field. But such expectations are not the only determinants that justify institutions to dissuade students from pursuing there desired fields of study.

Institutions do have to at least offer some form of guidance and counseling for students who are unsure whether they're qualified for a certain field of study. For instance, instead of dissuading students, institutions such as universities often offer placement and standardized tests that determine whether students meet the minimum requirements or not. But these tests are not obsolete determinants to one's ability to succeed in a particular field, but only help give some idea about the expectations of qualified students. Therefore, I re-emphasize my point that institutions do not have the full responsibility to dissuade students from entering there desired fields of study.

In face, students must make there own reasoned choices about whether they want to study a particular field or not. As students are presented with the school's (i.e. a university) minimum expectations, it is the students' responsibility to choose there desired fields of study even if they do not meet the minimum expectations. While they will suffer from the consequences of failing in their chosen field if they do fail, they will also enjoy the fruits of the success if they do succeed. I offer, as anecdotal evidence, an instance where my university suggested that I avoid engineering due to my low math scores. However, I wanted to design my own career path, which is in engineering. Hence, I insisted on entering engineering and excelled in it, which contradicted my schools expectation.

Moreover, there are many mercurial factors at play in determining whether a student will succeed or not in a particular field. How could educational institutions determine what's best for students? There are no fixed parameters that determines students' eligibility for a particular field. In higher education, freshmen students certainly acquired the expected skills to make their own thorough decisions on what field they want. The university may not put into account the student's passion about the field and whether he's is a persistent student or not. All it has are numbers and grades that are only a small portion of the many factors that determines the eligibility. As previously stated, the university should definitely present its expectations based on their results for the students to consider. But it cannot by no means make definite recommendations to dissuade students from their desired fields based on such results (i.e. grades, standardized tests, etc).

In conclusion, students choose their fields on study based on their long-term career goals. Educational institutions are not capable of considering such factors to determine what's best for students. There are numerous variables at play that only students themselves recognize and hence, make their own legitimate judgments on which field they want to pursue.