Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK 1; Internet Usage in Taiwan during 3 years from 1998 [6]


Prepositional phrases generally consist of a preposition followed by a noun. I would consider revising "of using the internet" so that a noun comes directly after the preposition.


As gmad06 mentioned, the linking verb should be plural. In addition, I would clarify what "approximately 53%" refers to. What do approximately 53% of 16-30 year olds do?


An "increase" of what? As a reader, it is not clear to me what there is an increase of.


Again, I would suggest clarifying what there was an "increase" of, although you probably will not need to make this clarification here if you do it earlier.


In contrast with who? I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK1:Letter to inform a friend about his accomodation [6]


It should say "We decided to let our parents come over next month to take over for our nanny, who will be away for weeks to attend her sister's wedding."


It should say "My wife has heard so much about you and she would love to meet you."

Letters / IETLTS; Letter to the shop complaining about a defected radio [5]


The term "complain" in this sentence is grammatically incorrect. Any word that follows an article such as "a" or "the" should be a noun. The word "complain," however, is a verb. "Complain" should be replaced with the noun form of the word.


I agree with dumi that the serial number, reciept, and date should be included with this imformation. Also, the term "however" does not make sense in this context and it should not be used.


The sentence should be re-written as "To get a solution of to this problem I contacted in your shop and explain explained the problem to one of the staffs staff." Keep in mind that although the term "staff" (in most cases) is a singular noun, it refers to a group of people. Also keep in mind that although it is considered correct to use the term "staff" as I use it, there may (or may not) be some places where it is acceptable to use the term "staffs" as you used it.


As I mentioned earlier, although the term "staff" is a singular noun, it refers to a group of people. As a reader it sounds to me as if several people took it back. I'm not sure whether or not this is intentional. Did one person take the radio back? Or did several people take the radio back? If only one person took the radio back than you should clarify that only one staff member took the radio back.

Also, although the phrase "still it is not ready" has no errors whatsoever, the phrase that most (but perhaps not all) native english speakers would use is "it is still not ready." (If it were conversational English the phrase would be "it's still not ready," but because this is a formal letter the contraction "it's" would not be very appropriate). It is up to you which variation of the phrase you would like to use, as they are all technically correct.




In addition to the corrections noted, this sentence should either be broken into two sentences or made into a compound sentence. It should also have a question mark at the end. However, if you take out the words "could you" the statement will be imperative (give a request) rather than interrogative (ask a question) and the sentence would then need to end with a period.


It's redundant and excessive (in my opinion) to begin the last sentence with "Finally I want to say." With formal letters especially, it's best to be as short and concise as possible.

That is all... I hope my comments make sense.

Writing Feedback / IELTS TASK1:Letter to inform a friend about his accomodation [6]

No problem... it happens to the best of us :)

Undergraduate / I've dreamed of working in the medical field and caring for people [5]


"Dreamed" and "dreamt" can be used interchangeably, but my personal preference is for dreamt. (You, of course, may use whichever term you wish).

Despite Dumi's correction, I believe that your original use of "I've" rather than just "I" is correct and that it is best not to change it.




Saying that someone "passed away" has a more positive connotation than "was deceased."

Also, the statement is unclear. One interpretation is the one that Dumi offered that states that "She too was a registered nurse." This statement indicates that your Aunt, like you, is a registered nurse. Since this appears to be an application for nursing school, I suspect that you are not a nurse yet and that this statement would therefore be inaccurate. I would consider re-writing the entire sentence to say "My Aunt was a registered nurse, but sadly she passed away in January 2012."

Undergraduate / Essay B # 3- CU Boulder - 'Pay check to pay check is how I have lived' [5]

Grammar Comments:


The comma should be taken out after the word "unfortunately."


The original sentence makes it sound as if your mother was four years old when she made this decision.


The comma after the word "and" should be taken out.


This sentence should be rearranged. Consider the following: "My junior year of high school was not my strongest year. I found that at this time I had become flustered with all of the mistakes that I had made." In my rewrite I broke the sentence into two for clarity and I took out information that may be irrelevant. (You will have to decide for yourself what is and isn't relevant, as it is impossible for me to know the circumstances of the situation.)


Colleges usually want to get a good taste of who their applicants are. Can you elaborate on this by describing the person that you want to be? I would also consider changing the tense of this sentence. You could, for xeample, write it like this: "I found out who I am as well as who I want to be."


Here it would be best to present specific example of situations where you have displayed motivation and determination. Everyone wants to be successful, and anyone can say that they are motivated and determined. Your job as a writer is to prove (through specific examples) that you have these qualities.

Content comments:

Be sure to read the prompt carefully and address the prompt clearly. As a refresher, here's what the prompt says:


Your first sentence is adequate as it addresses something that may have affected you academic record and may be considered an adversity that you've had to overcome.

The rest of the paragraph has some information that may be useful but it is incomplete. The most important information that I gained from these sentences is that your mom was a low-income teen-mom who had to make the choice to leave your dad when you were a young child. No one in your family has ever gone to college. This has affected you and your academics in many ways.

It important that you elaborate by explaining how specifically this has affected you and your academics.


Describe the mistakes that you have made and how you overcame them. By explaining how yu overcame your mistakes, it is likely that you will also be offering "proof" of your motivation and determination. Also how did overcoming these challenges (the mistakes you made) lead you to a better understanfing of who you want to be?

General Comment:

Remember that you goal is to demonstrate to the college that you have the skills and attitude that is necessary to succeed in college. It is important to be honest and open about your mistakes, but it is also important to highlight you strengths. If you write about specific examples of situations where your motivation and determination has allowed you to succeed, then you will be showing the college that you are applying to that you have a good attitude and that you can handle challenging situations.

Writing Feedback / Now a days technologies have became a very important aspect of everybodys lives! [4]


"Now a days" should be spelled "nowadays," but is a word that is no longer used frequently by native speakers of English. "These days" sounds more natural to a native speaker. "Everybody's" takes a possesive form rather than a plural form, and therefore an apostrophe is needed.



The term "nowadays" is redundant and unnecessary. Also, I would like to clarify the difference between "learning" information and "accessing" information. When you learn a piece of information you are taking a piece of information and commiting it to memory. When you are accessing information you are retrieving a piece of information. This means you may be viewing this information on a screen or you may be retrieving it from a memory of a piece of information that you have already learned. Judging from the context of what you wrote, I suspect that your usage of the term "learn" is correct.



I changed "the live telecast" to "live telecasts" because I assume there is more than one telecast. I am however not familiar with sports. If there is in fact only one telecast, then you should keep the phrase as you originally wrote it.

Undergraduate / Essay B # 3- CU Boulder - 'Pay check to pay check is how I have lived' [5]

I strongly second everything that jkjeremy said.