Writing Feedback / Test 1 TOEFL. Summarize a reading and listening passage. [4]

To understand human personality and how it develops there are different approaches, the most common are the conflict approach and the fulfillment approach. It is curious to note that each approach is completely contrary of the other.

In the conflict approach it is said that the person is in a perpetual state of conflict. This could be either because there are competing forces within that person, in the moment f taking a decision for instance, or because of external forces that oppose the individual's internal feelings; tasks and duties could be an example of this in our daily lives. Finally, the hypothesis of this approach is that we live in a never ending conflict, and that is what shapes our personality.

Meanwhile the fulfillment approach states the opposite: It is not a conflict between forces that develops our personality but a single force that is the need for fulfillment. Here the individual's goals and how hard he works to reach them will shape his or her personality. Furthermore, his successes or failures will determine how the person will react in the future. In the end, it is the life that we have envisioned and not our actual life that will contribute to our personality.

Writing Feedback / Test 1 TOEFL promotions: based on seniority or on performance? [4]

In an enterprise everybody has the desire of a promotion; it is every employee's dream. However, the owners of the company can't please everybody. Therefore, most organizations have to choose on what base the promotion: on performance or on seniority; they also have to cope with the advantages and disadvantages of their decision.

If they choose to promote their job takers based on seniority this will bring a huge advantage: the faithfulness of their employees. If an individual is rewarded with a promotion in this way, it will keep working with the enterprise no matter what. Therefore, the company will never lack of employees or run out of people working in its divisions. This is also an advantage over the competition, since they will never achieve to steal or seduce the company's human resources.

However, sometimes quality is better than quantity. If their objective is spending the largest time with the company, the employees will not have a sense of competition. That's why giving promotions based on performance is better for the overall quality of the workers. They will have to work more and harder to reach the promotion and this will create an environment of competition that is generally healthy to have in the office. Furthermore, the company will generate wit this boost better products and better services, which is both good to outsmart the competition and to serve their clients well.

In the end, it is better to have few employees that contribute greatly to the enterprise than to have many faithful employees that lack of motivation to improve themselves. Nowadays, it is easy to find people willing to work for an enterprise but it is hard to find those that do the best of themselves. Finally, in the industrial world the one with the best working force and the best products is the one that wins the battle.

Writing Feedback / Core curriculum seek students that are both good at their career and other important disciplines [2]

Test 3 TOEFL. Summarize a reading and listening passage.

Core curriculum has the objective of developing an integral professional. It doesn´t seek students that can solve mathematical problems outstandingly nor students that can write a critically acclaimed essay, but students that are both good at their career and other important disciplines. However, these interdisciplinary oriented courses are not left without flaws.

For instance, it is said that many of these courses are easy and irrelevant; therefore they should be replaced or removed. This problem can be addressed by adding the study of current issues, like problems regarding gender and cultural diversity in our current society.

It is also argued that the students don´t receive enough guidance to enroll the courses that are more accord to their vocational needs. This can be fixed by further expanding the diversity of subjects; that way every student will have the option to expand is knowledge in a determined area.

Finally, there is a demand for more creativity in these courses, like the addition of volunteer work and internships. This practical labor will give the students a broader perspective of life, and they will also learn skills that apply to any career.

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Some people have asked me for the passages that I'm summarizing, but since I take them from a software, I can't write them here. Also, it would be probably illegal to do so because of copyright.

Writing Feedback / There is this an old saying: opposite poles attract. The same applies to relationships. Test 3 TOEFL [2]

Question: "It is better to marry someone who is similar to you, rather than someone who is different from you?" Do you agree with this statement?

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There is this old saying: opposite poles attract. The saying mainly refers to the attraction between persons with diverse ideals and backgrounds. However, when you ask people who they would marry, you often hear: "the one that is similar to me". In the end, who is right: the old saying or the popular opinion?

Well, it is easy to think that people that have most things in common with us will be the best pattern. However, this has a rather psychological reason: most persons´ personal history determines it to be that way. Our first love tends to be someone with whom we share something; let it be a hobby, a school, a career and such. Also, they often have the same background as us, speak the same language and mostly have the same objectives in life. But it is never the first love the greatest.

Many studies suggest that most divorces come from couples that have had only one partner in their life. It is something evident, if most of us don´t achieve at an activity or task on our first attempt, then how can we expect to choose the right partner the first time? How can we expect to find love if we have only sought our surroundings? It is like a squirrel expecting to find all the nuts in the same tree. Diversity is often healthy for us in our life, and then a diverse couple would also be healthy to have.

In this and many cases, I think that a saying is wiser than an opinion. People often seek partners with different experiences but will rarely admit it. South Americans seek blonde people, European seek the most colored ones. We all seek the rarest things, the hardest to find nearby. Finally, I suggest anyone to marry the one person that is most different from them. Marry someone that studies something else, someone from another culture; that way your marriage will last longer and you´ll enjoy the diversity within.

Writing Feedback / Wide arrays of policies have been created to ban public smoking in closed areas [3]

Test 4 TOEFL. Summarize a reading and listening passage.

Public smoking has been thoroughly debated. Furthermore, wide arrays of policies have been created to ban public smoking in closed areas. There have been some opinions favoring this change in the public life and others that are completely against it.

For these policies to be created, the dangers of secondhand smoke have been used as arguments. However, the liability of the researches made to know this issue have been questioned .It is said that secondhand smoking causes lung cancer, but this has been completely proven false. Nonetheless, there are other risks of secondhand smoking such as heart diseases. A survey was made in Montana after the ban of secondhand smoking; it was found that there was a substantial decrease of heart diseases as a result.

Many have worried about the economic position of businesses and their employee. Bars and nightclubs in particular tend to lose first smokers clients. This means fewer tips for the employees and a risk for the business of shutting down. On the other hand, some states that banning smoking in closed areas will attract the non-smoking kind that seeks fresh air when choosing a place where to spend the time.

Especially in America, the matter of freedom to smokers has brought a heated debate. Some say that smokers should have the right to smoke wherever they want, since they pay higher taxes. Others argue that non-smokers have the right for clean air, and that it is unjust to have a polluting enterprise and a smoker to pollute the air that we breathe

Writing Feedback / It is often argued that distance learning should completely replace classroom learning [2]

Test 4 TOEFL. Should distance learning and online computer classes replace classroom learning?

In this era of technological innovation it is often argued that distance learning should completely replace classroom learning. Nowadays, most students would agree with this, especially the ones that must work to pay their tuition fee. Without classroom classes, each student could organize his schedule as he wishes, not depending on a professor´s will. Also, they wouldn´t have to pay for transport and everybody would have the same opportunity of studying independent of where they live. Distance learning is obviously more comfortable, but what about the learning? Do students learn more?

Studies suggest that when we speak, 70% of the message will be sent by gestures. This means that a student will understand a topic better if the teacher is in front of him. The faces the teacher makes, the body movements; they all count when sending the message. Unfortunately, none of these expressions would be seen on the screen of a computer.

It is also important for the student to have his questions answered. This is harder to be achieved in distance learning because most of the time the source of information is a video and not a person. Furthermore, if it were the case that the class is a webcam lecture with the teacher, the student wouldn´t be able to solve his doubts with his fellow classmates while the professor is busy. Even worse, if the professor made a mistake no one would be able to correct him, and then everybody would leave the class with inaccurate information.

Finally, it would decrease the student´s social skill. Nowadays, universities seek to improve their enrollers´ social abilities so that they do well in a job interview. It would be contradictory, and rather ironic, to teach a career in an environment free of human interaction and then send the person to an enterprise where he must treat with people every day.

Distance learning is a huge innovation, but we shouldn´t depend on it. Else, we will have professionals that don´t know how to behave in public and without a full knowledge of their area.

Writing Feedback / The globalization brings economic and social improvements to the world - the reading passage [2]

Test 5 TOEFL. Summarize a reading and listening passage.

It is stated in the reading passage that globalization brings economic and social improvements worldwide; since it integrates economies and societies from all around the world. In contrast, the lecture points its disadvantages.

In the passage, it is argued that the opportunity that people have to tap into more and larger markets comes from a global market. In theory, this would bring cheaper imports and greater efficiencies in a country. However, it is stated in the lecture that it is often exaggerated how much the economies grow thanks to the global market. Also, the developing countries often have no benefit from these opportunities.

Moreover, the lecture establishes that, thanks to globalization, the gap between the poor and the rich is wider. This is true not only between people from the same country, but also between countries around the world. Regarding this issue, it is said that the new technologies allow developed countries to exploit overseas-workers, that way these countries become richer while developing countries become poorer.

It is said in the passage that the rapid spread of knowledge throughout the world is a huge benefit of globalization. Meanwhile, in the lecture it is stated that this could be dangerous for most cultures; since a global culture could destroy religions, customs and traditions of many societies.

Writing Feedback / Being born in the middle-class in a developing country limits the overall perception of society. [2]

Test 5 TOEFL.What are some of the experiences that have shaped your outlook and the way you live now

Being born in the middle-class in a developing country limits the overall perception of society. In my case, I attended a private school, I didn´t hang out on the streets since it was dangerous and I had a small group of friends that wasn´t diverse. However, this limited perception changed when I was about to enter in the university.

When I was in my last years of high school, I was part of a religious group with fellow classmates. Although we had many things in common, we had to meet people that lived a completely different way of life as part of our volunteer work. Moreover, we had to visit slums, orphanages, villages and such environments that were completely different from our own. This taught me that there is no wrong way to live our life; and that we, as middle-class students, were privileged teenagers.

Furthermore, when I was studying in the university I did other kinds of volunteer work and learned a lot from it. I met people of all ages and all kinds, from drug addicts to thieves, from kids to elders; and had the great benefit of hearing what they had lived. Most of us would consider the people that steal or kill as a way of living to be pure evil; however, we must learn about their background first. Most of these persons I met had a reason to live that lifestyle: they had a terrible childhood, they were unjustly judged by the law and the society; and they lived in poor conditions. Thanks to these experiences, now I don´t see criminals as bad people, but as individuals that lost their way.

Nowadays, I try not to judge people for their appearances or their actions without knowing their story. I am not afraid of having drug addicts and unstable persons as friends because I know there is a probably good reason they lost their way, and alienating them won´t help them. Finally, I would encourage anyone that once lived in a small bubble like me to meet diverse people, those who have had a radically different life. In the end, we all can learn from others if we don´t judge them.

Writing Feedback / Since 1787, the Electoral College has been the system used in U.S to choose the country's president [4]

Test 6 TOEFL. Summarize a reading and listening passage.

Since 1787, the Electoral College has been the system used in U.S to choose the country's president. When it was created, the state legislatures seemed too corruptible as to give them all the power and the option of having only popular votes was rejected by the small states. Therefore, the system was created with a mix of these. This has been thoroughly argued by some to be not democratic enough.

In this system, each state has electoral votes depending on the amount of its senators, and then each state legislature chooses its electors. This has been criticized for being too complicated for Americans to understand. Also, it has been labeled as undemocratic since it doesn't represent the will of the people. After all, why should our vote mean less if we live in a populated area?

It is unlikely that the system will change anytime soon because of the small states' opposition and the comfort of many voters. However, since USA persuades other countries to be more democratic, it should honor the people's vote. It is a contradiction to fight for democracy abroad while having an Electoral College that doesn't represent fully the people's choice.

Writing Feedback / Test 6 TOEFL.Would you prefer taking a career path leading to management or individual positions? [4]

I believe that every career path should lead to management positions at some point. In these positions the manager requires leadership, time management and social skills that we all should develop in some moment of our life. Even if you want to be an employee or a professor it is likely that you will have to be responsible over others.

For instance, in most enterprises groups are made in its different divisions when working in a specific project. Naturally, all groups have a leader and the most functional ones will have different leaders throughout time. If you happen to work in an enterprise and are required to be the leader for a specific period of time, then it is essentially important that you have chosen a career path that allows you to manage a project.

In my case, I want to be both a professor and the owner of a small enterprise. Pursuing a path that will give me management skills will help me be the best at these two professions. A professor requires having these skills, since he must watch over his students and sometimes negotiate with them. This would be the same for the owner of a company, but instead of students he would have to deal with employees and clients. Therefore, I consider learning how to manage human, capital and time resources to be essential for fulfilling my life's objectives.

Finally, I would encourage anyone to seek management positions instead of individual positions. In the end, we will all have to be leaders to happily live our life. Not only in our jobs, but also in our daily lives we will need these social skills. For instance, if you want to be a family man then you'll have to be an example for your children and a leader in your own house. Thus, it is more important to be able to drive people to do something than to obey an individual. After all, we as a species have always been required to work rather in groups than in solitude.