Writing Feedback / TOEFL iBT - Having a teacher or studying along? [3]

Which one is better? Wandering or having a tour guide when you are on vacation? While having instruction saves time and energy roaming around provides you the feeling of being an adventurer. It is the same in learning. Studying alone is not always better than having an instructor; however, it provides us with those following advantages: the excitement of discovering something fresh, having more time to thinking, and building our own perception.

Surely, no one could teach you how to ride. What we received were some pieces of advice and we handled the rest ourselves. However, I am sure that no one could forget the feeling when we figured out how to ride on the bike. We felt like there was a whole new world opening right before our eyes. This feeling results from experiencing unexpectedness. Just like the feeling of Archimedes when he discovered the principle of flotation while having a bath. Obviously, no one told him what would happen, which resulted in his exciting reaction.

There is one saying: "Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous." (Confucius). The knowledge absorbed without thinking is just information. Like eating without digesting won't make you healthy. The reason why self-learning gives us time to think is that we can control our pace. In class, we usually have to follow the pace of teachers and others; though, sometimes there are difficult problems which need lots of time to understand. However, not everyone who studies by him/herself is slow in learning. There are many geniuses who overpass their teachers and they do not feel like being in the classes. Take examples of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates who took the advantages of self-studying to enhance their knowledge beyond what taught in schools.

What are the main functions of studying? Each of us may have very different answers; however, every road leads to Rome, learning serves to enhance our perception. Every individual has his own view of the world. While teaching, teachers always want the best for us; thus, sometimes they may shape our perceptions into the way they want. That is not totally bad but will destroy our creativeness. If we just followed what our ancestors did, we could not have the modern world today. Nikola Tesla would not have invented the radio if he had followed other perception that: there was no way to transmit information in the air.

There is no absolutely the best way for study. Every choice has its own drawbacks and advantages. Therefore, based on our characters, our conditions that we will know which one is the most suitable way for us.

P/S: I have one question : WHich one is better? Writing with simple words and clear ideas or writing with bunch of vocabulary? It would be great if you could leave comment to improve my writing and answer to my question. Wish all have a nice day :-)

Writing Feedback / TOEFL IBT - Do televisions or movies infuence our behavior? [6]

Never before have we experienced such an incredible growth of TV programs and movies. Introduced to public in 1925, the working television system only had few programs. However, nowadays, we can watch hundred of programs if we have cable TV and even more with a satellite one. And for movies, we now have various choices for blockbusters. Nevertheless, the more we spend time watching TV or movies the more our behaviors are influenced. When examining the following reasons, we will know how true this contention is.

First, people tend to repeat automatically what they always see, especially for children. It's very natural because we learned by repeating things we saw without understanding when we were young. This has become a part of our characters that we tend to unconsciously accept things repeated from times to times. For example, many violence cases took place because the criminals are obsessed with horror films and violent shows. In UK, the 15 years-old boy, named Daniel Bartlam, was sentenced to 16 after murder inspired by Coronation Street storyline. Prosecutors said that the boundaries between real life and fiction for Daniel had become "tragically blurred". Clearly, movies and televisions have influenced our behaviors.

Second, everyone enjoys the feeling of being honored, admired. Majority of people like to buy expensive things, which is considered to enhance their status in society. Thus, billions dollar were spent by advertisers to create the ideal model of wealth, fame on the TV programs and movies. This will motivate people to spend more money on luxury things to satisfy the need of being important and respected. In 1983, Ray-Ban Wayfarer's sunglasses were saved from extinction thanks to the comedy film Risky Business. The main character Joel (Tom Cruise) wore Ray-Ban sunglasses in this film, which became so popular later and as a result that 360,000 pairs were sold that year.

Third, more time spent on watching TV and movies will cause more changes to people eating habit. Those who are TV addicted spend less time preparing for meals; instead, they tend to eat fast food. This eating habit tend to make people become couch-potatoes, which increases higher risk to heart attack, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. Surveys has showed that fast pace of life and addiction to TV are the 2 most common causes which change people eating habit.

To sum up, everything has two sides. If we cannot control the TV programs or movies, we can control ourselves. Let our technology makes our life better not worse.

Note: Please leave your advice here. Every comment is appreciated :-)

Writing Feedback / 'very essential to any people' - TOEFL IBT - Why do people need to attend university? [7]

TOPIC :Why do people attend universities or colleges?
Nowadays, the key leading to success is as not limited as in the past. Long time ago, people considered successful were who graduated from universities or colleges with the diplomas because those would get high-paid jobs. Today, we can see that many people who have not graduated from high schools become millionaires or even billionaires thanks to the advance of nowadays technology and Internet. However, as far as my concern, attending universities or colleges is still very important to people's lives because it helps us to find out who we truly are, provides us with step- by -step specialized knowledge and social skills, and enhances our self-confidence.

First of all, why attending universities or colleges helps us find out who we truly are? Because when one decides to go to the university that is also the time he asks himself which career should he takes? Which schools are available for him? Who would he like to become in the future? Universities and colleges provide so many majors, which sometimes makes one confused if he has not studied himself carefully. Only through answering the questions listed above, one will find out what are his strengths/ weakness, personalities, goals of his life. Thus, he will know why and which universities or colleges he should attend to. And that's why going to universities or colleges provides people with clear visions of who they truly are and what future they would like to have.

Second, university and college are places where provide specialized knowledge and social skills which are easy to get. While lots of knowledge is now available on the internet for free, it is very difficult for one to study because of its lack of organization. University and college do not only offer a lot of majors such as engineering, journalism, economy, art, etc they do also organize those majors in such logical ways which help us easier to study. For example, when one wants to study engineering, he must first learn Mathematics, Physics and Science to have background knowledge before study to become and engineer. Those who want to work as journalists will first need to learn literature, society, writing styles first. Therefore, when attending to university or college, we receive step-by-step education in order to know how to start, how to progress our study to achieve the best results

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Besides, university and colleges are the best places to teach us about social skill before we live and work in the society. University and college are the place where many people gather, live, and study. In fact they are just like small societies where we can meet many people with many characters, who may come from different places on over the world. We will need to learn communication skills, adjust our ways of behavior to adapt life in the university not only to learn well but also to understand and be able to work well with many kinds of people.

The last but not least, attending university or college helps us to enhance our self-confidence due to many reasons. First, the time we decide to study in university or college is also when we have known who we are, what we want, and who we want to become. In short terms, we have realized own goals and people who have their goals feel more confident than those who not. Second, the knowledge we get in the university or college will guarantee that we can get jobs in the future, which ensures that we can survive in this societies. Third, people graduating from universities or colleges usually get well-paid jobs because of their being well - educated and this leads to their better status in society.

For those reasons, I strongly believe going to university or college is very essential to any people in their lives.

Please spend your valuable time helping me how to improve this essay cause I am preparing for TOEFL iBT test on 16th September :). Thanks a lot

Writing Feedback / Topic:Is telling truth always better than telling lie or only partial truths? [5]

Life always changes as the clouds never stop moving. If one desires to succeed in life, he will have to adjust his methods regularly. Thus, there are no acceptable or unacceptable methods but just pragmatic or impractical, which means telling lies and partial truths is sometimes considered more efficient than just telling truths always.

At schools, medics learn only about medicine but also how to assure patients by telling lies. Yet, how is about a patient who practiced speaking of untruths to himself? Was it prodigious that he overcame his cancer and succeeded greatly by repeating lie frequently; visioning that it would become truths one day? Yes, it is Lance Armstrong, the 38 year-old man who won Tour De France seven times and become a legend after struggling with his testicular cancer for 3 years. In his autobiography "It's Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life", Lance Armstrong describes the mental treatments he did for himself was always practicing telling positive lies about his future, his career and his health. He kept doing this so regularly that it became his routine, giving him courage to live although he just got forty percent of living. Then miracle happened. Lance Armstrong started to get better and tried his best to practice for Tour De France. Now looking back, he admits that if he had not lied himself he would not have been a legend nowadays.

Some may argue that even telling lies can help lots of patients it still causes disbelief, contrasts, and chaos. But, in fact, when being used properly, speaking of lies can bring peace to this world. For instance, when examining human history carefully, we can see that many wars ended soon due to the act of keeping secrets and telling lies of generals. Being considered as the most crucial operation in World War II, D-day required exacting act of keeping secrets even for the soldiers. Nevertheless, insuring the information not revealed was not enough, thus, the Allied had to trick Nazi Germany, distract its attention from Normandy beaches. By deliberately letting Germans catch and decode messages easily, the Allied had successfully misled them to the time and the place of D-day. Besides, Allied double agents also told lies about number of the troops, spreading fallacious news, providing untruths for German. Thus, Germans moved their troops to the further East, where they thought the invasion would take place leading to the success of Normandy Operation.

If Lance Armstrong and the Allied had just considered which method was moral then we would have ripped the legend and our history would have changed. What does it mean when acceptable moral methods bring about nothing? Telling lies or partial truths can not be considered immoral method but another solution to problems instead of telling truths always. There is one saying: "If the end does not justify the means-what can?-Edward Abbey", so take a look at how methods work before judging whether they are acceptable or not.

Note: Please have a meticulous look at my essay and strongly advice me what should I do more to improve it :-). Thank you and have a nice day

Writing Feedback / Topic: Which is the most effective method to bring people to peace? [7]

Life is just like a kaleidoscope through which we see different colors. Although difference makes life variant, interesting it is the most common cause leading to contrast, argument and even enmity. Yet it is not pragmatic and most effective to put away difference in order to bring about peace but to create common goals.

Establishing mutual pursuits helps people focus more on their same purpose rather than their differences and provides such an environment, where they gradually understand others through working together. For instance, in ancient time, when two adverse countries were all faced with common enemies, they would seek for consensus for peace and fight together to protect their own countries. Some may argue that was just temporary peace, yet it gave time for two countries to work together, understand other's values, respect the other, which could provide the true, lasting peace. Nowadays, this method still proves its efficiency. For example, after the World War II, U.S.A decided to take Japan as a place for manufacturing military equipment, which served both sides' benefits. For Japan, it was good to improve its economy's plight while U.S.A took advantage of powerful and cheap weapons. This gradually ceased the hostility of Japan toward U.S.A, urged them to work together, which provided chance for culture exchange leading to lasting peace.

As the method provides promising results in war, it also does in business. In the book "Pour your heart into it" by Howard Schultz, the author describes challenges he confronted when deciding to integrate the II Giornale with the original Starbucks. First, the original Starbucks had run as local coffee shops for many years while II Giornale set up its system to be the international cooperation. Second, II Giornale was loyal to Espresso coffee and Italian decoration style when original Starbucks just only served roasted strong coffee. Last but not least, every merger always causes vast discharge from employment as it was also true to II Giornale and original Starbucks. These problems caused such skeptical attitude among the employees to Howard Schultz and coerced him to devise suitable solutions as soon as possible. Soon, Howard Schultz found out that the cause of corruption was because he and his employees had no same pursuits. Thus, he created very crucial common goal for his company: Bringing out the best coffee to the customers. This proved that Howard Schultz did not work for turnover but for the love of coffee, for the want to provide the customers the best quality just like any employees in Starbucks. This stimulated all the employees, made them feel equal and respected and soon they all decided to devote their best to the new company.

As one saying: "Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in honouring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities", thus, there will be no true peace if both sides do not appreciate other's dissimilarities. Some may think that creating mutual goals just solely concerns similarities, in fact, it greatly honors the differences. It gives us chance to work together for mutual goal, solve same difficulties, through which we will respect different points of view. Just through work do people develop their mind and just through work do we learn to understand other's difference like one saying of Confucius: "I hear, I know. I see, I remember. I do, I understand." Let the same goals lead us to the true peace and provide us potent power like the oceans are only large when they occupy different sources of water to form one unite entity.

Note: Please have a look at my essay and advice me which I should or should not. I'm trying my best to improve my writing, to make it more cohesive like native's so please take my essay serious. Give it marks so that I know what I should do more.

Thank you a lot! Have a nice day ^^

Writing Feedback / Topic: What is one great question that every well-educated person should ask? [6]

Knowledge plays such a pivotal role in our society. For long, people who achieve a huge amount of knowledge have been greatly extoled and considered magnates. However, they are famous not only for their perception but also for their contribution to societies. So the well-educated people should always keep in their minds a question: "In what way can I implement my knowledge?"

An educated person does not need to obtain a lot of knowledge but needs to know how to exploit his ability. "The last leaf" by O' Henry successfully glorifies an unknown artist exploiting his ability in order to save one's life. The story was about two young female artists named Sue and Johnsy and their predecessor, Behrman. Though they were all impoverished, they still kept in their heart indomitable passion for art. However, Johnsy was totally ill and renounced her belief because of a harsh life of an artist. It was autumn and leaves were falling off the trees. Johnsy said when the last leaf fell it would be the time she left this world. The morning when Johnsy woke up, she immediately looked at the tree to see whether the last leaf fell off or not. It was still there though it did severely rain the night before! The last leaf inspired Johnsy a lot; it gave her incentive to live. When Jonhsy became better, Behrman's health day by day became worse. When he died, Jonhsy found out that the last leave she saw was just a picture, which was painted by Behrman. That night when the last leaf fell off the tree, Behrman tried to paint a real leaf in order to encourage Johnsy to live a better life. Although being considered as "a failure in art", not painting any famous masterpieces of art, Behrman was such the educated person. He might not contribute any big achievements to art like Leonardo De Vinci, Van Goths but he knew the best way to implement his knowledge to make better lives for other.

The character Behrman of "The last leaf" does not only exist in the literature world; there are many versions of Behrman always wondering how they can use their knowledge soon find out the most suitable way. There are many unknown artist of humanity devoting their time, their mind to helping the poor, the sick, and the orphaned. For instances, Mother Teresa was one of the most extoled Christians. She devoted all time of her life-over 45 years- to ministering many people in India. She did it not for fame, not for money, not for praise but for her predilection for voluntary work. She found out the way in which she could implement her knowledge, her ability of deeply sympathizing with other and followed it at any costs. Yet there are many well-educated people who do not help other in a direct way like Mother Teresa but they do make a huge positive change in our society. Galileo was one of them. Being considered as the founder of modern science and physics, Galileo was the first to suppose the theory that the Earth is not the center of universe, which was considered heresy of his day. Although the Church criticized his theory greatly and kept Galileo under surveillance, Galileo did try to expand the theory through teaching his students and writing books, which might risk his life. For him, implementing his knowledge to help other realize the truth was the most important thing.

Behrman, Mother Teresa, Galileo are all well-educated people. They knew the best way to implement their knowledge and contributed greatly to their societies. Although we can not be astute as Galileo or have such great passion for humane work like Mother Teresa we still can use our knowledge to help other. A student who spends two or three hours per week ministering patient at local hospital can be considered very well - educated one. An unknown artist who paints pictures not only for his passion for art but also for donation to help orphaned children is really well-educated person. We are all well - educated people if we know which way can we apply our knowledge to make a better life. Just do what we can and then see how big the result will be.

Note: Please have a look at my essay and point out my grammar errors because I am trying to improve it. Also please advice me for better ideas and structures. Thank you a lot and have a nice day ^^!

Writing Feedback / Topic: Are we defined by great challenges or by everyday challenges? [3]

Life is just like a journey which we try to explore our inner part by devising solutions to every problem we confront. And every long journey just starts with small steps like the process of understanding and defining individual always comes along with solving everyday challenges.

Thorough our human history, our system of society has been set up with the belief that the man is just worth being extolled when he achieves something enormous, marvelous. In the Stone Age, the man was defined by how many preys he could hunt per day. In feudalism, the man was only highly admired if he could be a hero saving thousand of lives such as heroic character like Hercules or be as astute as Aristotle. Obviously, those who have defined themselves by making a huge change to our society such as Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, and Einstein should be applauded for what they have achieved but how about other normal people who run the whole society? Can an unnamed teacher who tries to inspire his students through every thoughtful lesson define himself? Does a patient who struggles with cancer until the last minute have to win 7 times Tour De France in order to define himself? We do not know when there will be great challenges for us to define ourselves so why not try to do best in everyday challenges to let other people around you know who you are?

In literature, we have many novels which extol many normal people who just do normal jobs with everyday challenges, not the great ones. For instances, In "The last leaf" of O'Henry , the author did not pay too much attention to the artist named Berhman, who is very normal and according to the author "a failure in art". Although, little mentioned in "The last leaf" of O' Henry, Berhman seemed to be the most important character and inspire the readers the most. Not famous and talented as Picasso or Leonardo De Vinci, not painted any masterpiece of arts but in his late of life, Berhman just painted a normal leaf. Just a normal leaf, which is very usual or maybe worthless to every one of us, yet, in fact, it saved one life. The challenge that Berhman confronted was not great one but it was flagrantly meaningful. And with just with "A leaf" Berhaman did define himself greatly.

A person can define himself not only through great challenges but also through everyday ones. If he can not define who he is through small tasks of his life, how can he let other know who he is through greater ones? Just complete each little task life gives you then you will have a chance to define yourself through big ones.

Note: Please have a look at my essay and take time to give me some pieces of advice to improve it ^^. Thank you a lot