Writing Feedback / Topic: Describe learning something from a friend. [4]

Hi everyone,
This is an essay of personal experience. I wrote it for CBEST practice. Please check my usage and word choice and give me feedback. Thanks!

Topic: Describe learning something from a friend.

I have a friend, Belinda, who is a teacher in a high school. We have known each other for over six years, and what I have learned from her are: the passion in education field, the courage of facing frustration, and keep curiosity to the world.

Belinda is passionate for her work. She cares about her students and takes students' affairs to be her first priority. For instance, one day we planned to have a dinner together, and for this dinner, we had scheduled for several weeks since both of us were too busy. But, that day she canceled the date and felt sorry to me. She explained the reason that one of her students had some problems with emotion, so she needed to accompany with him to wait for his parents. Besides this, she usually visits many non-profit organizations to provide her teaching experiences and help them to build schools in poverty areas. Her passion makes me respectful, and I learned from her that being passionate to what you love is more valuable than anything.

Another thing I leaned from Belinda is her courage of facing frustration. Although Belinda has so much love to her profession, she inevitably experiences frustrations. However, she is always capable of overcoming the difficulties, the braveness amazing me a lot. For example, some of her students are famous trouble-makers in the school. Other teachers have warned her about those students' issues at the beginning of the semester. But in Belinda's eyes, the little trouble-makers can be changed, they only need appropriate guidance. So, she tries her best to find various educational approaches to transform her students to behave well. Although the process makes her suffering, her strong courage supports her to face frustrations without fear.

In addition, looking at the bright side is also a significant thing that I learn from Belinda. For instance, she has a child with Downy syndrome. The child definitely needs special care. Her lots of friends, including me, think it must be a burden for her. Instead, she usually smiles to me, sharing her child's improvements in daily life. She never complains, she looks at the bright side to live her life. And her wisdom inspires me to be optimistic when looking at everything.

Consequently, I am fortunate to have such a good friend, who is like a mentor to me and teach me many lessons. I have learned from her that the passion of own work, the capability of facing frustrations, and the wisdom of looking at bright side.

Writing Feedback / CBEST - Technology to modern life is advantageous. [2]

Hi everyone,

Continue my essay-writing practice and wish you give comments. Please help me to check my punctuation, including the comma, semicolon, colon, and dash. Thank you!

Topic:
Technology is very much a part of modern life. Many people see technology as a force that has escaped from human control. Others feel that technology has improved the quality of life. Do you think that the contribution technology has made to modern life has been positive or negative? State your position on this issue and support it with appropriate examples.

To modern people, technology cannot be easily separated from daily life. With more and more progresses of technology, I think people rely on technology because they have deemed it as a significant tool and positive impact to our modern life. There are three main reasons I believe technology has a good influence on people: decreasing accidents, saving natural resources, and improving people's health.

Primarily, modern people can effectively reduce accidents through technological innovations. For example, before smoke detector was invented, people could not exactly know where was on fire at the first time. Then, many tragedies happened. Since smoke detector has come out, it can warn people the smoke and automatically sprays water. Thanks to the technological device, people's life and property have more protection.

The second reason is saving natural resources. Take the innovation of e-book for instance. Although quite a few people likes to touch real papers, they cannot deny every year the industry of book-publishing has consumed a large amount of woods. And many scientists have proposed that one of solutions to green-house issue is preventing forests from decreasing. So, the advent of e-book makes modern people change their traditional reading habit: it allows people to turn virtual pages by tapping the screen and enables to read several books on an electronic device without carrying heavy weights. Obviously, publishers are more likely to present books or magazines through e-book instead of real papers. Due to less needs of printing books, woods can be saved for our future generations.

Lastly, people's health gets improvements because of technology applications. As we know, many technological innovations have been used on researching mental or physical diseases. For example, pregnant women must do many checks during their three trimesters. Doctors use ultrasound facility to check baby's situation and attain useful information to decide if there is any disease, such as Down's syndrome. Consequently, if there was no technology assisting doctors to check patients' bodies, people may struggle with unknown health problems.

Regarding to above reasons, I have the belief that technology to modern life is advantageous. My belief is based on the effect of technology that it can provide lower rate of accidents, protection of natural resources, and raise people's health progresses.

Writing Feedback / CBEST- argument(s) either for or against "Back to Basics." [5]

Hi, I have taken other's sample essay for my reference and wrote mine. Please give me feedback. Thanks. (My another question is how many words you think CBEST essay should have. 350-400 is okay?)

Topic:
A recent movement in education has been called "Back to Basics." Its proponents argue that the curriculum should concentrate only on reading, writing and mathematics skills and completely ignore such courses as sociology, art appreciation, and drama. Imagine that you are a school principal faced with the task of making policy for your school. Present your argument(s) either for or against "Back to Basics."

If I am a school principal, I will not agree that "Back to Basics" policy. Though it enables students to focus on basic skills like reading, writing and mathematics, as an educator view, they are not enough for preparing students to face future careers or future society. It also limits schools' curriculum, which may not help students to develop their diverse interests.

Some advocates believe that "Back to Basics" is a favor of students to recognize the importance of basic skills. However, the kind of traditional education thought often makes the curriculum restricted and teachers' instructions will become dull, inflexible. For those students who have high expectation of art or drama classes, "Back to Basics" will eliminate the opportunities of cultivating their multiple interests. For example, a student who is good at dancing and has gifts of drama. If there is no classes for her to learn deeply, she may not discover her inner ability and will not desire to be a dancer or actress in the future. Thus, schools are supposed to raise more students equipped with various abilities, not just the basic ones.

Additionally, parents who value children's interests will cost more to send them to learn outside-school classes. In order to meet children's needs, parents spend more money to help children attain the abilities or knowledge which should be taught in schools. For kids' future careers, basic skills cannot satisfy employers' hiring requirements. The phenomenon can lead more cost to taxpayers. For instance, there are tremendous businesses like movie industries seeking for designers and artists. If students only learn basic skills and lack in aesthetic ability, they cannot take the job. The worse thing is people need to pay more tax to help provide the classes for the unemployed to gain the ability.

Proponents of the movement think the policy can provide equality to evaluate students. But, from my perspective, the conventional education approach emphasize high test scores and grades cannot measure students' true abilities with a completed image. Students who have prior exposure to materials usually have good scores. But, we cannot prove that students who have lower scores of tests have less understanding of basic knowledge or deem them as less potential.

Consequently, I think the movement will not be beneficial to educational progress. It restricts schools' curriculum, makes it monotonous and students' creativity and artistic abilities will be ignored. Parents and taxpayers will spend more assisting the young adults to cultivate their interests and useful ability.

Writing Feedback / CBEST- Imagine yourself as a child... (personal experience essay) [4]

Please help me to correct my usage and word choices. I am not good at writing essays of personal experience.

Topic:
Imagine yourself as a child taking a walk through your neighborhood or through the town in which you lived. In an essay, describe the people you would see and what you would be doing together.

There is a place I spent a long time living in. When I feel frustrated, depressed and face some problems that I cannot solve in a short time, I imagine myself going back there and gain a new power for my real situation. The place is my hometown located in the country of Taiwan. The small, old town has many antique commodities. Most store owners are friendly elders who are familiar with my parents. As I think back those old days in the town, I would find my best friend, Lia, who could play and share her secrets with me. We would spend a whole day hanging out on the streets and also our special places.

Lia and I had similar interests. As a school day ended, we would ride our pink bikes to anywhere in the town. If it was a hot day, we would ride toward a park which was full of big trees, and eat our snacks brought from home. We particularly liked to lay down on the lawn, staring at blue skies and counting how many clouds. Lia was taller than me. She was just like my old sister and would like to invite me to explore every corner in the town.

In the summer, Lia would always show me secret paths to hike in the mountains. The paths she directed me often differed from the locals. I felt excited as she brought me to walk on that road. We pretended ourselves as an adventurer. With courage and curiosity, we could discover a new kind of flower and lovely creatures. Playing some imaginative games would be our habit. As we collected beautiful flowers in the mountains, we would use tools to produce a special liquid. The game made me look like a beverage producer and one of us would play the role as a customer.

Besides hiking and playing games, we would study together. Lia was good at math, so she often taught me how to find the answer of math assignments. In the afternoon, I would bring a story book and read for her to thank for her instruction. Although we were sometimes blamed by our parents for being late back homes, we cherished every moment we spent together. Time to say goodbye when we were high school age. I moved to other city and now came to America.

I do long for to have a visit to our small town, exploring every place we had been in. I desire to do some activities: smelling seasonal flowers, hearing the sound of streams, and laying on the grass. The town in Taiwan is full of my childhood memory and unforgettable friendship.

Writing Feedback / CBEST essay - Give entering college students advice [3]

Topic: Some students begin college work successfully. They do well in their classes, they consider themselves "on track", and they are confident. Others do not do well. They are frequently alone, they do poorly in their classes, and they lack self-esteem. What advice would you give entering college students to help them through their first semesters?[/b]

Every year, many freshmen enter college or university campus to experience a new academic world. Possessing curiosity and excitement, most of them enjoy their college life and make lots of friends who come from anywhere. However, some students do not feel confident as they enter the college and the lack of self-esteem makes them out of track on the campus. From my experiences, I would like to provide several useful advices to the freshmen for helping them be confident of first semesters.

First of all, I suggest that entering college students may join some student organizations, clubs and teams to find out partners who have similar interests or hobbies. For example, if a student cares communities or have participated in some activities, such as taking care of the elders and poor people, he or she probably would like to join a non-profit organization built by college students. The organization usually provides great opportunities to let freshmen experience some missions about assist the destitute. I believe as students help out people; at the meantime, they can feel satisfied and happiness.

Besides joining student's organizations to reinforce self-esteem, freshmen can attain more confidence by exploring academic achievements. Many students would find that college assignments are more difficult than high school's. Professors value team projects and also desire to see students voluntarily ask more questions. Therefore, my second advice to freshmen is that being actively to explore academic resources. One of the good ways is to ask upperclassmen for seeking useful subject sources. Being eager for class discussions may benefit in freshmen to gain courage and respect. Students can also organize own study groups to find partners, which may allow them learn faster and easier.

Third, it is essential for entering college students to build up good relationships on college campus. There would be no doubt that if students follow above suggestions, they should have joyful life with peers. But, if it still happens some serious problems to freshmen, a good solution is to find student advisors or student service center. They should have many approaches to provide students professional assistance.

In a conclusion, I think freshmen should open their minds to accept a new campus life. For supporting their self-esteem, they could join students clubs, organizations and participate various activities. Also, though academic exploration, they could focus on subject projects and increase their academic achievements. The campus student's advisors and related institutes would be a good place to gain more help.