Writing Feedback / TOEFL: the ability to maintain friendships with old friends vs. the ability to make new friends? [2]

Hi everyone, here's my essay. Thanks a lot for your help!

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
The ability to maintain friendships with a small number of people over a long period of time is more important for happiness than the ability to make many new friends easily.

Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

better old and trusted friends - it's worth to stay close

Friendship does not come into being naturally. Instead, it demands time and effort and even skills to cultivate and maintain if you expect there is someone to rely on or you always have someone to talk to in an unfamiliar environment. Some argue that the ability to keep friendship holds more importance to one's happiness than the ability to start befriending with strangers easily. Considering different roles old friends and new friends play in our life, I tend to believe both of these abilities are contributory factors to a happy life.

On the one hand, a few friends you have known for a long time are more likely to ensure the feeling of security, leading to a satisfactory life everyday. In our professional life, it is not uncommon we would encounter a series of moments when we feel frustrated about, namely, criticisms from our supervisors or office politics. Under those situations, the first thing we all want to do is call our closest friends out, have a talk to vent our anger and even cry over their shoulders, especially when we are far away from our hometown seeking for fortune in metropolis(metropolises). Anyone, no matter how high level his or her position is in one company, should have a small number of these friends, otherwise, we would easily get depressed. Unlike new friends, these bunch of friends are the ones we would always trust and feel secure to share. Therefore, it is evident that the ability to maintain friendship with our old friends means a lot to happiness.

On the other hand, being able to make new friends easily is also important because new friends serve as refreshing elements in having a happy life. Hanging out with old friends is the time to catch up on with each other while knowing new friends is more like exploring an unknown place. Striking up conversation with strangers is an opportunity for us to step out of our comfort zone and to be exposed to unfamiliar environment full of surprises, which would definitely enrich our life. Only keeping the same group of friends is just like having the same dish everyday, which is, doubtlessly, very boring. New friends are like the new dishes you have never tried, serving to counteract the boredom in your life. For example, I usually would take part in one activity at the weekends. Everytime I exchange my contact information and social networking accounts with anyone I do not know I feel rather excited, because that means I may come across something new and curious. Like last Sunday, I just met a girl who managed to travel around the world while doing well in her job. Having talked with her, I learned so much that I could not know from books or any of my old friends. Her experience opens the door to a new world for me.

In sum, for a happy life, I think we should both have the ability to keep friendship with old friends and have the ability to make new friends easily.

Writing Feedback / TOEFL: a large number of celebrities are not equipped with skills necessary for a politician [4]

TOEFL: Professional athletes and performers shouldn't be involved in politics.

In my opinion, professional athletes and performers shouldn't be involved in politics and there are number of statements to substantiate this belief, as now will be explained.

First of all, a large number of celebrities are not equipped with academic knowledge, high capabilities which are based on individual intelligence as will as capabilities to be a politician, What I want to express is that each profession has its own requirements, for athletes are endurance, fitness and good health, for singers are beautiful looking, good social ability and perfect voice, but for politicians are smart minds, mature views and justice. For example, the famous actor whose name is Jacky Chen, no one can deny his contributions that he made to the modern media. But Jacky has never went to any academics for studying, so when someone asked him to have a speech to inspire people in some meetings or parties, he always failed to finish that job since he didn't what should be said in this situation. However, whether which profession that those celebrities were, they cannot work on politics in the future.

Furthermore, another aspect that needs our attention, even celebrities become politicians, it's tough for them to gain credibility from publics. The main reason is that the celebrities utter some words taught by their brokers for their own interest rather than truly benefits citizens. There are number of examples can support my thesis. Athletes are likely to recommend cloths that are very plain but costly; actors appeal to their fans by buying food that they endorse, which is actually mixed with some toxic ingredients. Like the famous actor whose name is ZhongXiang Zhao, he recommended a series of health care products that can lengthen people's age on television, but which was actually made of plastic and this event really reduced his public credibility. Thus, even celebrities start to work on politics and need to convey important information to citizens, people would view them as faker who have distrust career of recommending bad things.

Admittedly, there do exist a small group of celebrities who are talented, will-performed and with broad views that are similar to politicians. Take account of their identities which are able to create negative perceptions among people will hamper their development of involving in politics to a certain degree.

To sum up, for the statements mentioned above, we might safely conclude that it is not wise for athletes and performers be involved in politics.

Writing Feedback / The most important thing the government should do to improve health care is to clean the environment [3]

Hi, there, please help me proofread with the unity and coherence in this essay. Grammar checking won't be a problem for me. I would need more help about topic development and how my flow of thought is organized. Thanks a lot!

TOEFL: A/D:The most important thing the government should do to improve health care is to clean the environment.

Nowadays, a healthy body has become the top dream of every individual. Without it, people would probably lose their ability and efficiency to work, study and advance.There is a factor undermining human health which is pollution. For this, many people tend to think the government must take actions to clean the environment as a top priority in order to ensure people's health. In my view, there are two other steps as important as cleaning the environment.

The government should boost the mass to do more physical exercises. Doing exercise has many advantages to our bodies such as improving body constitution, increasing lungs and heart capacity. These sorts of physical conditions are mighty power defending the intrusive viruses and illnesses. It is universally perceived that the majority of athletes possess strong and healthy attributes because of their everyday's intensive exercises. Their muscular tissue and respiratory system is more dynamic than the people do little or never exercise. Considering huge benefits regular workout could bring about, if the government could carry out some measures to promote daily exercise, it would be rather helpful in improving the health care.

What's more, funding projects and institutes of medical study is also a good way improving health care. Our environment has been largely damaged due to human activities and various of new illnesses has emerged along the way. Our medical treatments and conditions need to be advanced correspondingly so as to tackle these diseases. One of the biggest problems to push forward this plan is lack of substantial funds for pharmaceutical and clinical experiments cost an arm and a leg. Take epidemic disease Ebola. In order to contain its contagious effect, the influenced areas and their surrounding hospitals and clinics all had to upgrade their facilities for diagnosis and detection. One hospital would be fine to do this while getting every relevant hospitals done would be mission impossible. So it is seen the government should spare money contributing to medical improvement and update which is the key to better health care too.

It is undoubted that cleaning the environment is a useful method to improve the health care because fresh air and uncontaminated water is conducive to healthy environment. Quality environment constrict the breeding and transmitting of germs causing sickness. However, we have to admit that environment cleaning alone cannot resolve all the health-related problems.

In conclusion, cleaning the environment should not be the most primary and important thing. Government also should pay high attention to facilitate people to do exercises and to support and fund medical researches.

Writing Feedback / 'Appearance is a liar'. SAT-Writing: Style versus substance. [3]

Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and assignment below:

Prompt: When people form opinions about someone or something, what affects them most is not substance but style. In other words, the way something appears or is presented is more important than what it actually is. This principle affects how people look at their leaders and their lives, the books they read, the products they buy, and even the subjects they take at school.

Assignment: Is style more important than substance? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Here's my essay:

Don't judge a book by its cover. People in this society have many sides. They use lavish clothes, precious jewelry, and extraordinary style to camouflage their true selves. As time passes by, the beauty and expensive camouflage will slowly fade off the stage. What is left in the end is their true self inside. For hundreds of years, many literature, and idioms have been passing down one generation by generation to tell one great truth that one's inner self is what builds this person and create one's personality and uniqueness. One's soul is the only things that is real and all those wealthy camouflage just an ordinary add-ons to the powerful inner substance.

Appearance is a liar. It is a big barrier to stop you from discovering the true potential. In the famous Australian short story "American Dreams", Peter Carey had written about how the townspeople were obsessed with American goods. In the story, the townspeople loved American Cars. The American Cars had pretty colors, cool design, and famous brand. The Narrator's father got an American Jeep but barely used it. The Jeep is not as good as its cover and advertisement. The car itself is actually not very useful. The car had lost its purpose even though it owns the best design in the world. Somethings are pretty, but not as useful. If a subject does not fulfill its purpose, then their appearance is a waste. The obsession did not stop, and in fact the townspeople started to use the newly imported American paint which was well advertised and gorgeously styled. They tried to use the paint to brush over the old cracks on the wall. But the new paint had been faded after a few days. The beautiful cover of the American product had once again become a pretty little liar. Even though the American paint had an attractive package, but its actual substance does not deserve such a pretty cover. The effectiveness of a product is determined on one's purpose and usage not its camouflage cover. The townspeople wanted to change the town so they painted the old cracking walls. By painting the outer look of the town did not really change the broken houses. The old cracks still remains. Quickly, as the paint faded, the towns still shows up with those same old cracks, nothing changed. Just by painting the wall did not really fix the problem of the cracking walls. One must fix the substance of the wall to be able to make it stronger and prettier without worrying that one day it will faded again. When changing into a good person or a beautiful town, one must change his or hers inner soul to be able to really change itself. Otherwise, even though a beggar wears tuxedo, he is still a beggar with the same old bad personality and behaviors. One's inner substance is way more important than the outside appearance.

People with a good heat will always be a good person even though they tried to cover it up with bad clothes. But people with a bad heart will always be a bad person no matter how hard they tried to make their camouflage look nice and pretty. Cinderella had been loved by the price, and Elizabeth in "Pride and Prejudice" had been loved by the wealthy Mr. Darcy. The prince loved Cinderella not because of her flashy dress, in fact she did not wear the most gorgeous dress, and he loved her for her good heart and great kindness. Also, Mr. Darcy loved Elizabeth despite the fact that she is just a farm girl and not as rich as him to be able to wear a pretty dress. People loved one's inner soul more than one's outside appearance. No matter how pretty one is, one day the beauty will fade off, and what will left forever is the inner substance. It is very important to build himself or herself with a good substance than to try to use fabulous clothes to camouflage the ugly substance inside. What really matter to people is having a good soul. As long as one had a good soul, one will be beautiful despite their appearance. People always cared about something that will not be peeled off easily, one's inner self.

Writing Feedback / Help proofread on a section of my Toefl essay "teachers should attend courses every 5 years." [8]

I wrote a short paragraph for the topic "A/D: All school teachers should be required to attend courses every 5 years to update their knowledge."

I was not sure if I got my point crossed so please help me proofread this. Thank you!!! I side with that "teachers should attend courses every 5 years."

"Primarily, taking courses regularly allows teachers to update their academic knowledge. Being teachers is special as their mission is to impart what's known in a certain field to students. They serve as the first person students turn to when encountering anything puzzled. In most cases they are capable of giving satisfactory answers with the help of their experience and knowledge base. However, there are also some situations where they are challenged. Just as the saying goes, "what we know is not much, but what we know is immense." Everyday sees new discoveries and theories. Therefore, it is critical for teachers to keep up-to-date on new research, emerging technology tools for the classroom, new curriculum resources and the like. For example, with gravitational waves detected, there is no doubt it may cause great changes to Physics syllabus. The instant success of Facebook definitely makes a good business case study. Observations sent from Mars would cast light on astronomy."