Writing Feedback / Is eating meat good for health or not ? [3]

Agustina, what test did you write this essay for? Next time you write a practice test, please provide the name of the test you are practicing for and the full prompt that you are responding to, including its instructions. The general review for your essay is not good. There are too many problems with your presentation that needs to be addressed.

For starters, you neglected to proof read your essay for grammar appropriateness and spelling. That said, your essay is filled with lower case letters starting off your sentences. The rule of thumb is that the first word of every sentence in English must be capitalized in order to indicate the start of a sentence. You failed to do that in this essay all throughout. You were inconsistent in your use of the first capitalized word so you will definitely receive penalties for that in your final score.

Next, keep in mind that you are also scored on the accuracy of your spelling in the essay. So you have to proof read your work and make sure that not a single word is misspelled otherwise, it is another set of markdowns in your final score. This essay's most grave spelling error was "storke" instead of "stroke". Show that you care for your essay by making sure you accurately spell the words. Never mind the grammar inaccuracies. Provided your sentence makes sense to the reader, you will be forgiven for most mistakes in grammar since you are not a native speaker of English.

Your opening statement should have had a thesis statement, but I did not see any indicated. That means that you have not properly restated the prompt topic for discussion and the instructions you were given. Therefore, a severe markdown, that could even garner your whole essay a failing score could be delivered to your essay in the end.

Writing Feedback / Popular movie goers - 1 ietls academic [3]

Kristoffer, you must be doing something wrong when you upload the image because it is not showing up in the post. You just have to click on the attach image link in the upper portion of the text box and then choose your image for uploading. I really don't understand why you are not (successfully) attaching the image. It makes it very difficult to review your essay. I will say this though, your essay sounds like it is very informative, provided the facts and figures you are sharing are properly taken from the image you were provided with. Your presentation has improved over the first essay you wrote but still has a problem with proper paragraph presentation. Practice using full stops, with a period, instead of a comma. Stating a fact in one sentence will get you better points then stating connected ideas in one sentence. It will also help you meet the sentence requirement per paragraph. Again, writing more than 150 words is most effective when you use it to increase your lexical resource and grammar accuracy scores. Your concluding paragraph at the end of the essay should have either been longer to meet the sentence requirement and increase your score overall or, included in the previous paragraph since it is only a single sentence. A Task 1 test does not always need a concluding sentence because there is no opinion to be given or topic to be restated. The conclusion is a normal part of the task 2 test instead.

Writing Feedback / Transported goods and rail - task 1 academic for correction and comments [3]

Kristofffer, since you did not provide the image that you analyzed, which is a required part of the IELTS task 1 presentation in this forum, I will not be able to offer you a score for your essay. All I can do for you at this point is point out your mistakes and comment on possible improvements. Since I will not have access to the provided graph, I will not be able to judge the accuracy of your work based upon the information you were provided for the summary.

First of all, writing more than 150 words is always good for your essay. However, if the 150 plus words are not presented in the proper format, then you will lose points under the Task Accuracy and Grammar Range brackets. Always create a paragraph of at least 3 sentences long, maximum of 5. The paragraph number itself should be no less than 3 and no more than 5 in order to allow the reviewer to gain a better idea regarding your English language abilities in relation to your lexical resources, cohesiveness and coherence, and other considerations. So the format you used for the essay would be marked down, even if it is informative and based upon the image you were presented for summarizing.

Your first and second paragraphs could have been combined into one paragraph in order to create an accurate summary overview. In terms of format responsiveness, the second paragraph is underdeveloped in discussion. That is the main opinion for that paragraph since it is under the 3 sentence minimum requirement. Only the final paragraph of your essay was written in accordance with the format expectations.

I can't help but feel that you just summarized the obvious information and did not go for a more analytical approach to the writing. I can sense that in the way that the presentation is mechanical in delivery. If you had provided the graph, I would have been able to give you proper advice regarding the improvement of your mechanical tone. I can probably do that in your next essay for this task, provided you remember to upload the image along with your essay.

Research Papers / The Struggles Women Face Entering or Rentering College [3]

Miana, an authoritative research paper presents information in the third person, not the first person pronoun. That is because a research paper needs to prove that is it an unbiased look at the topic being discussed. Speaking of which, your thesis statement can use some work. Rather than presenting the information that you came across in your research, develop a proper thesis statement based upon your research instead. It is important that you keep your point of view out of the presentation because this is not an opinion paper. The rest of the research paper is good and informative. It is well presented. However, the conclusion can use some improvement. Since you are presenting a concluding statement, you should remind the reader of your thesis statement, offer the result of your research in relation to your thesis statement, and then conclude it with a strong statement that offers "advice" not an "opinion" of the topic for the reader to consider. That way, your paper remains unbiased and will stand up to the scrutiny of your professor upon review.

Undergraduate / "A plethora of opportunities"- Waitlist Essay for UC Davis [3]

Amanda, since you were wait-listed the last time, it is understood that you continued your education at some college institution. Either as a Biology major at a college or university, or by taking some related courses at a community college. In order to prove that you are worthy of continuing your education at UC Davis, you need to discuss what sort of changes and preparations you have made since you were wait listed. The first 100 words should discuss the preparations that you made in terms of classes you took and your current GPA at your current academic institution while the last 100 words should explain how your previous academic training will be highlighted, improved, and enhanced by the programs at UC Davis. So you will need to connect your current accomplishments with the possibility of further enhancing your knowledge through the academic training and extra curricular activities at UC Davis. Your current version does not prove that you have made ample changes to your circumstances that could warrant your removal from the wait list.

Writing Feedback / The information on water use in six regions of the world. Task 1 [2]

Sheryl, please do not expect me to rate your essay based on the band score because you did not provide the chart illustration for me to use in comparing your work with the provided information. I want to be fair to you and judge the essay based upon the provided parameters. I can tell you though that your essay suffers from a lack of thought development because you have some paragraphs that are extremely short in presentation and as such, does not really offer a fully developed analysis or argument for the information you are providing. You need to use at least 3 sentences per paragraph. Additionally, you should not present the information enclosed in parenthesis because these are not additional information that you are providing, but actual information based upon the prompt you were provided with. It is because of these parenthetical presentations that your essay suffers in the cohesiveness and coherence, as well as grammatical accuracy portion of the band score. All your paragraphs do not meet the minimum requirement and therefore, cannot be considered fully developed. While some ideas are presented in the 2 sentences, there is no definitive reason for the reader to believe the information you are providing. That only comes from the direct, instead of parenthetical, presentation of the information in the original chart. I can sense some analytical presentations in the essay though. That tells me that you studied the graph somehow. I cannot tell how effective you analysis is though, because you failed to include the illustration with the original posting. So these problems would have lowered your score in a major way. I just can't be specific about the score because of the lack of illustrated information for me to consider.

Scholarship / Education is as an investment. Personal statement for a Scholarship [2]

Arsenij, I am of the opinion that this essay cannot help your scholarship application. It is weak and does not really sell you as a model student who has the ability to deliver the expectations of a scholarship program. A strong scholarship application essay focuses on delivering your strong points as both a student and as a person to the reviewer. I believe that it would be best if you just write a new essay that focuses on your academic and personal strengths. The academic strengths must be presented in the form of the awards and recognition that you received during your previous academic undertaking. If you can mention being a Dean's Lister, a previous scholar for a different scholarship, an impressive GPA, and other related elements then your academic claims for the scholarship will be better. If you can present information about how you are a civic minded individual who knows that being a scholar also means being helpful to others as you represent the scholarship in your university, that should work to further strengthen your application as well. Right now, this essay is too vague and presents reasons that you require the scholarship that will not really impress the reviewer. Your reasons are the same as the other scholars. So rather than using obvious reasons, try to sell the reviewer on the idea that you are a person whose academic and socio-civic inclinations are best aligned with the mission objectives of the scholarship program you are applying to. Sell your strengths as the main reason that you feel you should be considered for the scholarship. If possible, explain that you deserve the scholarship because of your future plans as a member of the petroleum industry and explain how you plan to make that happen upon your graduation or through your research, which can be applied directly in your profession once you become a professional in that field. Don't use this generic essay. It does not have any content that will help to make your application memorable to the scholarship reviewer.

Writing Feedback / Life among the crowd or in a remote area? [4]

Hoang, this essay can only score a 3 because of specific, severe problems with your essay. For starters, your opening statement is not only short of the minimum 3 sentence requirement, but it doesn't accurately restate the prompt at all. The prompt asks you to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of living in a small community. Your discussion however related to past negative and positive sides of living in small areas. Review the prompt requirement again and you will realize that you did not represent the prompt properly. What you decided to discuss, were the past reasons that created a positive and negative side to living in small areas. This is a prompt deviation because the prompt itself did not make any time distinction to make you discuss "past" ideas. Therefore, the discussion should be made regarding present time considerations. While your discussion was somewhat good, it suffered from under developed discussions in a few instances. Specifically in paragraph 3. The conclusion even worsened the problem because you decided to offer an opinion regarding the advantage and disadvantage of living in a small community. Since your opinion is not called for anywhere in the original instructions, you should not have presented it anywhere in the essay. This presentation made the conclusion flawed because you presented a new topic for discussion rather than simply concluding the essay in the expected summary method. It is because of these observations that I believe you cannot get a passing grade with this essay.

Writing Feedback / The best way to solve the problem of traffic is to force people to pay toll. Agree or Disagree? [3]

Adib, I think that you can receive an overall score of 3 with this essay. The main weak point that I can see with your writing is that your opening statement does not properly respond to the task provided. You made it clear that you would be suggesting alternative solutions to the traffic congestion problem rather than presenting reasons as to why you disagree with the statement. In fact, you did not even signify that you disagreed with the statement at the end of the first paragraph, where your opinion was expected to be presented. Due to the mistake in your thesis statement presentation, you did not manage to properly address the prompt instruction which clearly stated that you were to simply defend why you were in agreement or disagreement with the topic statement. As such, you have shown a failure to address the task due to a prompt misunderstanding. This serious error in your presentation is what led to the failing score of your essay.

Writing Feedback / Free education without any tuition for those who can't afford it [2]

Sayed, while your thought organization can possibly score up to a 4 in this essay, your overall score cannot be higher than a 2. That is the analysis that I came up upon observing certain serious problems with your work. You cannot score higher than a 2 in the portions related to quality of ideas, writing style, and grammar and usage. One of the biggest problems of your essay is your total disregard for the capital writing rules which dictate that the first letter of every word in a new sentence must be capitalized. Your grammar and usage leaves the reader a bit confused and stressed, which requires repeated reading of your work. You also have a serious problem when it comes to your word choice and sentence structure. These are serious weaknesses when it comes to analytical writing that created some serious scoring problems for your essay.

Writing Feedback / Undergraduate essay on sleep deprivation and doctors. [2]

Rio, your thesis statement is not very clear. You make a statement of fact within the paragraph without an indication of the statement of the problem. We already know that overworked doctors tend to make mistakes on the job. The question thesis statement should be "In as much as sleep deprivation causes doctors to make mistakes on the job, there is still no clear understanding as to why sleep deprivation affects the motor, sensory, and analytical capacity of medical practitioners. This essay will try to understand how these performance faculties are affected and why among tired doctors."

You need to learn how to properly present in-text citations in your essay. As much as possible, do not present two quotes within one paragraph as that creates a solely quoted paragraph instead of a restated paragraph. That might be flagged by the plagiarism checker of your professor. When you write the reference to citations, make sure that the reader will be clear about where your voice starts in the essay and when it transitions into the quotation. Words such as "According to" or "Based upon my understanding of the work by" can help in differentiating your thoughts from that of the quoted material. Right now, these seem to be combined in your presentation.

Graduate / Statement of Purpose for M.A. in Global Studies at Sophia University [2]

Vu, you have not responded to the main reason that is being asked in this statement of purpose in relation to your career. You vaguely mention wanting to become a Japanese researcher. You need to expand on that discussion by explaining the career path that you hope to take. What kind of career endgame is there usually for a Japanese researcher? What career path does taking the MA create for you? Explain these reasons in the first paragraph.

You must also develop a valid thesis statement with a (possible) research track for yourself. This will show a clear picture of the seriousness of your application. If you wish to, you can create a logical research connection between your college thesis and your (possible) masters thesis based upon what results you hope to achieve. Bear in mind that this is just a preliminary presentation so it doesn't need to be precise, nor does it need to be the actual research you will be undertaking. This paragraph should just show that you are prepared for the study path ahead of you because you have some plan for your course of study.

Do not mention that you took the information that you discussed from the school website. That makes it sound like you are not a serious applicant who bothered to do research in relation to your masters course and academic interests. Remove that reference entirely, The essay works well without that paragraph and keeps the focus solely on the purpose of your application and other prompt requirements.

Research Papers / Plato and Aristotle on today, in the 21st century... Peer review [2]

Joel, the title of your essay does not match the research that you have presented. The thesis statement should indicate that you will be looking for a relevance between the logic and differences between Plato and Aristotle, based upon modern day discussions and the applicability of their logical thinking and published arguments. Then start off the essay by explaining how each philosopher developed his line of thinking, with a shallow comparison between the two. You must also offer a comparison between the two based upon their mentor-student relationship in order to set the platform for the relevance comparison. When you begin to discuss the modern topics that you feel can be used to compare the two philosophers, do your best to research a specific philosophy or published philosophical statement from each philosopher and apply it to the modern discussion. That is how you will effectively prove or disprove the relevance of one, the other, or both philosophers to the modern era topic discussions. While this essay that you wrote is fine, it doesn't contain enough relevant information to discuss the relevance of the philosophers in the 21st century. More in-depth research and in-text citation are needed to accomplish that task.

Writing Feedback / Task 1 IELTS Australian teenager's eating fast food [2]

Amjad, the essay that you wrote could have been better if you had followed the format requirements for the summary overview. Rather than writing two separate short sentences at the start, you should have instead, combined that information into the first paragraph. It could have been combined because the information provided is an accurate overview of the forthcoming discussion. Thus, you would have created a clear outline for the discussion paragraphs. One of the strong points of this essay is the fact that you clearly analyzed all of the provided information. This is reflected in the way that you were able to make an acceptable assumption regarding the consumption of Pizza at 83 when the graph did not clearly make a reference to digits. This shows that you can properly analyze the essay even in the English language. Your presentation is very good. Save for that one problem at the start of the essay, I do not see why this cannot earn you a score of 6 or 7.

Essays / PS and SOP for Graduate Studies (Textile Engineering Vs Material Science and Engineering) [2]

Jan, don't try to write both the PS and SOP at the same time. Focus on finalizing one essay at a time. In this instance, it would be best if you write your personal statement (PS) first. That way you can review it and decide if there are some elements in the personal statement that would be best presented in the statement of purpose. For the personal statement, you should make sure to present a number of personal information first. The information should include, in no particular order:

1. The development of your interest in this field. Make sure to start it above the age of 12.
2. How your family background relates to your interest or just simply, a statement about your family and any role models you may have had within the family circle.

3. Reasons why you decided to study this course in college.
4. Why chose to apply to this particular university.
5. What you hope to learn at this university in relation to your previous experience.

The reference to the university can be the concluding statement of the essay. All other information that is not listed here should be presented in the SOP instead.

Scholarship / Why I chose the following Master's programs and institutions [3]

Katya, You can remove the first paragraph because that discussion focuses on the reasons that you chose to study in Melbourne, Australia. The topic instructions indicates that you should only discuss the reason why you chose specific universities and courses offered in the same country. Why you chose to study in that country does not factor into the discussion and should therefore be removed. Since this is a word count specific essay, try to get to the point as soon as you can so that the reviewer's attention will immediately be drawn to your response instead of an unrelated response at the start. Use the word count solely for developing your discussion of the course program and institutional choices. Your first paragraph is a prompt redirection which will not be appreciated by the reviewer because of the limited time that he has to read each applicant's essay. Presenting only the required discussion will help your application more in this instance.

Writing Feedback / Child Education / Parents / Social Institutions [2]

Nguyen, the opening statement which is supposed to be a paraphrasing of the original prompt is not very clear. The original prompt is related to the method by which a child can be taught to be a good member of society. Your restatement is all about the moral lessons that should be taught to a child. Teaching a moral lesson is not the same as teaching a child how to be a good member of society. A moral lesson is learned or taught after a mistake is made. Teaching a child to be a good member of society is taught on a continual basis, regardless of whether or not a mistake was made by the child. Your personal opinion must never be part of a conclusion. It should be a separate paragraph that is supported by evidence that will convince the reader of your stand on the given topic. The conclusion should only restate the prompt, the two sides discussed, and finally, a short representation of your personal opinion to close the essay. Based on these observations, the score of your essay will not be more than 4.

Scholarship / How your training at Stanford will impact the economical growth of Africa? [4]

Awoga, your response to the prompt should be set aside for a more relevant topic for discussion. It does not relate in any manner to the provided discussion. The reviewer is expecting you to respond to the essay question by providing a specific response that deals with how well well you know the university and the programs for training that it provides in relation to your chosen major or masters course. So you need to do some research in relation to the question. Look for the specific training programs that the university offers that can have a direct relation to your job and the economic growth of your country. Perhaps look into some networking possibilities between you, your internship program, and the university itself, in order to prepare a better response to the question. Your current work is not answering the prompt in any related manner so you cannot use it to answer the question you were given. Take the time to full analyze the question and how you can best offer a response to it.

Research Papers / Breastfeeding: Maternal Benefits & Support.......Motivation to keep going! [3]

Jeanette, in the first paragraph, you mention that breastfeeding has caused a number of controversies over the past decades. However, you do not indicate what these controversies are. You must make mention of these discussion topics in the opening statement because a part of the research paper deals with the debunking of the breastfeeding debate topics. Without the indication of the debate reasons, the essay does not have a clear focus for discussion and also doesn't provide any basis for the research that you have indicated. Your research paper is basically very informative and well researched. The only drawback, is that the thesis statement is not well thought out and represented in the opening statement. If you can address that little problem with the research, then research paper will be ready to submit.

Writing Feedback / IELTS - Task 1 - movie theater attendance by age group in Great Britain [3]

Tran, I wonder if you were not provided with the prompt description and requirements for the discussion regarding the graph. Normally, the statement overview requires a paraphrasing of the original instructions and topic for discussion, without the presentation of any actual facts and figures from the chart immediately. Since your essay did not follow this format, I am not sure if you accomplished that part of the task properly. Having said that, I will disregard the fact that I have some doubts about the first paragraph. Without that consideration, this essay can easily score a 7(in my opinion) because of the accuracy of your factual presentation and your English writing abilities, all considered. Your score would have been improved if you had used more full sentences instead of using connecting words such as "and" in the essay. Try to learn how to develop short but concise and informative sentences that do not rely on repetitive presentations and connecting words in order to show a higher level of English vocabulary and grammar abilities. Good job on this essay just the same. It is one of the best that I have read here.

Writing Feedback / Some believe that studying at university or college is the only, proper way to have a good career [2]

Nguyen, you almost got the opening paraphrasing of the instructions completely right. You made a mistake when you said that you come to a conclusion about the topic instead of saying that you were going to offer your personal opinion on the topic. The personal opinion is the instruction given by the original prompt and is what you should have presented towards the end of the essay. You are not expected to come to a conclusion, which translates into a decision about the topic provided because your role here is merely to inform the reader, not make a decision for them. So you your approach to the essay discussion is partly in error. As for your discussion proper, there are a few improvements that need to be made in your future essays since you made the mistakes in this essay.

You are given only a limited time with which you develop a draft and finalize your essay. Therefore, you must always concentrate on delivering the strongest possible argument for your discussion. As such, you should never present more than one, fully developed and discussed line of reasoning per paragraph. Delivering small reasons, such as you did in this essay, without allowing enough space for proper defense and development of the opinion results in a less informative essay. It is imperative that you present your strongest discussion, even if based only upon one fact. That is because it is not the number of reasons that are being counted here, but your ability to defend or oppose a given statement in a coherent and cohesive English based approach.

The conclusion is definitely faulty because you failed to present a personal opinion prior to the conclusion of the essay. Since the instructions are clear about you discussing two sides and then giving your personal opinion, you cannot claim that the whole essay is based upon your personal opinion. These are the major reasons that your final score has to be a low 4.

Research Papers / How are turbo-chargers more effective than superchargers? [2]

Eric, in reference to your second paragraph. Do not make any statement that already makes an indirect choice for the reader without first having presented enough information for the person to agree with you after his analysis of your research. The first sentence makes a statement of fact without any presentation of data so it should either be revised or totally removed from the paragraph. Now, I totally understand that deep research is required for this kind of paper. However, it seems that you have used too many in-text citations in the essay. It is important that you do not just cut and paste the information from other sources but rather, present your own understanding of the statement you wish to use and then refer to it as such. For example:

Baker (2010) suggests that it is better to use a manifold tank. While there is truth to his statement, Stanfield (3456) counters this belief because he is of the opinion that....

It is important that you use your own words in the essay when referring to quotes because that will limit the possibility of your paper being flagged for plagiarism due to the heavy volume of in-text citations that you have.

In paragraph one, you say that forced induction is more popular. However, if it is a complex process, then it will not be popular among car enthusiasts (not car culture). Change the term to "simplicity" instead of "complexity" because something "simple" will always be more popular than something "complex".

Research Papers / Causes and effects of child obesity - Rough Draft [2]

Analeza, your essay needs to be revised in order to meet specific requirements. Start with the introduction. There is no clear thesis statement provided regarding the research that you are about to present. Review what you have written and try to develop a clearer statement of the childhood obesity problem. There is no need for you to mention emaciation at all in the essay since that is not the focus of the research. In fact, that single sentence mention that you did ended up confusing the introduction because there was no follow up reference to emaciation within the rest of your research. Develop a clearer thesis presentation that indicates the following only:

1. Definition of childhood obesity, not obesity in general.
2. Reasons why childhood obesity is considered an epidemic in American society these days.
3. What the research you are conducting is going to focus on.
4. The reason why this will be the focus of your research.
5. What you hope to achieve through this research.

In reference to the information you will be presenting, kindly double check the format for this research paper and follow the proper guidelines regarding the presentation of in-text citations. You do not have any real form of academic referencing used in the paper, which can cause this paper to be marked as plagiarized by plagiarism checkers and your professor. Do not risk failing in this research just because of a technicality.

Your concluding statement needs to be only a wrap up of the results of your research. It should not be presenting the dire effects of obesity on children. So you need to write another sub-topic that actually presents all of that information. Do not do that in the conclusion. The conclusion should only show the final results of your research in a summarized form.

Focus totally on childhood obesity in your research. There is no need to constantly refer back to adults or rich people because the research doesn't involve them. Run a spell check on your paper for certain improperly spelled words and have a native English speaker read your research. Ask that friend to help you correct your grammar and sentence structure mistakes. I have spotted numerous problems in that area but I cannot mention those corrections here due to the sheer volume of mistakes. Also, you are going to be making major changes to the content of the research so it would be futile for me to ask you to correct information or sentences that will definitely be changed in the revision.

Writing Feedback / The attendance of Higher education students in the class [3]

Sriwidayani, the first problem of this essay is that you did not include the original prompt requirement in the presentation of the essay instructions. A provided title does not us what we need to know about the requirements of the topic you are being asked to discuss. It is important that you always attach the original instructions when you as us to review your essay.

The second problem with your essay has a lot to do with the first problem. The opening statement must always be a proper paraphrasing of the original prompt topic and required discussion instructions, prior to the presentation of your opinion. In this instance, your paraphrasing is not clear. It does not really tell the reader what the topic is about in an understandable manner and your outline for discussion is non-existent. So when you present your opinion to the reader, the question becomes "What is this person talking about?" These problems will result in a failing task accuracy score.

Your lexical resource should never include localized language such as "variatif". It is imperative that you use only accurate American or British English words (depending upon the kind of test you are taking). When you use localized (English) slang, the examiner will most likely not know what you are talking about and consider this a lexical error, which will result in deducted points based upon unfamiliarity with the English language.

When you speak of your friend Vera, make sure the capitalize her name as that is a proper noun. Your last sentence is incorrect because you used the term "keyword" which means one word that delivers the meaning of a sentence. In this sentence, you required a whole phrase to describe the subject of the sentence. So you should have said "Key words" or "Key Phrase" instead.

Writing Feedback / Which factor is important to stop the poverty and hunger in a country. [4]

Hi Linh, I think that you can easily score a 6 with this essay. I base that score upon the method by which you presented the paraphrased opening statement and the overall discussion presentation. You were able to develop acceptable discussions that, although sometimes flawed, produced some cohesive and coherent paragraphs in support of your statement. There are some notable mistakes in your evidence presentation though. One instance of faulty evidence is your use of the term "moral lesson". A moral lesson is not something that is taught in school. That lesson is learned through life experience. So a school education is not really something that should be related to such a reference. This is a minimal mistake that is made by those who are native English speakers. However, the sense of what you are trying to imply can be clearly seen so the reader was not stressed out in trying to understand what you are trying to say.

Your conclusion should have been presented in individual sentence forms instead of the continuous sentence presentation seen here. Remember, you need at least 3 sentences to qualify what you have written as a complete paragraph. Minimal mark downs will be made in the scoring for these types of simple mistakes.

The discussion overall is strong with some minimal faults in sentence development, evidence presentation, and grammar inaccuracies. At the same time, you have also shown marked development in your essay writing skills. So I am very proud of your accomplishments in that field. I hope to continuously monitor and see your writing improvements over the coming days. You are slowly becoming better prepared to take the test.

Writing Feedback / The controversial issue of whether the arts have to be governmental funded for flourishing or not [3]

Elsayed, you can only get a 3 in terms of the final score for your GRE essay because of a number of reasons. For starters, your discussion development needs to be improved. There are a number of instances when your presentation is not clear and does not solidly connect with the discussion prompt. This is the result of a lack of grammar control on your part. Due to the problematic sentence developments, your essay presentation is flawed and does not accurately represent an understandable line of reasoning in your presentation. This creates vague references in the essay which makes it difficult for the reader to analyze your paragraphs. While your essay has a strong voice of conviction, you need to take your time when writing your essay so you can be sure that you do not deliver improper thoughts or under developed thoughts. You also need to make sure that each paragraph you present has a minimum of 3 sentences per paragraph in order to assure yourself that you have done your best when it comes to delivering a coherent and cohesive paragraph presentation. You have plenty of room for improvement in your essay. I am sure that these problems will be slowly addressed with your upcoming practice tests. I look forward to seeing your progress over the coming days.

Writing Feedback / Do you agree that different clothes influence the way people behave? [4]

Saman, one of the policies of the forum is that you must include the prompt statement in your posting so that your essay can be accurately reviewed for compliance with the prompt requirements. That is more for the benefit of the other users here who may wish to assist you in reviewing your essay and not the contributor because I am highly familiar with the various prompts for various English tests. That said, I am going to tell you what the faults of this essay are.

The first fault, is that there is no proper paraphrasing of the prompt statement. The first paragraph of a TOEFL test is meant to test your English comprehension skills. That is why you are required to deliver the topic for discussion in your own understanding. Simply relaying a Chinese proverb does not accomplish that task. You must always do your best to represent the original topic for discussion and the instructions for the discussion. You should not discuss the facts of your essay in the opening statement. The proper introduction for this would have been:

Some people believe that clothes dictate the way that a person behaves. Depending what a person a wearing, his clothes have the ability to influence the way that he conducts himself in a public setting. I strongly agree with this statement based on 3 well known and commonly accepted reasons. I will discuss these reasons below.

Your essay discussion is sound and acceptable. You have used accurate examples in the defense of your stance and offer the reader a chance to consider all of your reasons based upon the everyday applications and observations of the way people dress. There is a problem in your sentence development though. In paragraph 2 sentence 1, you created a hanging sentence. It does not have a complete though presentation because the end result of the thought you presented is unclear to the reader. Practice complete thought development at all times and review your essay sentences for coherence before submitting the essay for scoring.

The conclusion is also problematic because of the way you presented it. Since the required sentence presentation is always a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5, you must always practice using full stops with a period instead of presenting a continuous thought process with the use commas and semicolons.

Even with these pre-existing mistakes in your essay, it will still probably get a decent score of 4 at the most, 3 at the least.

Writing Feedback / Causes of agricultural land productivity including three areas in 1990s. IELTS task 1 [5]

Feti, it is unfortunate that even without the chart that you were provided with for the essay, your formatting and presentation is so inadequate that it cannot score any more than a 4. This is a score that I based upon your immediate presentation of information and problems regarding discussion formats and information dissemination to the reader. For starters, your opening summary is totally unacceptable because you did not really inform the reader about the overview information from the chart. That should have included the topic for discussion, type of chart presented, summarized comparison points, and any other important overview information that could have comprised the discussion outline.

Your actual paragraph discussion is in need of proper formatting because you discussed more than one topic in a single paragraph. You need to learn how to decipher the discussion topics so that you can group the related information together and then use the grouping for the paragraph presentations. You have to also learn to use a full stop in the paragraphs instead of comma's because a full stop will help you meet the required sentence count per paragraph. As opposed to a comma which only creates a pause in the reading.

In the concluding statement, try to come up with some additional analytical information that you might have missed in the essay for presentation. Do it in such a manner that will allow you to create at least 3 sentences in conclusion of the essay. Right now, the conclusion that you developed does not really do a good job of closing the discussion.

Some final reminders:
1. This essay must have at least 150 words distributed among (at least) 3 - 5 (maximum) paragraphs.
2. A discussion outline will help increase your TA score in the opening paraphrase.
3. The conclusion should help to wrap up the discussion in the 3 sentence minimum manner. It should never be a single sentence alone.

Writing Feedback / The cities are becoming busier, the traffic jams are more often.. [2]

Hailung, your essay does its best to represent two possible and doable solutions in terms of resolving the traffic congestion in major cities. That is good because the effect of the 2 lines of reasoning pushes your lexical resource and grammar accuracy score up. However, the limited paraphrasing of the given prompt reduces your task accuracy ability. A lengthened opening presentation that accurately represented the outline of your discussion would have helped to increase your TA and GRA scores. While the English grammar used is not smooth or fluent, the English terms that you used showed that you tried to increase your lexical resource with the use of complex words. However, run on sentences still exist in the essay and prevent you from creating a proper and fluid discussion paragraph. You have to learn how to divide your sentences into two during instances when you wish to discuss two connected thoughts in the same sentence. Your concluding paragraph is very ineffective in the sense that it does not properly wrap up the essay discussion through a restated prompt, summary of your offered solutions, and closing sentence. The closing sentence must not provide any new ideas in relation to the original prompt requirement. Your conclusion presented was a shortcut of the expected prompt concluding statement. Being only one sentence long, it doesn't really help to increase your score in any aspect of the 4 scoring criteria. All things considered though, you developed a pretty good discussion of the prompt requirement and could very well score at least a 6 with this practice test.

Scholarship / How studying media and communication contributes to my career [2]

Katya, try to show a familiarity with the program that you are applying for in reference to your career. The method by which the study can contribute to your career ties in directly with the classes that are involved in the study of this course. The discussion will require you to infer both your strong and weak points as a media practitioner. So start with your strengths in terms of your profession and how these will be further enhanced by your study. You show some semblances of that in this essay. However, it should not be the focal point of the essay. As a student, you are expected to have some weak points that the program of learning should help you address by either improving your skills in that area or, imparting new knowledge that can help you to further increase your professional capacity. Basically, you need to expand upon the information that currently exists in this essay in order to create a better understanding of how these studies will contribute directly to the development of your career. The essay that you wrote is acceptable but can use further development. Hopefully, you will be able to use my advice in further increasing the reflective side of your presentation. Remember, further develop your strong points as indicated in this essay but also give ample attention to to addressing the weak side of your professional career because that is always the main reason why one opts to enroll in additional studies related to your current job. That will help show the method by which your studies will help to improve your career.

Writing Feedback / Writing task 1 in ielts about the table of poverty people in Australia in 1999. [3]

Nguyen, we require that all students seeking IELTS Writing Task 1 advice upload the image along with the essay for our consideration. The image will help in judging whether you met the prompt requirements or not. In this instance, I can only assume that you followed the prompt requirements. Since the chart is not included in this essay, I will not be able to give you a score for this work. I am limited to only one free advice per thread. What I can tell you though, is that the overall format of your essay is wrong.

While you did meet the 150 minimum word requirement, you did not properly present the overview statement. The overview statement needs to include, the topic for discussion, the type of chart presented, additional instructions and comparison points, and a proper thesis statement at the end to conclude the summary of information. There must also be a space between paragraphs in order to signify new discussions. Don't forget to use the proper transition words or sentences in your essay. You did not really transition your paragraphs very well in this practice test.

The second and third paragraphs of your essay seem informative enough. Again, the chart is required for further analysis of the information that you wrote and an observation regarding the mechanical presentation of the information. With that said, the concluding paragraph once again failed to meet the format requirement of at least 3 sentences per paragraph. The concluding statement should have wrapped up the information you provided in a manner that further educates the reader. Since the essay failed to deliver on 2 counts, I can safely say that you will be scored down for those errors and receive a lower than possible score in the end.

Scholarship / Short essay on "Why I want to study abroad and what makes me a good candidate" - in English. [4]

Aya, even though you were not given a prompt to respond to with your short essay, it is up to you to give your essay a direction, a focus so to speak, that will help the reviewer understand where your desire to study in Germany comes from. Consider a number of factors before you create a new draft for your essay. The factors to consider are:

1. What is your college major? If you are a high school student, explain why you desire to study in Germany.
2. What is the relation of your college major to a German study path? (Skip if you are a high school student.)
3. What advances in this field have occurred in Germany that inspired you to study there? (Skip if you are a high school student).
4. What do you hope to achieve through your studies in Germany?
5. What is your level of German language proficiency? Do you feel that you know enough German to be able to successfully study, interact, and immerse yourself in the culture?

6. Why did you choose to attend (university name)?
7. What kind of social development do you hope to have during this exchange experience?
8. What kind of personality and character traits can you offer your German host family, friends, and classmates during this exchange program?

Using the 8 guide questions above, you should be able to create a more informative personal short essay for this application. Try to keep it within 300 words since this is a "short" essay. Consider using our "Urgent" thread for additional reviews of your revised essay from me. I can only give you one free advice for this question so, if you want more help from me, you will need to list this essay as "Urgent" with our forum moderators.

Writing Feedback / Energy Production Chart In America [4]

Truong, there is a specific format that has to be followed when writing a summary essay for a lecturer. The tone needs to be more academic in nature and also, provides a respectful deference towards the target reader. Therefore, the opening sentence for this essay should have sounded something like this:

America consumes energy coming from 5 different sources. In order to better understand the method by which the country consumes power, one must first analyze the amount of energy consumed per resource. This essay shall shed light on the five sources of power, making percentage comparisons where necessary for energy consumed during the decades of 1980 and 1990 using 2 previously provided pie charts.

Note, the academic research tone of the opening statement. Since this paper is to be presented to a university lecturer, a clear thesis statement and outline of discussion, plus the preliminary sources of information must be provided. Consider this sort of a thesis statement presentation. The academic tone must be consistent throughout the essay and also, clearly discuss the sources of energy in a chronological manner, either from biggest to smallest or smallest to biggest. The comparisons are necessary whenever the gap between uses of the same energy source is up to one percent in difference.

Now, based upon the example given above, I am sure that you noticed the shortcoming of your summary statement. Make sure to pattern your future writing, regardless of the target audience, after the example above. The lecturer reader should be assumed in all of your writing in order to create a stronger summary statement every time. The same goes for your concluding sentence. It is short of the 3 sentence minimum requirement. Always do your best to accurately divide the discussion topics so that you will not be left short of the required sentence count towards the end of the essay.

The tone of your essay is also highly mechanical in nature. It is obvious that you only wanted to present the information provided, you did not want to delve deeper and give a more detailed analysis of the charts even though the opportunity to do so existed. I hate to say this but for every short cut you took and every mechanical detail you presented, I had to mark down your essay. The marking down reached the point where the overall score of your essay was reduced to a 5. The strongest reason for the markdown was the mechanical nature of your presentation and lack of presentation development when it came to the provided data.

Writing Feedback / Both views betweeen having an enjoyable life and making a lot of money [2]

Agus, the essay cannot receive a score higher than a 4 due to the missing elements of the prompt requirement in your response essay. The prompt requirement is clear, you are supposed to accurately discuss both sides, as provided in the topic statement, and then, present your personal opinion regarding the subject being discussed. Your essay did not follow this format. What I saw in your essay was that you failed to signify that you would be discussing your personal point of view by implying what your point of view is in the opening statement. Don't forget that the opening statement needs to have the following elements:

1. The paraphrased topic for discussion;
2. The two sides of the discussion, also paraphrased;
3. Your personal opinion for discussion.

Given the fact that you are expected to present a 5 paragraph essay, covering the paraphrasing, individual discussion of each side (one paragraph each), and your personal opinion, prior to the presentation of the conclusion, it will appear that your essay fell short of the expected discussion. Therefore, your task accuracy score was severely pulled down.

There are also the grammar problems in the your essay such as the incoherent first sentence. Instead of saying "incoming", the proper term would have been "income". Income means money received while incoming means something that is arriving or coming in. Such a lexical resource mistake also resulted in more points deducted from your overall score.

So, aside from the mistaken discussion presentation, the use of "and" along with "etc." in a single sentence also created a lower grammar accuracy score for you. This is an academic essay so you should never use the word "and" along with "etc." in a single sentence. That is academically improper. Always write complete thoughts in order to keep the reader properly informed. Etc. means "and so on and so forth", which is an academically acceptable term. That is more suited towards casual writing.

I hope that you can avoid this mistakes in your next essays. Be aware of the mistakes that you made in this essay and make sure that you do not repeat the mistakes in your next practice test.

Writing Feedback / Process of producing tealeaves [2]

Andi, when you write the overview in relation to a list of types, such as in the case of the tea, you should inform the reader, as part of the overview, regarding the types of tea produced. That will be part of the overview information outline that will form part of the outline discussion for the body of the essay. Since there are other steps involved in the creation of the teas, it is important to enumerate the tea types at first in order to better hold on to the attention of the reader who may not be very interested in what you have to write about but will then be interested if there is a tea type that he wants to learn more about through your summary essay.

As you can probably tell from simply glancing at the essay, your second paragraph is lacking in terms of sentence requirements. That is because you did not divide the essay discussion properly. A portion of the third paragraph, which now turns out to be too long, should have been a part of the second paragraph instead. The division of the topic discussion should have come at the point that starts with "On the other hand" since that phrase indicates a transition to a different topic, hence a new paragraph. Remember, the rule is one topic per paragraph.

Based upon these reasons, your 193 word count, which is more than the minimum of 150, had to be scored down to a 5 at the most. I hope that you can show improvement with your next practice essay using the above recommendations. I look forward to reading your improved work in the future.

Writing Feedback / Two maps show an island before and after development - IELTS TASK 1 [3]

Nataliia, the summary overview of your essay needs to be at least 3 sentences long. So instead of the single sentence that you have at the very beginning, you should have combined it with the next paragraph in order to create a proper overview of the information you were provided. The overview that you could have created would have been a perfect explanation of the illustration you were provided with. When writing this kind of summary, there is no need for you to present it in the first person as there is no required discussion coming from your end. No person references are necessary in this instance, only a reference to the illustrations. That said, the best reference for the discussion in the essay would have been, per paragraph "In the first map..." Rather than saying "I will focus..." Do not use the reference "them" in this essay because that refers to a direct or indirect object, usually referring to a group of people. In this case, you are using the term to refer to inanimate objects such as buildings, trees, and the like. These do not have genders and are not considered people, so the correct reference would have been to use the descriptive term directly. An example of this would be" ... After the footpath, the reception..." or "... One of these..." While you did write 180 plus words, the improper grammar development takes away from the interesting presentation that you have for the essay. I advise you to work on your connecting words and pronoun usage knowledge. Learn how to properly refer to inanimate objects in an essay. Overall though, you did a good job of describing the map illustrations. However, due to the existing problems of the essay, I think you can only score as high as a 6.

Undergraduate / The reason why I keep running [3]

Huxiaolan, this is a pretty impressive essay. I do not see any indication that this paper should have been written as a research paper so, for something that is based upon your personal experience and your basic knowledge of the benefits related to running, this is a very well developed personal essay. You had a few grammatical problems such as "heath" instead of "health". Overall though, you managed to produce a very informative essay that truly advocates the positive effects of running on a mental and social level. You obviously love to run and it shows in the way that you have a familiarity with the health benefits of the activity. The comparison with the gym memberships could have used more development. That did not have any negative effect on your written work though as the essay is easily understandable and doesn't stress out the reader when it comes to reading your somewhat problematic grammar, which is incidental in the essay. Good work. Keep on writing like this and I am sure you will become more proficient in writing these types of essays in no time. Your grammar has room for improvement and I know that you will continue to develop that as you progress with your writing exercises. You have the potential to be an acceptable English writer. Good job!.

Writing Feedback / The line graph show the consumption of 3 spreads from 1981 to 2007 - TASK 1 IELTS [3]

Ky, I am not going to score your essay at this point because it will not get a passing grade. I would like you to improve upon the problem parts of your essay first because it is obvious that, as your first post, you did not follow the suggested writing format for this task 1 essay. It would be unfair of me to fail you in this essay since you obviously lacked guidance in writing it.

For starters, a Task 1 IELTS essay is supposed to have a minimum of 150 words, spread between 3-5 paragraphs. That means, each paragraph should contain anywhere from 3-5 sentences each. Your essay falls short of this mandatory format. Work on developing the required format in order to gain a chance at a higher task accuracy score.

Now, since the essay needs to have at least 3 paragraphs in order to be considered a full essay, you will need to know how to develop each of the paragraphs in order to meet the required informative summary presentation. This is simple enough to do, provided you understand the graph that you were provided with.

First up, in the opening statement, summarize the instructions that you were provided in the graph and offer a discussion outline. In this case, you could have said:

The line graph provided compares the number of grams that people consume per type of sandwich spread. The three types of spreads to be compared are Margarine, Low fat & reduced spreads, and butter. The comparisons are done using a 6 year gap per year starting in 1991 and ending in 2007.

At that point, you may compare the graph lines as you deem fit. Whatever style you use to discuss the second paragraph, just make sure that you complete your presentation in 5 sentences because that is the maximum sentence requirement.

When you conclude the essay, you can just summarize the information you were provided by repeating what you feel is the most important information in the graph. Or, you can do comparisons of the points where information overlaps for some of the years and spread types.

This is the pretty much standard format that you should always write your Task 1 essays in. Practice using this format in your upcoming practice tests and you should receive some pretty good scores. So the standards for you to remember are:

1. Write at least 150 words in the completed essay.
2. Write at least 3 sentences, maximum of 5 sentences per paragraph.
3. Write at least 3 paragraphs for your presentation.

The work that you did in this essay is good but does not follow the required format. That will result in severely lowered scores. I do not think that this essay will get a passing score so I will not score this one. I'll give you a pass since this is your first ever attempt at writing this sort of essay.

Writing Feedback / Driver's license - should or should not? [3]

Tran, I think it will be best if I show you the scores you might get, per individual consideration for your writing so that you can effectively develop the problem points in order to ensure a higher score in the actual test. By giving you individual scores, you will be able to focus on developing your weak points in the upcoming practice tests. Let's start with your mastery level.

Your mastery level should be around a 4. This score is based upon the way that you were able to present an argumentative essay using proper points, discussion considerations, and examples. For the ideas and analysis portion, you could score anywhere between a 4 and 5. The possible score is based upon paragraph 3 of your essay which truly discusses the reasons and considerations given for the C grade before being given a driver's license. I would like to advise you to divide paragraphs such as that into 2 though. The length of the paragraph showed that you discussed 2 points of view already. It is always best to separate the thought discussions so that the reader will be able to properly analyze the content you have written.

Development and Support would be a 4. Your score in this section was the result of your clear explanation and use of examples in your essay to support your argument. Due to the number of reasons and supporting facts though, the essay tends to run too long and become too complicated. Try to keep the essay simple by providing only one strong argument in support of your reason. Multiple reasons tend to blur the discussion process.

Your organization skills can garner you a score of 5 because you were able to create a chronological discussion for your essay. You had a focused discussion throughout your essay. However, your transitioning from one paragraph or discussion to another needs more work. Finally, for language use, you get a 4. Try to improve on your sentence structure and grammar use. Be more precise with the complex words that you opt to use. There are some words such as "overturesome" that do not make sense because you made up the word. Make sure you only use words that exist in the dictionary and are also easily understandable by the reader. Do not use profession specific words or words that only you know the meaning to because you made it up on the fly. While you are not scored for mistakes, you are scored on the accuracy of word usage.

Writing Feedback / Main Reason for Studying Based on Age [2]

Andi, how many times have I told you that one of the most important considerations in this summary essay writing is the data itself that is presented in the original charts? Every age group, every percentage point, every piece of information given in the chart must be reflected in words, not assumptions as you are so prone to do. If the figures show actual ages, then say the actual age group, do not say "as they progress in age" because that is not what is in the chart. This leads to an uninformed essay being written because you always choose to not use the actual figures and information in your essay. The reader will not come away are duly informed after reading your paper because you fill their head with figures and assumptions instead of facts and figures. The latter being the expected information in a summary essay. Due to the problems that were created by the lack of accurate use of information from the charts, your essay needs to be scored down. That is, even though you wrote a pretty good essay in terms of grammar. So the final score for this essay, in my opinion, cannot be any higher than a 4.