Unanswered [6] | Urgent [0]
  

Posts by Holt [Educational Consultant]
Name: Mary Rose
Joined: Oct 17, 2016
Last Post: 19 hrs ago
Threads: -
Posts: 14,767  
Likes: 4772

Displayed posts: 14767 / page 299 of 370
sort: Latest first   Oldest first
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 24, 2017
Writing Feedback / "Pen and Paper Exams - IELTS exam task 2 [3]

Maya, as a discussion essay, I believe that this can garner you a score of about 6. That is because your overall discussion shows a clear understanding of the prompt requirements and the various discussions that surround the given topic. While the grammar is not perfect, it allows the reader to understand your message in a somewhat accurate manner. The examples provided are logical and helps to illustrate your grammar accuracy skills. However, there is a problem with your format. The opening statement is too short and the closing statement is just one long sentence. Both must be comprised of at least 3 sentences. So do not use comma's to separate your thoughts, use periods instead. So, even though you wrote 333 words, it did not help because you did not follow the formatting requirements that would have benefited from the increased word count. That said, you still did a pretty good job and could score a bit higher than just passing in this instance, all things considered.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Writing Feedback / Writing IELTS TASK 2 - Topic: Tourism - influence for visited places. [6]

Dat due to the fact that you were being asked to discuss the negative effects of tourism throughout the essay and you chose to discuss the positive effects of tourism, with barely a reference to the negative effects, you proved that you cannot score more than a 3 on this essay. There is a clear lack of understanding on your part when it came to the discussion requirements provided by the prompt.

Your essay discussed the positive effects of tourism throughout most of the essay, which was the exact opposite of the prompt instructions. You were expected to focus on the negative effects discussion. Therefore, even though you wrote almost 300 words, the length of the essay did not help you because you failed to properly paraphrase, outline, and discuss the subject you were provided.

The grammar development and presentation of the essay is also a problem since your opening statement did not provide the minimum sentence count, the second paragraph should have been divided into two paragraphs since two topics were being discussed in one paragraph, and your concluding statement did not properly represent the concluding requirements either. More importantly, when you tried to discuss the proper prompt requirement in the essay you accidentally said:

"What can tourist do to increase the disadvantage effects of tourism?"

When the correct question would have been:

"What can tourist do to decrease the disadvantageous effects of tourism?"

It does not make sense for one to wish to increase the disadvantages of tourism. Specially when the prompt focus is on how to reduce the harmful effects of tourism.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Writing Feedback / Railroads vs Road Budget - IETLS CAMBRIDGE 11 TASK 2 [5]

Khoa, you can actually score a 5 with this essay. The strongest part of your essay was your properly developed paraphrasing and opinion statement at the beginning. This good paragraph earned you a pretty decent score in the Task Accuracy portion of the test. It showed a clear understanding of the instructions and also added a unique outline touch by indicating that you will be discussing the reasons supporting your opinion. While the major discussion points had imperfect grammar, there was a clear sense of what you were trying to explain to your reader. However, there were times, such as in the second to the last paragraph when the essay lost focus and thought organization resulting in a lack of overall progression in the discussion. Try to discuss only one reason at a time and do not introduce new information within the same paragraph. A single presentation per paragraph always allows for the best discussion development as the focus of the reader is concentrated on one reason alone. This also allows you to better explain yourself and develop a stronger English presentation. The conclusion was problematic though because it fell short of the required paragraph number (3) and tried to present underdeveloped new ideas as additional discussion points instead of just concluding the essay by using the expected method of a discussion summation and concluding presentation. Anyway, you still did good work since you developed over 260 words for the essay. Way over the 250 minimum requirement. Remember though, each paragraph needs at least 3 sentences to qualify as an academic paragraph. You fell short of that requirement once in this essay.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Writing Feedback / There are several reasons why nuclear technology is really worthwhile for humans life [3]

Ahmad, I am afraid that although you wrote a little more than 250 words, the essay that you developed was so improperly discussed that you cannot get a passing score for this essay. The only possible score for this would be a 3 based on a number of reasons. Please take note of these observations and apply the suggested changes to your future practice tests.

First of all, there is a clear misunderstanding of the prompt requirement. The original prompt for this required you to take a stand either in agreement or disagreement with the point of view that "The benefits of nuclear technology far out-weight the disadvantages." Since you improperly represented the prompt paraphrasing, you immediately failed the task accuracy portion of the test. It should not be difficult to get a better score in the TA portion. All you have to do is write your paraphrased prompt and then immediately compare it with the original prompt. If your prompt does not follow the original format, then your paraphrasing is wrong.

The second problem with your essay is that you did not take a clear stand in agreement or disagreement with the prompt. This should have been represented in the paraphrased opening statement as a part of the discussion outline. You instead referred to research sources, which were not clearly identified as such in the essay. This caused another failure on your part in terms of task accuracy.

The third problem, is that your grammar range and accuracy is highly problematic. While it is possible to make sense out of what you have written, its presentation could use some improvement. The reader might decide to stop reading your work simply because of the grammatical errors that you have in the essay. Try to use simple sentences that depict a clean English sentence instead of trying to be complex and causing the reader undue stress.

Finally, your conclusion is too short. It has to be made longer, at least 3 sentences in order to properly wrap up the discussion by presenting an updated summary of the previous information presented. If you work on improving all of these points in your next essay, you should manage too show some improvement and perhaps, a slight increase in your score as well.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Scholarship / Benefit to Home Country Essay - The Impact of My Work [2]

Cardinal, you need to focus your essay on the country development plans being promoted by the SEDI. The development need that the organization is working on fixing is the problem that you should present in the essay simply because you are saying that you hope to work with them upon your return to your country. Therefore, the essay takes an immediate focus and becomes more interesting when you focus on the problem SEDI is related to. It also eliminates the need to mention other non-related government agencies in the later paragraph. By concentrating on the development need of Nigeria in relation to SEDI, your essay begins to make more sense in terms of discussing how you will apply your skills and how the country can benefit from your additional training, as well as how the success of your post study plans can be measured. The entire essay at the moment is a bit scattered in its presentation because of the existence of the first two paragraphs. If you revise those two portions, the essay should take on a more appropriate form.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Graduate / 'Exceptional learning program' SOP for MS in Cyber Security Program(MSIT) / CMU [5]

Rahul, the first 2 paragraphs of this essay are irrelevant to a masters degree statement of purpose. Those information are normally presented in a personal statement because that discusses the development of your interest in the field. The development of an interest is not the same as a development of a purpose in the field. The discussion that can make this purpose essay much stronger and more impressive would be if you can present a field in cyber security that you find challenging, hence your desire to study more about the field. So start off with paragraph 3 instead.

Your experience is admirable but your purpose is unclear. What field of cyber security do you want to master and why? Since you will be changing careers, you have to present a major reason why you believe that you have to transition to another field. BTW, Paragraph 5 does not tell me anything about your purpose for this study. This is general information that the reviewer is already familiar with, so without it properly connecting to something about your purpose for higher study, such as an interest in securing "The internet of things" in order to give people a sense of cyber privacy, that statement is useless. Also, kindly proof read the essay for grammatical errors. Remove the capital letters where it is not necessary.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Essays / I want to fill up this application form but I don't know, what should I write wisely? [2]

Rosem, in every life, there is a time when a person is faced with certain challenges that changes who he is as a person. This change comes for the learning experience that you encountered as you tried to deal with the situation. This is the kind of experience that the essay wants you to discuss. Some topics for discussion here include, but are not limited to, academic failure, sports difficulties, facing work challenges, or even, simply trying to get people of a different belief system to either agree with you or at least treat your opinion with respect. From all of these events, there is always a life lesson to be taken from it once you have resolved the challenge. It is the lesson that you learned that you should highlight in the essay.

So there are 3 things the essay has to represent. First, is the situation itself, second is how you overcame the difficulty, and finally, what you learned about yourself and how to handle such situations because of this experience. Do those 3 things in your essay and you will have accurately responded to the prompt.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Scholarship / CSS Essay (Save the lives of rural dwellers in Nigeria with off-grid solar electrification system) [3]

Ukashat, when the essay referred to development needs, it did not mean for you to concentrate the discussion on your community needs alone. The proper answer to that part of the prompt requirements was asking you to discuss the power situation in your country and the current government projects that exist to try and resolve the issue. It is this government project that should directly tie in with your interest in gaining this masters degree and also, create the professional path that you wish to undertake. Your response should relate with the government project.

One mistake often made in these essays is that the student often refers to outside sources as if he were writing a research paper. You have to remove that whole paragraph from this essay. It does not help to move the essay along since it is not a summary of your potential study plan or thesis statement while a masters student. The only presentation required for the second prompt is, "How do you plan to resolve the issue by way of your studies? What research will you do that will be applicable to the problem as per your government plan to resolve the issue of power shortage?"

Since you did not properly respond to prompt number 2, your response to question number 3 was automatically wrong as well. Note that the essay is asking you how you will apply what you have learned during your time as an MS student. It is not asking you what you expect to learn. So paragraph 4 is totally irrelevant to your essay. You summed up prompts 4 and 5 in your final paragraph. Unfortunately, you did not indicate how the success of your project can be measured by the scholarship so that the response you wrote became incomplete. Try to develop a separate response for the measurement portion.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Writing Feedback / Writing IELTS task 2 : Convenience Food and Preparation Time [2]

Frisilia, with this kind of sloppy sentence development and lack of focus on proper grammar presentation, your essay is going to be prevented from gaining a score higher than a 4. One of the main reasons that your essay cannot get a score higher than that is because you failed to use proper punctuation marks in your essay. The predominance of the comma use, when a period would have been more appropriate, created a wrong format for the essay. You created single, continuous sentences rather than thoughtful single sentences. The lack of periods in the paragraphs caused undue stress for the reader that the examiner will not be able to ignore. Then, there is the improper conclusion where you presented your opinion rather than a closing summary of the discussion. I do not know if your tutor has told you this but, in an academic discussion such as this, you are not allowed, to present a new idea in your conclusion because the opinion you have is expected to be presented in a stand alone paragraph prior to the conclusion. Violating this academic writing rule is one of the major reasons that your essay failed to get a passing grade.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Writing Feedback / High school graduate or experience which important to get job? [3]

Nisa, it is very unfortunate that the errors in this essay limits your score to a failing mark of 3 in the overall band. The problems with your essay starts with the way that you inaccurately paraphrased the prompt even as you managed to deliver a mechanical, and almost imitation presentation of the original prompt. It was difficult to read and failed to indicate a proper outline for the discussion that included a reference to your personal opinion as per the prompt instructions.

Throughout the second paragraph, you kept on referring to High School when, I believe that you meant to say college. There is a clear difference between the two as most employers prefer a college graduate over a high school graduate. Always keep a clear head when writing these essays and make sure that you refer back to the original prompt when you are done writing in order to confirm that you actually discussed the requirements properly. Speaking of which, there is a missing paragraph in the essay referring to your personal opinion. It is because of these mistakes that you could not possibly get a passing score for this essay.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Scholarship / 'networking between Indonesia and the Netherlands' Stuned Scholarship [4]

Yunfika, in the first paragraph, you need to make sure that you do not just fall back on your previous experience regarding climate change in Indonesia and how it affects the weather patterns in the country. That is something that happens worldwide due to Global Warming. Admitting that you do not know anything about the climate and how it affects the environment is not a good implication. What course did you study in college? Since part of your college experience relates to nature trekking, it can be assumed that you actually studied a course related somewhat to your interest in climate change and its effect on people. Indicate that course and how it has helped to increase your interest in this particular field. Aside from educating the people, what other interests do you have that can be supported by this masters degree study? For example, are you a nature conservationist by profession? If so, how does this course relate to that profession? You need to think of serious reasons to support your interest. The presentation you have right now is very light and almost meant for a college application instead of a masters degree. There is a lack of seriousness in your reasons for wanting to complete and MS in this field. By the way, I think you made a mistake in the title. I think you meant to say "Preserving", not "Preversing".

For prompt number 2, the only actual response that you developed in the second paragraph comes from sentences 3,4,and 5. Try to focus the paragraph on better developing those sentences by offering expanded discussions of how the classes and / or training experiences will help to assist you in Indonesia by relating it to your plans to help improve the environmental studies sector of your country. Be more specific by explaining one idea as to how you plan to use your studies to develop that sector of Indonesian development. Your sentences need to be better developed to explain your plans and how it relates directly to say, the Indonesian government environmental projects. Pick a project and explain how your study plans fit into it.

In the "suitable candidate" paragraph. Aside from focusing on your leadership skills and networking abilities, it would be to your benefit if you can offer some academic achievements and professional recognition that you may have recently or in the past. While your practical skills are good, it is not the only consideration for your admission. So present some academic credentials that will beef up your credentials some more.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Writing Feedback / Don't be a victim of interview bias [3]

Thien, the clarity of your opinion is lost due to the manner of your discussion. You failed to make the reader understand that the bias is on the interviewers part and not the interviewee. Though you mentioned some of the biases involved in the article, you weren't really able to explain how the bias affected the applicant and how it can be overcome. As an opinion paper, you need to present reasons why you believe this article is right or wrong. Instead, you just gave a general discussion of the article. An effective opinion essay would have indicated an opinion either in agreement or disagreement with the author and then defended that stance. There is no reflection of that in this paper. The main question your opinion should have discussed is, "Do you agree or disagree with the author and why? Use examples of reasons from the article to defend your stance. " That is the normal function of an opinion essay that should have been represented here. What you wrote is an ineffective overview of the article, with a semblance of an opinion instead.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Undergraduate / Defining Death - Write an essay on a significant challenge that you've overcome [2]

Tapi, here is the thing, the focus of the essay and the challenge has to be related directly to you. More than half of this essay deals with Nick, his illness, and subsequent death. There was no proper explanation as to why his death could have affected you that way, even though it is evident that you took it hard. This is not an experience that focuses on you because further explaining why you took Nick's death that way will even increase his exposure in the essay. While I understand how special this story is to you, this is not the essay that you should be presenting for this essay.

A proper essay for this topic has to be developed through an event that had a direct relation to you. So think of a failure, an incapacity, or a moment in time when you were prevented from achieving something you wanted to. A significant challenge has to be related to a drawback on your part, not related to the death of someone else. A significant challenge could be being rejected for a scholarship then eventually winning it, being rejected by your university of first choice then eventually getting in, learning to do something that you thought you never could.

Basically, the essay needs to prove character development along with intellectual maturity through an obstacle that needed to be overcome. This grief is not something that accurately depicts such a thing. It seems like the whole school mourned his death, but it is unclear why that is so. This creates the wrong presentation for the essay because Nick is cemented as the central character instead of you. So you can do one of two things, either refocus the essay to center more on you in terms of discussion or, write a different essay which has you and your "trial" or "challenge" that you overcame as the focal point of the essay.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Scholarship / University lecturer - KGSP future study plan working in KOICA for a few years [2]

Kike, do you remember the study plan that you wrote prior to this essay? Go back to the study plan and look at how you can try to implement those ideas into your work at KOICA. There is a sense of vagueness in your representation of the work you want to do at KOICA that does not make it seem like you have an actual career plan should you gain employment there. The post study plan should include references to how you can improve your practical training upon completion of your theoretical learning in the university. The best way to develop that is to relate your study plan with your work experience. That will create a better career timeline for your 2-3 years employment in Korea. Then, upon your return, focus the next 2 years on the development of your career as a lecturer. Rather than explaining that you want to become a university lecturer in the future, explain how your experience in Korea will help you gain entry into the academic world in Nigeria. Your plans for integrating Hangul or Korean language into the language learning in schools in your country is a good way to show the building of the relationship between the two countries. Don't mention any university that you want to work for at this point. It is only after you properly represent these professional plans that you can close the essay by mentioning your future plans of gaining a PhD, in relation to your work accomplishments as an MS graduate.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Letters / A letter for airline company about lost suitcase. [2]

Li, your letter lacks information for the reader. The description that you gave of your bag, along with your travel information should have been included with a reference to the information that you got from the customer care desk such as an estimated search time, name of the person you spoke to, any forms that you filled out and who the signatory on the forms were. That way, when you ask if anyone is looking into the incident, the reader will have somewhere to start looking for answers to your questions. Those documents are always filed along with the missing luggage report when you begin to look for your luggage at the airport. So it was wrong of you to ask about filling in the forms at the end of your letter.

The higher grade for this letter depends upon how you present the information in a non-mechanical and more personal way. One of the biggest drawbacks for your essay, that would have pulled back the score, would be the problematic spelling in your letter. You did not bother to proof read your work prior to submission so your grammar range and accuracy score will be severely affected. Your score can actually be increased to passing if you make sure to at least, spell the words correctly. Overall, I don't think you can score more than a 4 with this essay.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 23, 2017
Scholarship / SOP for Exchange Program to Chungnam National University [3]

Eyahj, if you wish to create a proper statement of purpose, then find a more personal and academic reason for your interest in spending a semester abroad. Establish the reason why you have an interest in your field of study at the very beginning then end the first paragraph with an introduction to the reason why you believe that you need to have this semester abroad. Usually, this is best illustrated by your current academic experience and what you hope to learn from the Korean university in an effort to gain a well rounded educational experience.

The second paragraph, should indicate how this reason serves as a purpose for your application. Perhaps it has something to do with the internship program of the university that you can participate in for a semester, or the academic immersion that the university provides. It could be any number of reasons that serve to increase you academic training. The essay does not work because there is no clear purpose in it.

The rest of your essay doesn't work because of its irrelevance to a SOP discussion. Speaking of your experience in various academic activities and your interest in Korea should not be done in this essay. Those are presented in the personal statement. In this case, you should be able to explain how you will become a better student and future professional due to the semester abroad. Show a familiarity with the university programs in relation to your future plans and ideas for your professional career.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Writing Feedback / Celebrating Food - Traditional food will change by fast food ? [2]

Nisa, there are a large number of problems related to this particular essay. It has both good and bad points, positive and negative aspects. Therefore, I will not judge this essay on the overall merit of the essay but rather, in the scoring criteria. That way you will get a clearer idea as to which aspects of the essay you have to improve with your next tests.

Task Accuracy - 5 - You managed to properly address the prompt requirements in the first paragraph. While the grammar is problematic, it still allowed you to properly introduce the topic for discussion and your disagreement with it. This is the highest possible score for this part.

Coherence & Cohesiveness - 6 - while the information can be understood with some difficulty and the ideas are coherent, your use of cohesive devices proves to be problematic due to grammar issues in the essay. The sentences you wrote can definitely be considered to be faulty so your referencing is not always clear to the reader.

Lexical Resource - 4 - The vocabulary used is often faulty in spelling. The incorrect spelling often causes problems for the reader in terms of trying to understand what you are trying to say. If you were just careless this time around, make sure to take care and try to spell properly in your next practice test.

Grammar Range & Accuracy - 4 - There is a clear lack of ability to properly form even the simplest of English sentences. Improper sentence formation and grammar inaccuracies cover at least 50 percent of the paper which affects the presentation, punctuation, and comprehensibility of the overall essay.

The scores above are the ratings that I believe your score could get as the highest possible marks had this been an actual IELTS Task 2 test.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Writing Feedback / IELTS writing the topic is about laws and society [3]

Michele, you misunderstood the prompt requirement. You were being asked to agree or disagree to a certain extent with the statement being provided. What you ended up discussing instead, was the purpose of law. The opening paragraph should have contained an appropriate paraphrasing of the prompt topic, as well as your position on the discussion reflecting either an extent of agreement or disagreement with the topic. Since you failed to paraphrase the prompt accurately, you automatically failed the task accuracy portion of the essay. It is this misunderstanding that led you to ultimately, discuss the wrong stance on the topic as well. This resulted in a score of 3, indicating a lack of comprehension of the topic instructions on your part.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Scholarship / Study in Korea - my dreams and goals in life. Self Introduction letter for KGSP [2]

Pretz, your letter of self introduction is highly inconsistent in responding to the KGSP self introduction letter requirements. Focus each of the paragraph requirements in a specific manner in the essay. Don't mix them up in different paragraphs as you have now. Segregate the personal side (course of life, view of life, hopes and wishes) from the educational side (college education only focusing on the college or university where you graduated from.), which is separate from the work experience (internship, current work, etc). The segregated discussions will create a more informative essay for you.

By the way, you need to develop your internship discussion and add your current work experience in order to make the professional experience more impressive. While the internship tells the reviewer that you are appropriately trained for the job, he also needs to know that you have applied the work in a professional manner, meaning as your source of income. That will be the basis of your preparation for a masters degree course.

You need to work harder on your motivations for applying to the program. Having socialized with Koreans, being familiar with their entertainment, and wanting to study in Korea is not enough. There has to be a clear understanding of the academic reasons as to why you believe that you will be more successful after having studied in Korea. Why do you think you will be a better professional after studying in Korea? Your personal reasons for studying in Korea makes your reason stand out and unique. So keep that part.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Undergraduate / Manager at youth travel org/ MATURING FROM THE IMMATURE/Extracuricular activity [2]

Sebastian, working as facility manager does not qualify as an extra curricular activity. An extra curricular activity is something that you do outside of school, excluding work. The extra curricular activities are things that you do for fun or learning outside of the academic or professional realm. Some of the activities that classify as an extra curricular activity (in relation to academics) are:

Topic-specific clubs such as math club, Student government, University societies, Debate, Drama, Sport, Fan clubs, Orchestra, Band, Choir, Art, Yearbook, and Tutoring.

Organizational memberships such as Model UN, Unicef Clubs, internships, and school journalism participation are accepted as extra curricular activities as well. The topic you chose to present, doesn't really qualify as an extra curricular activity because it sounds like you were paid to the job since you were "hired" to become the manager. These extra curricular activities are done without remuneration or salary, so in this instance, this is not an extra curricular activity but "employment" instead. I suggest that you use the list above to revise the essay in order to better reflect an extra curricular activity that you participated in and can accurately describe in your essay.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Undergraduate / PERFORMING ARTS- CAPP ACTIVITY [2]

Lara, did you write this as a college application essay? Or did you write this just in general as a form of practice? Your opening statement doesn't tell me what to expect in the body of the discussion. Always use the opening statement to establish the discussion points of the essay. Outline the topic of the essay, the purpose of the discussion, and what you hope to establish by discussing these points. Your work is pretty good, but I am lost as to the point of the work that you did. There is no point to your narrative. What am I supposed to feel, understand, or develop and opinion about through the message of your essay? Clarifying the points I indicated earlier will result in a strengthening of your presentation. I know this is about performing arts, but what is the point in relation to you?
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Writing Feedback / Why do we use Smartphones? [3]

Raghad, I am not sure what the point of your essay is. The anecdote that you shared does not help to explain the point of the essay that you are writing. While your title is "Why Do We Use Smartphone?" There is no accurate representation of why people have to do the activities that you mentioned on the phone when they can do it on their laptop or PC as well. Your paragraphs are not developed enough to represent and actual explanation of the importance of using smartphones. Your line of reasoning must have been better defended using personal experience, opinions, or other explanatory / exemplification discussions. The reason your essay is weak is because it does not have a properly developed thesis statement representing it. The anecdote doesn't really stress the point of discussion and your actual discussions lack focus and deeper meaning in terms of delivering the supposed message of the essay. When you ask "Who use smartphone?" The next question should have been, "Why do they use a smartphone?" Since that is your given essay title, it should have been represented in the discussion paragraphs.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Writing Feedback / The children should be allowed to have smart phones along with maintaining some restrictions - TOEFL [2]

Rajeeb, you cannot discuss this essay by staying in the middle or taking the "up to a certain degree" point of view because the essay clearly asks you to pick a side and defend it. Due to your lack of choosing a side to discuss and support, you changed the whole message of the essay and misdirected the discussion of the prompt requirements. These errors show that you did not understand the instructions you were given and thus, resulted in a score of 2. The main reason, is that you did not properly discuss the point of the essay which is that children having a cellphone is important because it allows them to stay in touch. Instead, you chose to discuss "children should be allowed to have smart phones along with maintaining some restrictions.", which is nowhere near the prompt discussion requirements. If you had removed the "maintaining some restrictions" part, then the essay might have been more prompt responsive.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Writing Feedback / A Picnic I enjoyed; it was marvellous to leave the grey building of a city behind [2]

Ayreen, when you write a descriptive essay, the first thing you have to learn to do is accurately describe your surroundings. Tell the reader more about the way that the farm looked when you arrived. Take the reader into the place with you. Make your descriptions more vivid by engaging the five senses of the reader. For example you could have described the farm as:

I knew we were nearing the farm because the smell of the air was changing from the polluted, smog filled air of the city to the dewy, fresh scent that the morning dew on the roadside grass offered those who, like us, traveled with open windows in the car. The sound of clucking chickens and cows mooing seemed to get closer as we moved deeper into the tree lined rough road.

You also need to double check your grammar and sentence development. Note that you wrote most of this essay in lower case letters even after a period. The first letter of a word after a period is always capitalized to indicate a new sentence.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 20, 2017
Speeches / Speech about the qualities of a good student [2]

Cynthia, what is the word requirement for your speech? You have not managed to properly develop your speech into an informative one because you did not go into greater detail per paragraph topic / discussion. These are not truly informative facts because you have not represented the reasons why you believe that these qualities will make a student a "good student". The speech does not effectively inform the listener. As such, it cannot be considered a good speech or even an actual speech. An actual speech is at least one page long. This is only a half a page long at the most. You need to write more in terms of explaining the qualities of a good student based upon the traits you mentioned. Why are these qualities that make for a good student? Why do you believe that if the student listens to and follows your advice, that he will become a good student? List some questions you want to respond to within your speech that you can work into the paragraph about the trait you are discussing. That will expand the essay and also, make it more informative for the listener.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Scholarship / A lifelong process which reflects my expectation from life in terms of getting a job and working [2]

Yober, when you already need a PhD for the rest of your career plans, you will have done that study sans the Chevening scholarship already. You will need to apply for a new PhD scholarship so Chevening is out of that. Unless you decide to apply for a Chevening Fellowship in the future. So bring your essay closer to the immediate future of 5 years.

Don't forget, you need to relate your career plans with the existing UK projects in your country. So you plan for your career should involve you working either for a Peruvian government agency that has ties with the UK government and its projects in your country or a private Peruvian firm that has UK based business partners. That way you reflect a career goal related to UK interests in your country. Your current essay has neglected to represent that important part of the prompt. Without that reference, your response will be considered incomplete and void.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / Factors which have an influence on men and women [3]

To, the statement about the happiness factor that is exclusive to only men should be discussed as a separate statement. Remember only single or related topics can be discussed in the same paragraph. That difference represents the discussion of a main feature in the essay. It should have been fully discussed as a difference in the reasons or method by which men judge happiness differently from women. Please do not be careless in your writing. Once again you failed in the sentence format requirement. Do not ask me to explain or point it out to you. Learn to analyze and proofread your essay after you write it, prior to submission. These are format errors that are really easily avoided if you remain conscious of the format requirements and make sure to implement it properly. Your site for this essay will not be higher than a 4.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / Household expenditure in Hong Kong and Britain - charts give the breakdown of the percentage [4]

You counted sentences only for the first two paragraphs. Review the third paragraph and you will see that you used come in place of periods. Therefore, you wrote only one extremely long and exhausting to read sentence. You need to be consistent with your work in order to continue improving your possible score. You are careless and did not proof read the essay before you submitted it. That is why you did not catch the obvious mistake in your work. Proof reading your essay is just as important as writing a strong presentation for the essay. You failed to do that in this instance. If you do not practice due diligence in writing your essay, you will constantly fail based upon technicalities and improper presentations. That is something I can't teach you.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Scholarship / "I've always been a book lover" KGSP Letter of Self-Introduction [6]

The research topic should not be mentioned in this self introduction because the Study plan essay deals specifically with your research activities as a student. You did not adequately develop your information as a trainer to qualify it as an actual work experience. What you want to qualify as reasons and motivations for studying in Korea are very weak and unimpressive. Like I said, review the other essays here if you want to truly improve your self introduction letter. The quality of information that you have provided do not adequately qualify you for the scholarship program. By the way, this is the last free advice you will get for this essay. There is a 2 free advice limit per essay thread. Should you wish to continue to have me edit and review your work, please click on our services link or list this essay as "Urgent" so that I can continue to work on the essay with you. If you click on the Services link and choose my name (Mary) from the list, you will have the opportunity to have me revise and edit your essay into a usable form instead.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Scholarship / "I've always been a book lover" KGSP Letter of Self-Introduction [6]

T-ara, your letter does not provide the require prompt information. This essay is not useful because it is a personal statement instead of a letter of self introduction. Please focus your revision on indicating how your life experiences have helped you to develop your point of view about life, and how these life challenges have actually helped to develop your hopes and wishes in life. Revise the whole essay. Do not include the information about the ISBD format. Do not use the term "High education" if you mean college education because "High education" could mean a high school education,which means you do not have a college degree, which would then disqualify you from the scholarship program.

Discuss your college education instead of your high school education. Mention what course you studied and your academic achievements in order to create a proper educational background. There is now representation of your current work experience. You will need to develop a paragraph that discusses your current work experience and how that relates to your desire to study in Korea.

There are no actual motivations provided for your desire and reasons for you to pursue your studies in Korea. You must review the already completed KGSP Letter of Introduction essays at this forum and use those as your example in developing your revised essay. This current essay cannot be used for your application. It is incomplete and not applicable in terms of content.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / Smart phones prohibition among kids [4]

A proper academic essay is composed of 5 parts. That description for these paragraphs are the introduction, 3 body of paragraphs, and the conclusion. It is a must to have 3 body of paragraphs because the whole discussion point of the essay, the actual prompt requirement instruction, is developed and discussed within the body of the paragraph. Not within the introduction or the conclusion. If you want to score well in the essay, you need to develop your body of paragraph. This will prove your English comprehension skills along with your English grammar / sentence structure capabilities. The more you write, provided it is easily understood in English, in support of your essay, the better the score could be. That is why exam takers are encouraged to write a maximum of 5 sentences per paragraph, within a 5 paragraph essay.

FYI, this is your second and last free advice for this thread.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / (Russian National Exam) Agree or disagree? The clothes people wear influence their behavior [7]

I am very sad that you wasted your second and final free advice by simply trying to teach me how a Russian essay is written. Along with it, you should have included the original prompt requirement as well so that I could have at least used your essay format instruction to create a more authoritative analysis of the essay that you wrote. Now, I cannot do anything for you anymore. If you include the prompt requirement at this point, I will no longer be able to advice you about how to improve your weak points. The only way I can do that, if you decide to provide the prompt, is if you turn this essay into an "Urgent" thread, where I can continue discussing the points for improvement based upon the prompt you might be willing to provide.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / IELTS Writing Task 1 - Reference Letter for a job - Request from a Teacher [4]

Tanner, this essay can score a 5 in an actual setting. That is because it mechanically addressed the prompt requirements. It is mechanical because you merely provided all of the necessary information as indicated in the instructions. You failed to properly develop the letter in order to make to make it more interesting and useful for your purpose.

You should have started off the letter by refreshing the memory of your professor about who you are. Remember that a period of time has already passed and this professor has hundreds of students in his classes per semester, so it would have been imperative to reintroduce yourself and assume that he will remember you immediately. Give your full name, the name of the course you took, what semester, time, and classroom that you attend his classes. This will help him to pull out the correct student record and allow him to better recall who you are as his student.

When you discussed the opportunity to work for United Airways, aside from the general reasons for wanting to work there, you should have included a personal reason, such as a career goal, that could have encouraged him to support the writing of a positive recommendation letter for you.

The points above are the main reasons that your essay did not score as highly as it could have. Had you tried to write a more personal, rather than mechanical letter, I do not doubt that you could have scored at least a 6 with this essay.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Scholarship / KGSP study plan information technology for sustainability [3]

John, this is not a properly formatted study plan for the KGSP. This is more of an essay explanation of your study plan instead of a study plan proposal or thesis proposal, which is the expected presentation for this essay. I do not see a clear title for your research paper, there is no clear thesis statement to be responded to in the form of collaborative research with a Korean agency or company, there is no methodology presented for the type of research required, and there is no representation for your expected outcome from the research. This turned purely into a narrative of what the problems are in Nigeria instead. While you can present the problems besetting Nigeria in your essay, it must relate to the thesis statement and expected outcome presentation of the essay in order to give more importance and a reason for being presented in this essay. You will need to revise the full content of your essay to represent the following:

1. The title of your research
2. The reason (thesis statement) that you believe this research is important to Korea and Nigeria.
3. The method of research that calls for your collaboration with a specialized Korean agency.
4. What you hope to see as a result of your research.
5. How you hope to use this research to help improve Korea and Nigeria relations either through collaborative efforts of the related agencies or, through the implementation of new technologies in both countries in the future.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / Smart phones prohibition among kids [4]

Abdullah, your opening statement is lacking in the sense that you should include a presentation of the 3 general reasons that you believe this opinion of yours to be the correct point of view for the issue being discussed. When you write this opening statement, it must not only contain a restated prompt, but clearly include your opinion, supported by the general reasons that support it. The discussions of the reasons should follow, in chronological order, within the next body of paragraphs. These would be paragraphs 2,3, and 4 with paragraph 5 being your concluding statement. In order to make your closing statement more effective, you should restate the topic being discussed, your opinion, and the general reasons that support your belief yet again. It serves as a reminder of the whole point of the essay for the reader.

Your essay is also riddled with wrong spelling either because you do not know how to spell the word (in which case you should replace the word with a similar term that you know how to spell) or because you were just careless. Either way, the misspelled words result in point deductions, along with your improper sentence developments that tend to confuse the reader. Based upon these criteria, I think that your essay will only gain a score of 3 at the most.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / (Russian National Exam) Agree or disagree? The clothes people wear influence their behavior [7]

Alina, the next time you post an essay for review, kindly include the original prompt so that I can compare your essay against the expected discussion. It is hard to judge your prompt adherence without it. That said, I will proceed to offer you a general review of your essay.

It would be in your best interest to not include a personal opinion in the opening statement of the essay. That is because when you present your opinion (as required by the essay), it must be placed either before or after the supporting public opinion you presented. That way, you can fully develop your response in the 3-5 sentence manner that is normally required of an essay. It also removes the possibility of redundancy as you did in this essay when you presented your opinion twice in separate paragraphs. Both of which were not amply developed to support the discussion.

When you address a generalized gender in English, the default gender reference is always he or him. That is because American English is based on a masculine sex of the country which is represented by "Uncle Sam", a man. You cannot use the slash mark to indicate 2 genders as that confuses the discussion. Just pick a gender and stick to it.

I can't review your essay beyond these general comments because I am not sure about the other prompt requirements. If you can provide additional information about the discussion, I might be able to add some other advice to this already existing information for your referral.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / New technology devices and software make students can not concentrate on class [3]

Eric, the only score that your essay can get is a 3 due to the grammar problems that exist in your essay. To begin with, your opening statement inaccurately paraphrases the prompt for discussion. While the last sentence in your opening statement directly relates to the prompt, the preceding sentences do not establish the correct discussion topic nor format for discussion. That is the biggest problem that lowered the score for this essay. Then, you have inconsistent sentence development in the paragraphs and the mistakes in English vocabulary usage (i.e.crumble instead of cram) which made it very difficult for the reader to assess what you are trying to say in the sentence. There is a definite lack of clarity in the message the paragraph tries to deliver. Finally, these problems all combined to limit your ability to write even the simplest English sentence that would help to properly explain the meaning of your essay. Hence the possible maximum overall score of 3.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Undergraduate / BITS cricket team - Write about an incident that had the most profound influence on you [5]

In all honesty, the incident and the profound influence that it had on you as not as striking, memorable, or impressive as you hoped it would be. That is because of the lack of development regarding how the rejection had a profound influence upon you. The essay is not asking you to discuss what you learned about yourself from the incident, it is asking you to represent how the incident influenced you to become a better person. Realizing that you have the " the ability to take critical decisions in pressure situations. " does not count as an influencing event in your life. An influencing event is something that happens and then spurs you to do something because you realize that "it is the right thing to do" or "it can make a change". It does not have anything to do with you realizing that you finally have ability to make decisions in pressure situations. That is not an influencing moment but a realization moment. Those are two different things. By definition, influence "is the power to have an important effect on someone or something. If someone influences someone else, they are changing a person or thing in an indirect but important way." Therefore your essay doesn't follow the expected response for the prompt.

Since this is my last free review for your essay, you will have to either list your revision as an "Urgent" thread or close this thread and then start a new one using the revised essay that you will be developing. As of now, I can no longer respond to you in this particular thread with regards to any improvements or changes that you might be making to the essay based upon my current review.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / Learning a foreign language can be optimal in primary school, but the real language may bemuse them [3]

Nuraini, the biggest problem of your essay is that you did not offer a proper paraphrasing of the prompt requirements, which would have helped us better review your essay in terms of its relevance to the topic. What you did was, you immediately launched into a discussion of the essay by offering pertinent information meant to open the discussion of the subject. The proper representation for the opening statement would have that of a paraphrasing of the topic plus instructions for the discussion and then the presentation of your line of reasoning in the second paragraph. It is because of this mistake that your concluding essay came up short and, along with the missing paraphrase and discussion outline at the beginning, that you would most likely not get a passing grade for this essay in the actual test. Remember the proper discussion format for an IELTS task 2 essay and always follow it. That is how you can increase your test scores.
Holt  Educational Consultant  
Mar 19, 2017
Writing Feedback / The honesty importance in a relationship [3]

Cheniki, this TOEFL essay that you wrote will not score higher than a 2 due to a number of reasons. The first reason, has to do with your grammatical inability to write proper English sentences. While the improper sentence development may be overlooked by the examiner, as he allows a leeway for the non-English speakers, he cannot overlook the fact that there are numerous written grammar rule violations in your essay dealing with capitalization, paragraph formatting, and punctuation mistakes, among other mistakes. There is also the problem of redundancy in your essay as you describe "truth" as being the pillar of a friendship twice in succeeding paragraphs. Redundancies cause problems for the examiner because these mistakes show either a lack of carefulness on the part of the writer or an inability to write in English. While the essay that you wrote has a good message, the problems in presentation and sentence structure pose real problems for your exam scoring.

Writing
Editing Help?
Fill in one of the forms below to get professional help with your assignments:

Graduate Writing / Editing:
GraduateWriter form ◳

Best Essay Service:
CustomPapers form ◳

Excellence in Editing:
Rose Editing ◳

AI-Paper Rewriting:
Robot Rewrite ◳