Letters / He has always been consistent and punctual in classes. LoR on behalf of Mathematics teacher. [11]

Pallaw, the letter is already acceptable but requires the removal of some information due to irrelevance or to simply shorten the length of the letter to a more interesting length. In the third paragraph, please remove the reference to quizzes and tests. It does not inform the reader of any skills or abilities on your part even when read in connection with the second sentence. Therefore, it would be best to remove it from the essay in total. In the concluding paragraph, just have the professor say that you present your ideas clearly. Do no use big words that do not really fit in overall presentation of the essay. It is enough to say that you share your ideas clearly. Over emphasis with "succinctly" is not not necessary anymore Also, don't have the professor wish you the best with your application. The letter is not addressed to you so such sentiment is misplaced in the overall content.

Writing Feedback / "The Aesthetics of Silence" My personal essay on remaining silent [4]

Is Aaron still your best friend at this point? After this falling out, did the two of you become friends again? The reason is ask is because of the timeline continuity and tense usage in your essay. You are going from present to past tense in a matter of 3 sentences. Make sure that you use the correct time reference (past, present, future) in all your sentences referring to your relationship with Aaron.

It seems to me that you have already effectively presented the required 3 scenarios pertaining to the effect of silence on your life. So if you have the space to do so, you should already look into wrapping up the essay with a concluding paragraph that tells the reader what lessons you have learned regarding the effect of silence in your life and if you are already making changes in yourself to help you let your voice be heard in instances when it is important that you do so. I assume that your teacher will expect you to close the essay on a "moral lesson" type of note so it is best that you start developing your closing statement at this point. All of the stories are already good enough to represent your situation at this point. There should be nothing more to add to it.

Writing Feedback / Writing 2: Despite health warnings, a large number of people continue to smoke [5]

Arlen cohesiveness and cohesion are terms that are used to describe how effectively you present the information that you have on paper. This means that you are able to present your ideas in a manner that a reader can understand and follow because you were able to create a foundation for the proper understanding of your information presentation. Basically coherence is defined as a systematic or logical connection or consistency in a sentence. While cohesiveness refers to the way that you integrate or merge the various information that you have in different paragraphs into a single meaning or thought withing the essay. Here is an example of a cohesive and coherent paragraph that I developed to help you understand what I am explaining:

John wanted to get the apples on the highest branch of the tree. He knew that he needed a ladder in order to climb that high and get the fruits. John was told by his father sometime ago that the ladder was in the barn. So he went to the barn to get the ladder. After getting the ladder, he leaned the ladder on the strongest part of the tree that led to the highest point. He then climbed the ladder and reached the highest point. He began picking the apples from the highest point in the tree.

This is an example of a cohesive and coherent paragraph. You state the topic, explain the reason, how it can be accomplished, and finally, the accomplishment. You need to be able to present your thoughts in a logical manner to the reader. It has to follow a thought process that leads to not only an understanding, but a satisfying conclusion as well.

So what can you do to improve your writing in this aspect? Since you are still doing practice tests, it is important that when you are practicing at home, that you learn how to first outline your discussion and then learn to present the outline in essay form. The cohesiveness comes from the logical or step by step presentation of your facts. The coherence, comes from how the information comes together in an understandable manner to the reader once the paragraph or essay is finished.

Please feel free to ask additional questions if you have any. I'll try to respond as soon as I can.

Writing Feedback / "The Aesthetics of Silence" My personal essay on remaining silent [4]

Rahul, why is this essay getting longer and longer? It is not making sense anymore. I think that you have shown more than enough examples of how your silence has become a negative aspect of your life. Are you writing this for a college application or an English writing class? I would like to know exactly what you are supposed to write and please, provide the instructions, the original instructions for the development of this paper from your teacher because I want to make sure that the essay follows the direction and objectives that you were given. At this point, your essay is already going around in circles. It is becoming boring and uninteresting because you are just showing various ways of how your silence affected you negatively. At a certain point in this essay, your lessons learned should become evident, a change in your personality should occur, and a conclusion must be presented. At this rate, those depictions should have presented at least 2 paragraphs ago. The essay is too long already and doesn't make sense anymore.

Graduate / I need some advise on my application to ETH Zurich - motivation, area of interest in the Department [4]

Ramakrishna, you can safely remove the reference to managing the college quiz team in this essay. That and its succeeding information are not strong enough to make an impression on the reviewer in the same way that the previous paragraphs in your essay can do. Removing this reference will continue to strengthen the work you are presenting.

Make sure to present verifiable information in your essay. Always mention the project title of your thesis and any other major papers that you worked on with a summation of the content as well as information about its publication (if any). The reviewers are aware of the hard work and strong foundations that the potential MS students have so they always want to know more about your background and abilities in research and knowledge in the field that they might not get from just your application documents. So take advantage of the opportunity to give them the strongest information possible about your research background. This is after all, masters studies we are talking about and most of your time will be spent doing research related to your dissertation topic.

Speaking of which, where is your potential dissertation topic proposal summary? As a type 1 Diabetic, I was hoping to read that you would be using the facilities of the university to further research technological and chemical advancements in this field based upon specific concerns you have for your own health that can help other people. Please make sure to develop that research portion of your essay as the reviewers also consider the information in the final consideration of your application. Such questions show how you will work with notable names from the university, use the university resources, and hopefully, publish another paper that will this time, show the collaboration between the university and the student, thus highlighting the leadership of the university in this field of research. You already mentioned that Zurich is one of the medical capitals of the world, so make sure you ride that wave of recognition in your application to help make it stronger.

Undergraduate / Finally stepping out of my comfort zone- help with my motivational statement for Peace corps! [3]

Marilu, your essay has the beginnings of a strong discussion as to why you were motivated to join the Peace Corps. However, I am not clear as to how you came to the conclusion at the age of 13, when adult ambitions have yet to be finalized in the eyes of a child, that joining the Peace Corps for 2 years of your adult life if the profession you would want to have. Try to add some sort of remarkable or memorable impact that your interaction with Peace Corps volunteers at that time had on you. By the way, remove the uncertainty from the statement. Make sure that you say Peace Corps volunteers, leave the missionaries out of it. If you are not sure about who and what you saw, the reviewer will not be confident in your application presentation because you may not really have been influence by the Peace Corps.

Make sure that you integrate a reference to the 3 goals of the Peace Corps in relation to your goals for wishing to join the troops. It is important that you show a clear understanding of what the goals of the organization are and the demands that will you be called upon to address using the limited skills, equipment, and support available to you in your country of assignment. Just feeling confident that you have background to survive is not enough. You have to show the reviewer that you can survive 2 years in the harshest living conditions, not just tell him.

Finally, looking forward to leaving your comfort zone is not what joining the Corps is all about. You have to be sure that your motivation contains references to the way that you are physically, emotionally, and intellectually prepared for the challenges you are about to face. For example, if you have experience as a mountain climber, advanced camping skills, and even, the ability to speak multiple languages, these are all traits that will help the reviewer believe that you just might be able to survive 2 years without the most basic necessities and modern world connections that your assignment will bestow upon you.

Try to adjust the content of the statement to show that your motivations are supported by your skills and ability to adapt in the harshest environment, the essay is a bit shaky when it comes to supporting that portion of your statement.

Scholarship / My early fascination for computers combined with a strong liking for analytical subjects inspired me [10]

Valerie, the first thing I need to understand is, are you writing this personal statement of academic goals for the Mastercard Scholarship Foundation or as an application for the U of T? The type of content and focus of the essay will differ depending upon the type of reader it is meant for. Kindly provide us with a copy of the complete prompt that you are responding to so that we can spot the difference and actually tailor our advice for the correct audience that will be reading your essay.

Now, the first mistake that you made in this essay is the fact that you spent more than a paragraph on defining what a goal is. What is means to you and its relation to your mindset as a child. Skip that part. Those are all unimportant at college level essays. Your essay can best start off with the second paragraph because it immediately draws the attention of the reader to your goals as a college student.

However, your reasons for choosing U of T are definitely weak and will not impress the reviewer. You based your statement off a student brochure, which tells the reviewer that you did not base your decision to attend this university on a personal connection or understanding of what the school has to offer you. The comments are too vague and would sound very weak even for any other generic school that it could be referring to. So you need to research the actual background of the school in terms of academics and campus life if you wish to create that internal connection between the two.

These are the general comments and observations that I have for your essay. I may add and adjust my advice to you depending upon the target audience of your essay as based upon the actual prompt requirement.

Research Papers / Negative connotation of feminism and reasonings of why women today do not identify with the movement [3]

Aicha, as a personal interest essay, you should be concentrating less on the factual presentation of the discussion and more on the development of your personality as a feminist over time. You had a good start by discussing your ideas of Feminism and how you ended up an accidental feminist by enrolling in the class during your senior year. From that point though, you just started to mention research point after research point without really allowing yourself to connect with the information. As a research paper / personal essay, the main objective of this paper is to present a smooth and integrated look at your development as a Feminist based upon the data that you collected for the presentation. That connection, between the development of your feminist mindset and the history of feminism is where the strength of this personal research paper will lie. This is to be a journey of self discovery and self education that you would not have had the chance to experience if you had not been assigned to develop this paper. I suggest that you follow through and clearly display the current mindset that you have about feminism based upon its history and your personal experience as a developing feminist.

Undergraduate / Intra-university transfer statement detailing why you want to join School of Information Studies [5]

Keegan, I believe that you can remove your history with computers that indicate the age of 11. The age when you got your first computer is actually irrelevant to the reason why you wish to change schools at Syracuse. This essay should basically cover just 2 paragraphs for conciseness. That means that the first paragraph should explain why you are not satisfied with your current major / department and the second should explain why you think the transfer will best suit your educational needs. There is no need for a transition story that dates so far back between the two paragraphs.

For the first paragraph, make sure to mention your current major, any accomplishments you have in that major that left you feeling unsatisfied, and the major reasons why you felt attracted to the iSchool. In the case of transfer students, the reason behind the transfer should always sound like a logical progression of interests. Starting with the one that you are currently in, slowly moving towards the iSchool due to exposure to technology or the classes from that department (through schoolmates or dorm mates) over time. At the moment, your line of reasoning in the first paragraph makes it seem like your current course was only meant, on your part, as a place holder at the university until you figured out what you really wanted to study. Don't make your statement sound that way because the reviewer might tend to think that you will be transferring departments again in the future.

In order to convince the reviewer that you are destined for the new major that you are opting for and that you will not be switching majors in the future, you need to strengthen the reasons for your wish to transfer. First of all, pick a major at the iSchool. Then focus your reason for transferring on the Cyber Security angle since that seems to be the part that has the most impact among your computer interests and could, very well lead to a strong decision regarding your major at the department.

So, the portions that I feel you should build on in this essay are paragraphs 1 and 3. You can transition your interest from your current major using a simple sentence to lead into the interest in computers. Remember, be specific, pick a major and discuss your skills development in that field in order to try to convince the reviewer that you have finally found your final major for college.

Writing Feedback / A simple profound accomplishment; the pride of winning a competition [2]

Aimee, are you writing this essay as a part of an English exercise or are you writing this as a part of a college application? I am asking because my advice to you regarding the writing will vary depending upon the audience for this paper. If it is only for your English grammar teacher, then you have done well enough and will only require proof reading and format adjustment because the content allowed you to express yourself in a simple English grammar kind of way. Which is expected of a student just learning to speak English.

However, if you are using this for a college application then, the essay needs more work in terms of story development, should be proof read more in order to avoid redundancies and inaccurate terms, and most of all, needs to be properly formatted so as not to stress the reviewer's eyes. Please tell me which of the two types of writing audience this paper is meant for so that I can properly assess your work and provide you with more relevant suggestions.

The only consistent suggestion that I can offer you, regardless of the essay type is the need for you to break the essay down into paragraphs in order to allow the reader to have an easier time in reading your work. Right now, the paper is too tight on the page and becomes difficult to read as the story progresses. You should separate the paragraphs via topic sentences, using the enter button to create a space between paragraphs and topics. The enter button should be pressed at the end of each sentence that is discussing a particular topic. A new topic requires a new paragraph. That is a standard format that should be followed regardless of the writing audience for the essay.

Writing Feedback / Writing 2: Despite health warnings, a large number of people continue to smoke [5]

Arlen, a little more work on the paraphrasing for the opening statement would have helped make your task accuracy score higher than the current 4 that is falls under. There are a number of key points in the original prompt that you should have included in the paraphrased prompt. Elements such as the fact that you will be discussing some solutions to the problem in the succeeding paragraphs should have been included in that overview in order to properly introduce the essay and the topics for discussion to the reader.

Your cohesiveness and coherence would only bring a score of 4 as well. It almost sounds like you are just discussing the topics as it comes to mind due to a problem with your use of cohesive devices.

The Lexical usage could not go beyond a 3 because you have shown a lack of English language familiarity in terms of your word choice. This has caused a limitation in your word development and has also proven to be a bit of a problem for the reader who is trying to understand what you are actually trying to say.

For the grammatical range and accuracy, expect to get another 4 because of the lack of complex sentences and some marked faulty sentence punctuation within the essay.

You have shown that you have the potential to become a good English writer because you do your best to apply your skills to the development of the essay. I have a feeling that you will be showing us marked improvements with your upcoming essays. I see the potential in you because you have a sense of logical thinking in English that can be polished over time with practice.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Shuting, in the last paragraph, you need to rephrase it for clarity. It should sound something like the following:

It is my hope to be able to share my previous research in the field of pollution based upon the experience of my home country, China, with the UCLA research community. Having pursued my environmental education for a number of years now, I feel that gaining a PhD in this field will allow me to make a greater contribution to the field of environmental protection and pollution prevention in the future. I have already learned all that I can from the brightest minds in China. I view this chance to attend UCLA as a PhD student as an opportunity to learn from the best minds in the world. I sincerely hope...

As for the length, I agree that you are running a bit long at the moment. I am not sure where we can cut or compress paragraphs at this point because you told me that the longest parts of the essay are actually quite important to your essay presentation. I guess you will have to be the judge of where you can shorten the essay or remove some parts. Don't worry, I will be here to guide you, It is just that I am not familiar with the topic being discussed so you have to do this yourself. Sorry about that.

Undergraduate / Recount a time when something really made you laugh. Smith and Colgate University supplemental [3]

Ambigay, I hope you will take what I have to say as constructive criticism for both essays. These will just be my opinion of your work and you can either use my advice or wait for some advice that you will feel more comfortable using from the other contributors here. Either way is fine with me. So for the first one...

1. I did not really find the scene funny because it sounds like something straight out of a comedy film instead of something that happened to you in real life. I am not accusing you of copying any movie. Don't get me wrong. It is just that the scenario is so formulaic when it comes to "drunk person" stories that it doesn't come across as funny anymore. Or maybe I am just jaded in terms of comedy films since those are some of my favorites. The best comedy presentation for this type of essay is usually one that happens to yourself. The point of the essay is to show the reviewer that you have a sense of humor, most specially when it comes to yourself. If you know how to laugh at yourself, then that shows that you have an even personality that knows how to make light of potentially difficult or embarrassing situations as they might occur to you while in college. Perhaps there is something funny that happened to you where you found yourself laughing at yourself?

2. The Festival of Colors is a great contribution to the Colgate campus community. However, I find myself confused as to the relevance of the festival beyond being just a day to have fun and enjoy oneself. Since the reviewer will not have a background in the festival, it would really help if you provide a short explanation about the relevance, objective, or traditional importance of the day of celebration to the reviewer. The conclusion sounds good at this point. Enticing the student body to help you celebrate sounds like something that would be a great conclusion to the essay. Don't change the festival, just explain a bit about its background and it will be ready for use. Offering the background will make your concluding statement relevant and self explanatory to the reader.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Shuting, consider that being Chinese is a generic term for someone from China. It does not define who you are or the region of China that you came from. As far as I know, there are various provinces, with varying cultures, traditions, beliefs, and other unique aspects of life and personality that make the residents of that region stand out. That is what I was referring to when I said "enhancing their international image as a student at the university".

At the end of your academic attendance at UCLA, you should have been able to make some sort of marked contribution to the organization that you are a member of, which will help the student body better understand what it really means to be Chinese or, to be a Chinese from a particular region. It ties in with the South Asia research in a way.

Does what I am saying make sense to you? Or would you like me to offer you an example of how you might be able to write about that part of the essay? On my end, I would like to see what you can come up with first in relation to my suggestion.

Undergraduate / My girlfriend. This girl changed me as a person. Penn State Personal Statement [7]

Hai, this is a unique personal statement. I am not sure if you are projecting the right image by focusing the personal statement on your love life. Is there any chance that you have an essay prompt instruction that you can share here so that I have a better idea of what the prompt is asking you to write about? It would really help me develop a more relevant series of advice for you.

Generally, personal statements are often used to introduce the applicant's early academic and extra curricular side to the reviewer. In this instance, the whole essay is about your love life and its effect on your development as a person. The problem, is that there is too much romance and too little development on your part. In other words, the essay should not be focused on your girlfriend, if that is an acceptable topic for the essay based upon the prompt.

Rather, the focus of the essay should be on you and the effect of this relationship upon you. The later part of your essay, towards the conclusion speaks of this aspect and should honestly be more developed to be a greater part of the essay. I think that I will hold off on offering more advice for the improvement of your essay until I am sure that discussing such a private and personal topic will be acceptable to the reviewer based upon the prompt requirement.

Scholarship / Mathematics is a language. I love to create things, to solve problems, and to figure how things work [2]

Nwanko, you have written a pretty good essay in terms of portraying your background and difficulties you needed to overcome in order to become the person you are today. The personal story is admirable and will leave the reviewer rooting for you to succeed. Unfortunately, your academic goals are not as strong as your personal ones. So you will need to focus your attention on further improving that aspect of your essay.

In terms of your academic goals, it is a bit confusing to follow. Since this is a personal statement, it should follow a presentation that shows the development of your interest and the influences that led you to decide upon a career in mechanical engineering. You have one too many possible college majors indicated in this essay. You need to pick one, I believe it is mechanical engineering right? After making your final decision regarding your course major, you will need to refine or revise the essay to show a keen interest in the field of engineering on your part which led you to this final decision. Right now, you are showing the reviewer your academic "options" instead of a solid academic "goal".

Graduate / I like numbers, I like stocks, and I like programming. MIT essay. [4]

Hi Steve. With regards to the grammar in the essay, I would have to say that the language you used is acceptable enough. Honestly, there is room to improve the language used in the essay but I never advise my students to do any grammatical corrections while the essay is still in its drafting stages. The reason being that the editing of the grammar comes with the adjustments to the content of the essay. At this point, I would like to see the kind of revision you will do to the essay before we focus on perfecting the content of the essay, along with the grammar corrections. Go ahead and revise the last paragraph if you feel that it is necessary with regards to your personal information in the essay. Let's see if we can merge it in a better manner with the rest of the content. I'm looking forward to reading your revised essay as soon as you are ready to share it here.

Writing Feedback / The information about the air diffusion in a house and how it reduces heat [3]

Lincoln, if you will study the diagram closely, you will see that the house is composed of 3 floors, each of which has a specific diagram relating to heat loss and air circulation in the house. So the best way to have presented the information provided would have been by focusing one paragraph on each floor of the house. Why should you have discussed the diagram in a per paragraph form?

The illustration could have been better presented to the examiner in a per paragraph form because you could have better concentrated on presenting the information in every part of the illustration. Your current presentation is rushed and did not take other aspects of the house into consideration (such as the crawlspace) in your explanation. By omitting certain portions that were important to the illustration but missing in your presentation, you will risk losing points due to an incomplete presentation.

If you will further review your essay, you will notice that it is actually too short in the conclusion part. This is probably because of the lack of information in the earlier parts. By the way, you have a number of grammatical errors in the essay such as varied = various, trough = through, cash = cast , and plan = fan. You need to slow down and make sure that you are using the correct terms and spelling them properly in the essay. You do not want to lose major points in the grammatical range and accuracy section. That will drag down your final score immensely and could make you fail this test section in the actual setting.

Graduate / I like numbers, I like stocks, and I like programming. MIT essay. [4]

Steve, your statement is good but lacks verifiable information. The following areas of your essay require, as per the instructions you provided from the university, verifiable information for the reference and verification of the reviewer:

1. College you attended as a double major.
2. Company you were associated with when you made $8000. Bank you were connected with as an intern and your length of stay with them.
3. Title of the app you developed, place where the app was released (Apple store, Playstore, etc).
4. Name of the competition you joined including the year and your final place in the winner listing.

Your final paragraph referring to the student-mentor program of MIT is misplaced. There is nothing in the prompt asking you why MIT will be a perfect fit for you and yet you are offering information regarding that. You actually lessened the strength of your essay because of the inclusion of this paragraph. You could have closed on a hugely strong note with your 5 year career plan instead.

Your essay is impressive in terms of information. What you need to do is make sure that the reviewer can verify all of the information that you have provided. So take note of the information that you need to add to the essay in order to make it as strong as possible in terms of informing the reviewer.

Undergraduate / Why Rice_This was when I first learnt about Rice, as I watched the YouTube video of Joe Wong [6]

Martin, the most important consideration for this response has got to be the academic reasons that you decided to apply for admission to Rice. While your response is entertaining and you have shown a great deal of admiration for certain aspects of the academic and extra curricular life at the university, there is a lack of information regarding the true reason behind your application.

What is the major that you wish to focus on as a student? Good, you know what it is. Now, look into the reasons why studying that course at Rice will make you an outstanding graduate. What academic programs, internships, organizations, or other activities that you can participate in tells you that Rice is the ultimate school for all your ambitions? You are talking too much in general terms so that tells the reviewer that either you do not have a major in mind yet or, that you have not really settled on Rice as your first choice university, yet.

The reviewer will want to see the excitement coming from you about becoming a part of the academic life at Rice. You have the early foundations for that in the essay's second paragraph, make it stronger and more focused on a task that you want to accomplish while studying. Make sure that your reasons for opting for Rice as an academic institution shows the motivation behind your application.

You don't have to focus on the video of Joe Wong. That should not even be the quote at the start of the essay. That should only be mentioned in passing because it is not as important as the other information that you should be presenting. Knowing a famous alumna of the school will not help you application. It just shows that you know who the graduates of the university are. So focus only the "Why?" and "Motivation" of your application.

Writing Feedback / TED Summary - If superpowers were real: Super speed - Joy Lin [2]

Lincoln, The Flash was never mentioned in the video presentation. This is an assumption that you are making because of the popularity of the TV program. For accuracy purposes, never mention any entity or event hat is not included in the original presentation. It is important that you stick only to the facts because when your summary is compared to the original source, points will be deducted for inaccuracies.

Your summation of the video is somewhat acceptable. It would have been further strengthened if you had been able to take note of Newton's law of motion which was an integral part of the explanation in the video. That was the total basis of the scenarios presented and accompanying explanations. So, while your essay is informative and sums up the video as best as you can remember, the summary still has room for improvement. However, due to time constraints, I believe that you will get a decent, maybe passing score in an actual test if you write this way when taking it.

Writing Feedback / Regulating Advertising - let the Ministry of Truth decide [2]

Ha, it is extremely difficult for me to review your essay for a number of reasons. The first one, is the lack of the original prompt requirement. That is the guideline by which I can properly assess your work for task compliance and discussion accuracy. At the moment, I am unclear as to what the actual slant of the discussion topic should be. Please post that prompt as soon as you can for a more accurate review of your work on the essay.

In the meantime, I would like to call your attention to the grammar problems in your essay. You misspelled so many words within the overall essay that you would not get a very good score in terms of grammar range and accuracy. The highest you would probably get is a 3 which, as you know will drag down the final score calculations for your task test. Examples of the misspelled words are opimion = opinion, hight = height, interesten = interested, etc. Please make sure to take your time while typing your essay. I am not, at this moment, sure if you just have typographical errors or if you really do not know how to spell these words. Either way, your score in this section would be less than passing.

Writing Feedback / The only objective of an enterprise is to generate profit, however, I disagree with that idea [2]

Lincoln, your essay started out on a strong note, the paraphrased paragraph doesn't really fall under the required number of sentences which is 3. As such, the paraphrasing and the presentation of your opinion could have been made clearer and stronger to the reader. That is not the strongest problem of your essay though.

You made some grave mistakes in the grammatical accuracy of your thought development. Using terms such as "threat" instead of "treat" in reference to the way the businesses deal with their employees. Then, another serious problem with your coherence and cohesion performance appeared.

There is the sudden emergence of your thought that all business employees are uneducated. Where did you get that idea? It was not developed within the paragraph before it was introduced. What made you think that all employees are uneducated? There are blue collar and white collar workers, both have professional training in their field based upon some sort of education. It is not right to imply that they are uneducated. It shows a lack of analytical thought process on your end.

Due to the problems with your essay, I doubt you could get a higher overall score than a 4 in an actual test.

Writing Feedback / The aim of the firm is to be profitable and companies should only focus on this. [5]

Bams, in the opening statement, you accidentally created a hanging sentence instead of delivering a complete thought. Remove the word "while" in the second sentence so that you end up stating a fact instead of showing an incomplete thought process. Since you are presenting a personal point of view throughout the essay, make sure that you always take ownership of your opinion by using first person references such as "I, my, me" This will add to the strength and conviction of your statement / opinion throughout the essay.

The flow of your discussion is logical and, although sometimes confusing, can be understood by the reader after a second reading. Your concluding statement is lacking in the major elements that would have made it successful. This includes a representation of the summarized discussion, reiteration of your opinion, and a closing sentence. If you review what you wrote, it is obvious that more information is required before the sentence can actually deliver a complete statement to the reader that can properly close the discussion.

Writing Feedback / Article Summary : Bees of the sea : Tiny crustaceans pollinate underwater plants [2]

Nda, your topic sentence at the start of the summary should have immediately indicated that the tiny crustaceans help in pollinating the sea plans. That is the entire focus of the essay and that was the essence of the message delivered by the speaker at the very start. The rest of your explanation in relation to this topic is acceptable.

A word of advice though, when there is a secondary speaker in the article or video, make sure that you mention the name of the speaker somewhere before you mention her contribution to the article. You will need to write an introductory sentence for the speaker prior to the quotation you will be presenting. The way that you presented the second phase of information from the second speaker is not proper in this essay. If you review the statement as you have it now, you do not know where the information from the first speaker ends and the information from the second speaker begins. That is why you have to make sure to present the second speaker prior to indicating the information from that person. Without a differentiation in speakers, the summary becomes confusing for the reader to assess.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Shuting, you don't have to delete the important parts of the paragraph. You should only summarize it. If you feel that it is essential to your paper to present the information in its entirety then go ahead and do so. I am only here to guide you. The final content of the paper, specifically when it comes to your experience, is up to you. I am not familiar with the work you are doing so if you feel that you should present the whole experiment to the reviewer, then go ahead and do so. I do not want you to weaken the content of the paper in any way.

The summarized 5 year plan sounds sufficient enough to me. It touches on some points as to why you have chosen to study at UCLA in relation to your future plans and creates a forward thinking image for you. At this point, all that is left is for you to conclude the essay. Remember to reiterate your desire to attend the university this upcoming semester and summarize your desire too help enhance their student community and their international image as a top caliber university as well. After that, the essay will be done.

Graduate / Characteristics, motivation and your background - Speech-Language Pathology Personal Statement [2]

Leah, the most important thing you have to remember when writing a statement in response to the question relating to personal characteristics is that you have to show, instead of tell the reviewer what these characteristics are. He will have a better idea as to whether you have the personality to succeed in the program if you are able to illustrate your abilities through examples in your daily life or relevant settings. Rather than just telling him you have the traits. Telling him is one thing, proving it is another. Since this is a written interview, you should use your experience to prove the elements of your personality that work best in response to the question. I read the traits but I don't see how you were able to use it in a relation to your academic, work, or personal setting. So an example of the traits would work best in support of your claims.

Now, your passion should come from helping others. It would be nice if you had an experience to share with the reviewer that could have been the "Aha!" moment that helped you realize that you passion lay in speech pathology and that this was the career you wish to pursue from that point on. Perhaps you can relate the response to something specific in your work experience?

Keep in mind that this is a personal statement. The keyword being "personal". So you have to present information from your background and not just summations as you have done so in this version of the essay. Be specific in showing your response. What the reviewer is after here is evidence that you are truly a person who sees speech pathology as a vocation and not just another career that you may or may not complete as your degree in the future.

Essays / I don't know how write this process essay! [8]

Soheilk, you did pretty good work on this process essay. You just needed the confidence and prodding to give it a try. You just need some instruction regarding the format of the process essay. Since you have already written other essays for task 1, I assume that you are familiar with the need to present at least 3 sentences per paragraph with a maximum of 5 paragraphs in your essay. The overview introduction should be clear and allow the reader to know the basis for the topic discussion with the conclusion in summary form. Your introduction needs some more work in that aspect.

In order to make your essay bit more compliant, all you have to do is add the sentences from the 2nd paragraph to the single sentence that you have which represents your introduction or first paragraph. When you do that, make sure that you edit the long sentence into at least 2 more parts in order to create the minimum 3 sentence requirement. How you position it is up to you. You have to do the same thing for your conclusion because that is incomplete in presentation as well.

A point of adjustment for the content of your essay though. The blowhole was created before the sea cave. The sea cave was the result of the eroded blow hole. Like I said, you have to read the illustration from the right (with the outline of the original headland) and then start the process from the left of the drawing so the process would be:

1. Original headland
2. blow hole
3. sea cave
4. headland
5. arch
6. under cutting
7, collapse
8. stack
9. wave-cut platform
10. stump

Since the process is open to interpretation, the above listing is how I understand the process to have gone. It is somewhat similar to yours and is only technical in nature. You did a good job in explaining the process as you understand it to be.

Essays / I don't know how write this process essay! [8]

Like I said, this essay is open to interpretation. It requires you, as the writer, to use the following skills in responding to the questions you posed:

1. Common sense
2. Analytical abilities
3. Logical thought process
4. Ability to write in a chronological order

The good news is that because the diagram you are being shown is so vague, that you can actually interpret it in any way that you want. There are no right or wrong answers in this case. The only concern of your answer, should be to produce a logical thought process that can manage to explain the diagram in the best way that you understand. Here is another tip, look at the start of the diagram, then look at the end result of the process. That should help you understand the process a little bit more using the in - between information provided in the illustration.

So, how do you understand the diagram? Write about it and post it here. If it looks confusing to you, then say so in your essay. Just write about what you think the process is about. The worst thing that you can do is to not even try to write something about what you are seeing just because you feel confused about it. Write with a confused thought process, we can help you sort it out so that it makes sense. The point is, we can't help you until you at least try to write something.

Essays / I don't know how write this process essay! [8]

Soheil, unfortunately we cannot and should not write this process essay for you. The main reason for that is because the illustration can be interpreted in many ways by different people looking at it. What we can do, is at least point you in the right direction or get you started on the right track by showing you where the process essay starts.

The process starts at the point where the diagram outlines the original shape of the headland. Start your essay with a description from that point. Then go to the left side of the diagram and start your explanation from there. Follow the process and describe it. The key descriptions are indicated in the illustration. You just have to form sentences with it. The diagram is clear,

I sense that you are being frantic and frustrated because this may be the very first time that you are writing a process essay. So keep a clear head. Just look for the starting point, it is always clearly outlined or pointed out in the diagram, chart, illustration, or whatever it is that you are supposed to analyze for the process essay.

This type of essay is open to interpretation because of the process illustration provided. So the essay can, like I said, be presented in various ways. Your job, as the summary writer, is to interpret what you see and put it into written form. We cannot do that for you. This is a test of analytical and comprehension skills so this is something that you have to do on your own.

Undergraduate / I come from a family of chefs- MIT essay [8]

Ambigay, you are concentrating the essay on yourself. That is not what the essay wants you to present. This essay prompt is designed to give you a chance to introduce your family, culture, community, or influential people in your life to the reviewer. The end goal of the essay is for the reviewer to understand the kinds of influence that you have in your life that have helped you become the person you are today. We are talking about character traits, ambitions, or outlook in life. Aspects of your personal development that have helped to shape you into the person you are today. Look over your essay with a reviewer's set of eyes and you will come to realize that you are not allowing him into your world nor allowing him to see the influence that these people or places have had on you.

You are supposed to take a backseat in this essay. You are not the focus of the discussion. You are only supposed to show the reviewer how you were influenced by those around you. So having your parents support your cooking hobby is one thing, but how did their influence upon you, outside of the culinary arts, help you become the person you are today?

Try to approach the essay prompt from a different angle. Think of who you are at present. Don't think about the person who wants to become a chef. Think of the person who is an asset to his community or an exemplary member of the family. Why or who helped you become that person? That is the focus of this essay and that is what you should represent. I know you are applying to culinary arts school. However, not all of your application should relate to it.

The reviewer will always appreciate getting to know you beyond your culinary interests. It shows him a more personal side to the applicant. Something that he might not have seen because the other prompts would not have allowed him to see it based upon its discussion topic. So take advantage of the opportunity to introduce the influential people around you, and how their influence helped to share the person you are today.

Graduate / Scholarly and research area(s) of interest, experiences that led to your preparation in the field [21]

Shuting, in reference to the experience paragraph, the first you have to do is remove the sentence that starts off the statement. Specifically, remove the part that begins with "For advanced study and research..." The reviewer will automatically know what you are talking about because you will be referring to the project in the discussion. Now, to further cut down on this portion, you will need to focus / concentrate your statement on simply presenting the problem, giving an overview of the experiment done, and finally, the results of that experiment.

You need not describe the method or instrumentation in great detail. What you should do, if you haven't done it already, is let the reviewer know that this paper will be published some time in the future. Being published or soon to be published usually makes the reviewers take note of applicants because the acceptance of the applicant and subsequent publication of his word is normally fantastic publicity for the university.

For your future plan, look into developing the professor side of your plan. This will tie in with your 5 year plan accurately and also let the reviewer know that you are keen on information sharing and development based upon your studies and professional skills. The opening sentence for that paragraph doesn't really work because it still relates to your potential studies at the university instead of the fast forward to your future career, after you graduate. The post study plan should not mention what you hope to learn and how during your time at the university. That is why it is called post study and covers up to 5 years after your graduation.

Undergraduate / I have a dual personality. What would it mean to you to call yourself an AU Eagle? [5]

AvR, the response to this essay will require you to do some research on the offerings, campus, and other background of the university. This is one time that either having physically visited the campus or, reading up on the internet regarding the university will come in handy. The reviewer is looking for information from you that will tell him that you have thoroughly considered all aspects of your university application and that you have settled, for some major reason on AU as your first option university.

In line with the current response that you have, it would be best if you tried to revise it to show a familiarity with the university and its new spaces for learning. It really sounds like your dual personality essay would benefit from connecting the 1.5 million square feet expansion that the university recently completed. You could also consider how, as an "eagle", you can act on your aspirations and passions. The university prides itself in its community service to maybe there is something there that can help you define what it would mean for you to call yourself an "AU Eagle".

I've already directed you toward some of the commonalities between you and the university based upon what you have currently written. What you have to do now is look up further information on the internet regarding the expansion and how it can relate to you. Keep in mind that as an "eagle" you have the ability to soar and learn all over the expansive campus. So think "the sky is the limit!" when you revise your response. Show how you will soar as an AU Eagle instead of telling the reviewer.

Graduate / Tell us why you're here...and where you plan to go. Personal Statement for MAC program at UNC [8]

Jiayun, I like the essay that you developed but it is not always on target with the prompt requirements of the essay. There is a reason that the university gave you a number of guide questions to aide you in developing your essay. While some of your response can be assigned as a response to the question posed, not all of your responses are aligned with the guidelines. You don't have to worry though, you can still manage to align your revised essay with the prompt.

In order to properly revise your essay, you should not write the response in essay format yet. It would be best for you outline your response in a question and answer format first. If you write your response to the questions in that method, you will have effectively drafted your essay in a more prompt adherent format. One reason that this method of drafting your essay will work well for you is because you will be able to expand upon your response without being distracted by the other unrelated essay content.

Once you are satisfied with that you have written in response to each question, you can now take those numerical responses and format it into a draft essay, which you will then review for length and content. If you feel that the essay is running too long, you can now edit it for length. At this point, we can also better help you with regards to the editing of your content and tightening of your essay coverage. Right now, I don't really feel that the essay you developed reflects the information that the guides were trying to lead you to answer.

Writing Feedback / Using media gives many cons on individual relationship between citizens. [3]

Hi Louchin, when you post your essay for review, please always remember to post the original instructions / prompt for the essay. As a reviewer, we need that information to guide us in reviewing certain parts of your essay. Mostly it helps us to judge your task accuracy band score. With that said, I will now proceed to give you a general review of your writing task.

In terms of your essay topic paraphrasing, I do not feel that you did a very good job on it. I did not get any background information regarding the actual prompt topic, what the discussion is supposed to cover ( aside from your opinion), and what sort of succeeding discussion I am supposed to expect in the next paragraphs. There is a lack of clarity in your paraphrasing of the topic so the actual theme of the essay is not properly presented to the reader.

When you say that there are pros and cons to an issue, you must make sure to dedicate one paragraph specifically for the pros and another for the cons. The way your essay sounds at the moment, there is no separation in the discussion. This produces a lack of clarity in your thought process and shows the examiner that you do not have any really cohesive and coherent ideas for discussion regarding the topic.

If you think that merely saying "I think..." in the concluding paragraph represents your opinion in the essay, you are badly mistaken. Your opinion should be a full paragraph on its own that clearly depicts your opinion, ideas, and examples in support of your stance. So what you wrote is not really a conclusion but rather, another paragraph that represents your opinion.

Overall, you need to work harder on the formatting of the essay. You must pay attention to the way that you discuss the topics. Make sure that you try your best to present a logical thought process in your succeeding essays in order to help you improve your test scores. At the moment, this essay would fail within the band scores.

Undergraduate / I have a dual personality. What would it mean to you to call yourself an AU Eagle? [5]

AvR, the first question that I need an answer to from you regarding this prompt is, which branch of American University are you applying to? Are you applying to the main campus in Washington, D.C. or one of the out of the country branches? Your response to the prompt will somewhat depend upon which branch you are applying to because of the type of mindset connected to the particular location of the university that you are applying for admission to.

In order to properly answer this question, you will have to relate one of your particular personalities to the university. This could be a trait of your that identifies with the mission and vision or objective of the university, or, it could be something about the campus, the learning environment, or other things that makes the university special to its students. You will need to do a little research at this point because the response that you have now, doesn't really reflect the kind of intimate response that the prompt requires. I strongly suggest that you look into the background of the campus that you are applying to and try to relate to that campus in particular. That is one of the main reasons that I am asking you about which campus you are applying to.

Writing Feedback / New Zealand: the cricket as a sport which attracted the smallest number of girls to involve in [6]

Nguyen, in my opinion, the first version better reflects the chart information. By the way, please remember to include the chart, diagram, illustration, or whatever file it is that you are basing the information on. We use it for comparison purposes with your essay. The reason that I say the first essay works better is because it covers the minimum 3 sentences per paragraph requirement for this writing task. It seems to present an accurate depiction of the (unseen) information from the chart. This is why we need that chart from you, we need to make sure the information you are presenting is accurate and does not have a different meaning from what the chart is providing. Overall, I believe that the first version would work best in an actual test setting.

You should develop the confidence to present only one essay for our review in the future. That is because in an actual test setting, you will writing under a time constraint and will not have the opportunity to present two versions for the examiner to choose from. It is of the utmost importance to your final score in the actual test that you accomplish your practice tests under the same time pressure setting as the actual test. There are certain liberties, such as writing two essay versions, that will not be available to you at that time. So you need to make sure that you always get it right the first time. These practice tests are meant to help you develop that skill and confidence prior to taking the test. So always do the practice tests under actual test settings. No exceptions.

Writing Feedback / Artificial gills enabling human to breath under the water. [2]

Nina, once again you seemingly present a personal opinion in what should be an objective summation of an article that you have just read. By the way, were is the link to the article for our reference? The summary is good but lacks in actual information since you do not refer to the proper keywords, terms, or descriptions for the various options that you present in this essay. Who were the scientists who undertook this experiment? Where was it done? You have to refrain from making these summaries an opinion paper because your opinion is not called for.

So do not use terms such as "Needless to say" because this connotes a personal opinion on your part instead of information coming from the essay. It also changed the overall focus of the essay from a summary to an opinion because you placed it at the start of the summary introduction. Always make it clear that you are just offering a summary of information and content and not a personal opinion. That is easy to do provided you stop using words that define the content as an opinion rather than a part of the information from the original source.

Writing Feedback / The finding of two studies that aims to ask workers which the varied skills should they have. [2]

Lincoln, there was only one study covering 2 questions presented in the chart. So you made a mistake in your summary overview regarding that part of the information provided. You need to be careful when presenting information from the essay. You will be losing points for those mistakes. You should also have proceeded to divide your single long sentence into 2 sentences so that you could have met the minimum 3 sentence requirement per paragraph for this task. Sadly, meeting the minimum sentence requirement per paragraph was a consistent problem in your essay.

I am not as concerned with your grammatical problems as I am with the way that you were unable to meet the immediate requirements of the essay for one reason alone. You manage to include all of the required information from the chart in the essay, but in the wrong paragraph format. One major error can create a major deduction in your points. That is why I am very concerned with the presentation of your essay. Remember this, make it your mantra "3 sentences minimum , 5 maximum sentences per paragraph" and you should be able to meet the format requirement every time you write a task 1 essay.

As for the grammar accuracy, don't worry about it. You did well in terms of presenting the information from the essay. Like I said, it is not the grammar that should be of concern here. Rather, the fact that you are unable to divide your sentences into proper complex or simple sentences is what you should focus on improving in your upcoming essays.

Writing Feedback / The electronic media impacts on the alteration of human behavior which tends to be more individual [3]

Hi Lincoln, your essay is a very good attempt at providing you with a high possible score for the prompt. Your paraphrasing and presentation of opinion in the first paragraph is acceptable and shows that, although your language might be weak, you actually did understand the instruction provided for the discussion. Succeeding discussions might have some mis-used words such as "friendly-user" which should have been "user-friendly", but your discussion contained coherent ideas that resulted in an acceptable cohesion in the overall paragraph presentation. I applaud you for your desire to use a higher level of vocabulary and your obvious attempt at creating better complex sentences. Overall, I believe your band scores would be as follows:

Task Accuracy - 6
Cohesiveness & Cohesion - 6
Lexical Resource - 6
Grammar Accuracy & Range - 6

Basically, I think you stand a pretty good chance of further improvement in your band scores based upon your performance in this writing task. Keep up the good work. You are getting to the point where you need to be in order to pass the test.